Just days after Apple’s OLED iPad Pro went on sale, Microsoft is bringing the same core display technology to its new Surface Pro. (Also, it’s now just called the Surface Pro; the company has seemingly done away with its numbering.) For the first time, Microsoft’s tablet will be capable of producing perfect blacks along with all the other benefits to contrast ratio, response time, and more that come with the move to OLED. The new panel also supports HDR output, the company said at its event.
The LCDs on previous Surface Pros (and on the business edition Surface Pro 10) were already impressive in terms of color accuracy and sharpness, but Microsoft always stuck to traditional backlighting, which limited just how deep the blacks could go. Now, with per-pixel control, the Surface Pro 10 can make movies and photos appear much more punchy and vivid.
Microsoft didn’t mention any peak brightness figures for the OLED Surface Pro. In the case of the iPad Pro, Apple is using a unique tandem OLED structure that allows for peak SDR brightness of 1,000 nits and HDR brightness that tops out at 1,600 nits.
