Apple is pushing into new territory with the Apple Watch, by making it the first device to come from Cupertino that uses an OLED display. One of the reasons Apple’s never brought OLED displays to the iPhone is they’re more challenging to engineer than long-established LCDs.
Apple hasn’t given us too many details about the Apple Watch’s display yet, other than telling us it’s a ‘Flexible Retina Display’ but the team over at DisplayMate have put the new display to the test, and came away with a shocking discovery: Apple Watch Sport has a better display than the Apple Watch Edition.
The regular Apple Watch and Edition models are more scratch resistant than the Apple Watch Sport thanks to their sapphire crystal displays. Using sapphire does come with it’s drawbacks though, as DisplayMate notes it reflects about twice as much ambient light as glass.
After running a myriad of tests, DisplayMate found that the reflectance of an Apple Watch with sapphire crystal is 8.2 percent, which is nearly double the reflectance of Ion-X glass.
“Apple has done an excellent job in optically bonding the sapphire to the OLED display without an air gap. However, the Reflectance of the iPhone 6 with Ion-X cover glass is only 4.6 percent, so the Apple Watch with a sapphire crystal reflects 178 percent of the amount of light reflected by the iPhone 6.”
DisplayMate didn’t test an Apple Watch Sport with Ion-X glass but expects they’d get similar results to the iPhone 6. Rather than using sapphire in the Sport, Apple used the same ‘Ion-X’ strengthened glass that’s used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Using sapphire instead of glass can be a major issue for smartwatches because doubling the amount of light reflected will significantly wash out the display’s own light, leading to worse contrast and saturation, and making it harder to see the image.
For a full rundown on DisplayMate’s exhaustive testing, head over to their Apple Watch shootout recap.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
7 responses to “Apple Watch Sport has better display than pricier models”
#clickbait
Exhaustive testing? The fuck?
We compared these two watches displays. One of which we actually tested and the other we guessed at. So that’s fair.
ETA: Oooh. written by a social media expert! Say no more.
“”However, the Reflectance of the iPhone 6 with Ion-X…”
Why is “Reflectance” capitalized here?
What bullshit clickbait..!
They didn’t even test two watches and even if they did, it’s not a “better display” it’s just a different cover. The display, the bit with the actual pixels, it the same.
Ugh. Between this bullshit story and the auto-running WSJ video I feel like I need a shower now. I should know better than to follow a link to cult of mac.
Unfortunately, while everyone always says that, they keep clicking. Complaining in the comments may be cathartic for the complainer, but if you really want Cult of Mac to change, get better writers or shut down altogether, you need to stop giving them traffic.
Unfortunately I came here through a link on TechMeme and didn’t notice that it was a Cult of Mac story. I’ll pay more attention in the future.