Apple’s Pro Display XDR wins “Display of the Year” Award

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The Society for Information Display (SID) today announced Apple’s Pro Display XDR as a Display of the Year winner of its 26th Annual Display Industry Awards.

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Among the industry’s highest honors, the Display Industry Awards highlight innovations that have advanced the state of the art in display technology, with awards presented in three categories: Display Application of the Year, Display of the Year, and Display Component of the Year.

With its 32‐inch LCD panel, 6K Retina resolution, and over 20 million pixels, Apple Pro Display XDR sets a new bar for the capabilities of a professional display. Designed for pro users who rely on color accuracy and true‐to‐life image reproduction, such as photographers, video editors, 3D animators, and colorists, Pro Display XDR delivers the most comprehensive set of features ever offered on a display in its price range.

Featuring P3 wide color and 10‐bit color depth, Pro Display XDR is expertly calibrated at the factory to ensure billions of colors can be reproduced with exceptional accuracy. And features such as built‐in reference modes make it easy to match the viewing requirements of content creation workflows. With 1000 nits of full‐screen sustained brightness and 1600 nits peak, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and an Apple‐designed backlight system for optimized light shaping, Pro Display XDR sets a new industry standard for reference‐quality imaging at a fraction of the size, weight, and cost of traditional reference monitors.

Here’s how Pro Display XDR is engineered to produce industry‐leading imagery: Traditional LCD displays use edge‐lit backlight technology to diffuse light evenly across the display at the same brightness level. Instead, Pro Display XDR uses a locally dimmed backlight with 576 individual LEDs, controlled by an advanced algorithm in the timing controller chip. As a result, the display can exhibit incredibly bright, color‐accurate image areas and deep blacks simultaneously, delivering its 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and up to 1600 nits peak brightness. An advanced thermal management system supports the display to maintain peak brightness indefinitely in environments up to 25° C. With these features, Pro Display XDR introduces Extreme Dynamic Range (XDR), far outperforming typical HDR brightness specifications for desktop displays and enabling pros to work with true‐to‐life content.

Pro Display XDR also incorporates several innovations to optimize image quality compared to traditional LCD displays. First, to minimize “blooming,” a halo effect surrounding bright objects on dark backgrounds, an Apple‐designed cavity reflector is layered on top of the LEDs and optimized geometrically. Along with several additional custom lenses and reflective layers, it directs the light upward while reducing halo effects and preserving light uniformity.

Second, Pro Display XDR has an industry‐leading polarizer technology that preserves image fidelity at a super‐wide viewing angle, allowing each team member in a studio or on set to see the same color and contrast, regardless of viewing angle. And finally, for pros working in uncontrolled lighting environments, Pro Display XDR introduces an innovative matte option called nano‐texture. While a typical matte engineering process adds a coating to the surface to scatter light but also inadvertently reduces contrast, nano‐texture is etched into the glass itself at the nanometer level, producing less glare and low reflectivity while maintaining contrast.

With its incredible color and advanced calibration, Extreme Dynamic Range with industry‐leading brightness and contrast, and innovative display technologies, Pro Display XDR provides image quality and performance previously reserved for high‐end reference monitors.