At Mobile World Congress, the UHD Alliance revealed its ‘Mobile HDR Premium’ logo and certification program for laptops, tablets, and phones. To meet the requirements a mobile device would, in most cases, need to use an OLED display.

’Mobile HDR Premium’
The UHD Alliance was formed to ensure that you get the optimal HDR viewing experience by creating a certification program and a logo for TVs a little over one year ago. The program has since been expanded to UHD Blu-ray players.

A similar ‘Mobile HDR Premium’ certification and logo is now coming to the mobile space. 

- “The dramatic improvement of screens in battery operated devices, coupled with the emergence of 4K and 4K with HDR streaming offerings through services such as Amazon, Netflix and others, makes it possible for consumers to get a much richer and more immersive experience on their computers, tablets and smartphones,” said UHD Alliance president Hanno Basse. “The expansion of our certification of logo program will help consumers identify premium portable products that take full advantage of the wealth of HDR content coming to market.”


OLED displays required
As you can see from the chart below the requirements for obtaining the ‘Mobile HDR Premium’ certification more or less dictates that manufacturers use an OLED display, given that “0.0005 nits” black depth is required. Only laptops are except from this requirement, allowing laptop makers to use inferior LCD panels.


There is no specific resolution specified as the UHD Alliance has instead opted for “60 pixels/degree”, a specification that takes into account the pixel density relative to the viewing distance to the screen. “60 pixels per degree” corresponds to Apple’s “Retina” term.

Lastly, to obtain the certification a display would need to operate in true 10-bit color mode and reproduce at least 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, originally created for cinema. These requirements are similar to those set for TVs.

It appears that none of the HDR-capable mobile device announced at Mobile World Congress will carry the ‘Mobile HDR Premium’ logo.