DisplayMate Technologies Corporation president Ray Soneira has examined the technology behind the new iPad’s amazing Retina Display and has come up with a simple conclusion: The new iPad should run warmer than the previous model.
DisplayMate Technologies Corporation president Ray Soneira has delved further into the technology behind the new iPad’s Retina Display as well as its relationship to the battery and come up with a simple conclusion: the new iPad, operating normally, should run a bit warmer than the previous model. He calls the thermographic portraits circulating the web “overblown” and says the extra heat is the natural consequence of increased power.
The third-generation iPad uses 2.5 times as much backlight power to illuminate the new display at the same luminance levels as the previous model, Soneira found. The high pixels-per-inch (PPI) ratio of the new display makes the LCD have a lower light efficiency and thus power efficiency. The doubled number of LEDs also give off 2.5 times as much heat, but remarkably the new battery in the iPad manages to (mostly) compensate for the increase.
Apple has issued a statement saying the new iPad operates within the devices’ temperature specifications, but users may want to be wary of covering the back of the device with a form-fitting enclosure that doesn’t also promote heat dissipation.
Soneira has suggested that future iPad should employ IGZO displays as soon as possible, as he believes the display technology, pushed by Sharp, offers more efficiency and lower cost than the LTPS technology used in the iPhone.