Part of the Retina display on aniPhone 4. The pixels are not visible at normal viewing distance, creating an impression of sharp, print-like text.

Part of the non-Retina display on aniPhone 3GS. The pixels are visible at normal viewing distance.

Retina display is a branded series ofLCDs andOLED displays byApple Inc. that have a higherpixel density than their traditional displays.^[1] Apple has registered the term "Retina" as atrademark with regard to computers and mobile devices with theUnited States Patent and Trademark Office andCanadian Intellectual Property Office.^[2][3] The applications were approved in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

The Retina display debuted in 2010 with theiPhone 4 and theiPod Touch (4th generation), and later theiPad (3rd generation) where each screen pixel of theiPhone 3GS,iPod Touch (3rd generation), andiPad 2 was replaced by four smaller pixels, and the user interfacescaled up to fill in the extra pixels. Apple calls this modeHiDPI mode. In simpler words, it is one logical pixel that corresponds to four physical pixels. The scale factor is tripled for devices with even higher pixel densities, such as theiPhone 6 Plus andiPhone X.^[4] The advantage of this equation is that the CPU "sees" a small portion of the data and calculates the relative positions of each element, and the GPU renders these elements with high-quality assets. The goal of Retina displays is to make the text and images being displayed crisper.^[5][6][7][8]

The Retina display has since expanded to most Apple product lines, such asApple Watch,iPhone,iPod Touch,iPad,iPad Mini,iPad Air,iPad Pro,MacBook,MacBook Air,MacBook Pro,iMac, and Apple's computer monitors such as theStudio Display andPro Display XDR, some of which have never had non-Retina displays.^[9] Apple uses variousmarketing terms to differentiate between itsLCD andOLED displays having variousresolutions, contrast levels,color reproduction, orrefresh rates. It is known asLiquid Retina display for theiPhone XR,iPad Air (4th generation),iPad Mini (6th generation),iPad Pro (3rd generation) and later versions,^[10] andRetina4.5K display for the iMac.^[11]

Apple's Retina displays do not have a fixed minimum pixel density, but vary depending on and at what distance the user would typically be viewing the screen. Where on smaller devices held or worn closer to the user’s eyes, such as watches and phones, the displays must have very high pixel density for the pixels to be indiscernible to the user, for displays viewed from farther away, such as those of notebook or desktop computers, slightly less pixel density is required in order to achieve the same angular resolution. Later products have had additional improvements, such as an increase on the screen size, contrast ratio, or pixel density. Apple has used names such asRetina HD display,Retina 5K display,Super Retina HD display,Super Retina XDR display, andLiquid Retina display for various iterations.

When introducing theiPhone 4,Steve Jobs said the density of pixels needed for a Retina display is about 300 PPI (120 dot/cm) for a device held 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) from the eye.^[1] This definition includes the distance from the screen to the observer (theviewing distance), because moving the eye closer to the display makes it easier to see detail up close, and moving away makes it harder. One metric that takes into account both the pixel density of a screen and the viewing distance isangular pixel density, typically expressed in units ofpixels per degree (PPD). For pixels centered in the field of vision spanning a small visual angle, the angular pixel density can be approximated as:^[12]

${\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{360\arctan \left(\frac{0.5}{dr}\right)}}$

where${\displaystyle d}$ is the distance between the screen and observer (e.g. in meters), and${\displaystyle r}$ is the absolute pixel density of the screen in pixels per unit length (e.g. in pixels per meter).

Based on Jobs' statement, the threshold for a Retina display is an angular pixel density of 52–63 PPD. For example, holding a phone 11 in (28 cm) away, the value of 58 PPD means that a tallskinny triangle emanating from the eye with a height equal to the viewing distance and a top angle of one degree will have a base on the device's screen that covers 58 pixels.

The essence of Retina display is to eliminate the appearance of graininess on a screen, for example when displaying complex languages (for exampleArabic,Hebrew andCJKV) on a screen.

A Retina display may also include hardware support for wide gamut, such asDCI-P3.

Many authors have challenged Apple's claim. For example, Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, said that the physiology of the humanretina is such that there must be at least 477 pixels per inch in a pixelated display for the pixels to become imperceptible to the human eye at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm), corresponding to 0.6 arcminutes per pixel or 100 PPD.^[13] John Brownlee, in an article at Apple fan websiteCultOfMac, stated that the threshold to discern individual pixels is between 0.3 and 0.4 arc minutes (150 - 200 PPD).^[14] Others have defended Apple. Astronomer and science bloggerPhil Plait stated that a resolution of 0.6 arcminutes corresponds to "perfect eyesight" but that "a better number for a typical person is more like 1 arcmin resolution, not 0.6", corresponding to20/20 vision or 60 PPD. Plait argued that what Jobs said was fine as the iPhone 4S's resolution is better than 1 arcmin.^[15][16] The retinal neuroscientist Bryan Jones cites a paper calculating 0.78 arcminutes/cycle of *retinal* resolution (corresponding to 77 PPD), and states the optics of the system may degrade image quality somewhat, thus giving the commonly accepted resolution of 1 arcminute.^[17] Soneira has replied that "If you allow poor vision to enter into the specs, then any display becomes a retina display. That turns it into a meaningless concept that will be exploited by everyone."^[18] A 2024 study found that the eye had resolution limits of 94 PPD for foveal achromatic vision, 89 PPD for red-green patterns, and 53 PPD for yellow-violet patterns.^[19]

In practice, thus far, Apple has converted a device's display to Retina by doubling the number of pixels in each direction, quadrupling the total resolution. This increase creates a sharper interface at the same physical dimensions. The only exceptions to this have been the iPhone 6 Plus, 6S Plus, 7 Plus, and 8 Plus, which render their images at triple the number of pixels in each direction, before down-sampling to 1080p resolution.

The displays are manufactured worldwide by different suppliers. In 2012, the iPad's display came fromSamsung,^[20] while the MacBook Pro display was made byLG Display.^[21][22] There was a shift of display technology fromtwisted nematic (TN)liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) toin-plane switching (IPS) LCDs starting with theiPhone 4 models in June 2010.

In 2014, the iPhone 6 was released in two versions. The basic iPhone 6 had the same ppi as the iPhone 5, while the iPhone 6 Plus, with 401 ppi, was marketed as a Retina HD display. Around the same time, other phone manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and LG released phones with higher pixel densities, some exceeding 500 ppi.^[23][24] By 2025, most smartphones surpassed the originalRetina display threshold, with even lower-end models exceeding 300 ppi. Typical pixel densities at the beginning of 2025 ranged from around 260 ppi to over 600 ppi. At the same time iPhone 17 had 460 ppi.^{[25][26][27][28][29]}

Apple handheld devices featuring Retina displays and the first Retina HD screens:

Reviews of Apple devices with Retina displays have generally been positive on technical grounds, with comments describing it as a considerable improvement on earlier screens and praising Apple for driving third-party application support for high-resolution displays more effectively than on Windows.^[30][31][32] While high-dpi displays such as IBM'sT220 and T221 had been sold in the past, they had seen little take-up due to their cost of around $8400.^[33]

Reviewing the iPhone 4 in 2010,Joshua Topolsky commented:

"to our eyes, there has never been a more detailed, clear, or viewable screen on any mobile device. Not only are the colors and blacks deep and rich, but you simply cannot see pixels on the screen…webpages that would be line after line of pixelated content when zoomed out on a 3GS are completely readable on the iPhone 4, though the text is beyond microscopic."^[34]

Former Microsoft employee Bill Hill, an expert on font rendering, offered similar comments:

That much resolution is stunning. To see it on a mainstream device like the iPad—rather than a $13,000 exotic monitor—is truly amazing, and something I've been waiting more than a decade to see. It will set a bar for future resolution that every other manufacturer of devices and PCs will have to jump.^[35][36]

WriterJohn Gruber suggested that the arrival of Retina displays on computers would trigger a need to redesign interfaces and designs for the new displays:

The sort of rich, data-dense information design espoused byEdward Tufte can now not only be made on the computer screen but also enjoyed on one. Regarding font choices, you not only need not choose a font optimized for rendering on screen, but should not. Fonts optimized for screen rendering look cheap on the retina MacBook Pro—sometimes downright cheesy—in the same way they do when printed in a glossy magazine.^[37]

Two years prior to the release of device with a high-density screen from Apple,HTC released theHTC Touch Diamond with a 286 ppi screen. In October 2008, theSony Ericsson Xperia X1 was one of the first smartphones which offered higher resolution than the VGA screens seen before, with an 800 x 480 screen at 311 ppi.

The first Android smartphone with a similar display, theMeizu M9, was launched in the beginning of 2011. In October of the same yearGalaxy Nexus was announced, which had a display with a better resolution. By 2013 the 300+ ppi mark was found on midrange phones such as theMoto G.^[38] From 2013 to 2014, many flagship devices such as theSamsung Galaxy S4 andHTC One (M8) had 1080p (FHD) screens around 5-inches for a 400+ PPI which surpassed the Retina density on theiPhone 5.

The second major redesign of the iPhone, theiPhone 6, has a 1334 × 750 resolution on a 4.7-inch screen, while rivals such as theSamsung Galaxy S6 have a QHD display of 2560 × 1440 resolution, close to four times the number of pixels found in the iPhone 6, giving the S6 a 577 PPI that is almost twice that of the iPhone 6's 326 PPI.^[39] The largeriPhone 6 Plus features a "Retina HD display", which is a 5.5-inch 1080p screen with 401 PPI.

Aside from resolution, all generations of iPhone Retina displays receive high ratings for other aspects such as brightness and color accuracy, compared to those of contemporary smartphones, while some Android devices such as theLG G3 have sacrificed screen quality and battery life for high resolution.Ars Technica has suggested the "superfluousness of so many flagship phone features—the move from 720p to 1080p to 1440p and beyond...things are all nice to have, but you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of them are essential".^[38] Furthermore, developers can better optimize content for iOS due to Apple's few screen sizes in contrast to Android's wide display format variations.^[39]

ManyWindows-basedUltrabook models have offered 1080p (FHD) screens standard since 2012 and often QHD or QHD+ as optional upgrade displays.^[40][41]

• Resolution independence
• Pixel density
  • HiDPI
• Pixelplus

• Apple Inc. displays
• Computer display standards
• IPhone
• IPad
• LCD brand names

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata