The experts over at DisplayMate have been doing comparisons between the iPad 2 and pretty much all other tablets for quite some time and in most cases the competitors couldn’t stack up, at least in terms of the display itself. Now the company has compared the displays between the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and the iPad 2 and this time the results are fairly surprising.
Based on what DisplayMate has to say the Nook Tablet has a fantastic piece of glass on it. Apparently the Kindle Fire has one of the most reflective screens of any tablet ever tested by DisplayMate. That’s interesting considering Amazon’s claim that the tablet has an anti-reflective coating.
DisplayMate claims the Kindle Fire’s screen is twice as reflective as that of the Nook Tablet and 70 percent more reflective than the iPad 2. The Fire also has other problems including poorly calibrated gray-scale. Another major issue is that the Gallery application only displays in 16-bit color.
The Nook Tablet performed much better than the Fire in these comparisons. The screen reflectance on that device is 28 percent lower than the iPad 2. What’s more, DisplayMate says the gray-scale on the device is better than most HDTVs the company has tested. In almost every category the Nook tablet outperformed or matched the performance of the iPad 2 and Kindle Fire. The only real issue with the Nook was the white balance of the display was skewed too yellow, while the Fire’s screen got close to neutral white color.
DisplayMate noted that most of the problems with the Fire could be fixed by a software update if Amazon was so inclined. The reflectivity issue is unfortunately something that Amazon can’t fix until the next iteration of the hardware.
I’m personally using a Fire and I haven’t had too many issues with the screen being too reflective, but then again I mostly use the device in bed, in the dark. My only huge complaint about the display is that it doesn’t dim as low as I would like it to. The display just feels too bright even on the lowest setting.
Does this information about the displays on the Nook and Fire change which device you would consider buying? It seems if you are looking for a tablet to mod, the Nook might be the way to go despite the $50 higher price point.
