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As well as a bit of physical wobbliness, the display that comes with Google’s hot new Nexus 7 tablet is now being criticised by image analysis experts, who claim it’s been poorly configured and delivers users “noticeably washed out” and “over exposed” images.
The claims come from DisplayMate, which says Asus has messed up in calibrating the grey scale within the Nexus 7, going so far as to claim that the issue is most likely caused due to “incompetence by the manufacturer” in adapting the brightness level and image compression when viewing bright pictures.
Dr. Raymond Soneira, the president of DisplayMate, seems to be really rather upset about the issue, saying it’s a shame that “they messed up a really nice display” in the Nexus 7. [DisplayMate via ZDNet]
So does that mean there is a workaround for it? in the few moments i spent with one, i thought the screen was fine, though i guess you’d need to look through quite a few different images to make a proper judgement.
I guess it depends on if it is a software or hardware problem
The way the article is worded it does sound like a software issue but I might have got the wrong end of the stick.
It looks fine to me, but comparing the screen to my SGS2 or iPad2, it is definitely a lot less saturated, and colours are more muted, possibly more ‘natural’.
The display is generally pretty sharp, but I’ve found that sometimes the image can get very slightly blurry in videos (Noticed in HD YouTube, and HD Netflix videos), and on some websites.
Again, on the other hand, I have tested reading both books from Google Play books, Kindle, and comics from both “Mango”, and “ComicRack” and the detail in all situations here has been PIN-SHARP and vibrant, this is also the same with every game I’ve tried.
Overall, I’m personally very happy with the N7 display.
It’s certainly less saturated than my Galaxy Nexus, but don’t people complain that Samsung screens are usually oversaturated. certainly don’t see it as a problem, but suspect that it could be fixed with a small software update.
oooh! Just noticed that ‘My comment is await moderation’ Is this a new GizUK feature? Was trying to post a couple times, and noticed the site pulling a 404 error…
Nah, just the spambot taking a liking to your comment. No idea why, but a quick boot in the backside got it back in line.
does the spambot look anything like this: http://www.thechestnut.com/bertha/tom.jpg
If so, I’d be careful as he’s been known to be a bit overzealous at times!
Maybe it was the large number of Brand names in his post?
Had anyone ever heard of DisplayMate before this article was published? What was their expert assessment of other recent displays?
I’d need to know more about the boy crying wolf before I would accept their verdict.
I’d trust JPXDude a lot more…
They’re quite often referenced when a new gizmo comes out that has a particular emphasis on the screen; basically any phone or tablet. They always seem to be pretty fair whenever I’ve read an article.
http://gizmodo.com/displaymate/
I’ve now read the reviews and their knock on the Kindle Fire is almost identical, word for word, to their knock on the Nexus 7.
I wonder if there is something more subjective than objective going on here regardless of how much they push the objectivity of their process.
Sounds like a preference issue, and one that might not ever come up unless you were comparing two displats side by side.
Not sure the publicity whore slamming is justified….
Cant say I’ve noticed.. I watched the free Transformers 3 movie I got with it and it looked pretty good. Also streamed a few Stagate episodes through XBMC and it looked great.
Admittedly, I’m no image expert though
It’s an old journalistic trope – find a product which has been universally praised and then condemn it for something that is so minor that nobody else notices. It generates controversy, page hits and burnishes the author’s credentials as a true “expert”.
Like movie critics giving The Dark Knight Rises 2/5 stars. While it may not be a perfect movie, it is no where near Gigli or Catwoman terrible
Nexus 7 owners:
Read this web page on your Nexus;
Watch the first 2 minutes of the Transformers movie;
Exit and return to this web page.
You’ll probably now notice (as I can on mine) that this page is now all washed out and faded. This -along with reports of some minimal ghosting from some images left static on the screen for a while- are issues endemic to the type of screen used and were reported quite a bit from the pre-release models people got at I/O. That is what the article is referring to.
Fortunately, there’s a nice easy fix that is literally just turning the screen off and on again – and it will never do any lasting harm to the display.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a frustrating problem, though. If there’s anything Asus can do (I’m not sure how much can be done software-wise, though), I hope they get to it sooner rather than later.
However, it’s a minor flaw in a brilliant device that is still an absolute bargain price. I’ve noticed it enough to be irritated by it, but that’s about it. (Sorry if I’ve now OCD’d the rest of you who hadn’t noticed it before
)…