Apple's LED Cinema Display: the review - Page 2

I did not know that.

Hey, can I settle this Glossy/Matte issue once and for all? Some people like Glossy; some people like Matte. Offer an option and everybody wins. Now, was that so hard? Apple once saw things this way, and then they forgot. They should remember again. Options.

OBVIOUSLY, they would be selling TWICE as much if they did not such stupid things!

Solipsism, you sir are a Gentleman and a Scholar!

++ I predict Pearl is going to sell out of Black Matteboard, Grey Art Tape, and Retouching Smocks.

I'm not sure whAt is up at Apple here. This would be an almost ideal display to go with my early 2008 MBP. I can only hope that a proper adapter comes out soon. I'm not surprised that Apple doesn't offer the adapter I'm just surprised they didn't get all their ducks in a row and have a third party ready at debut.

Yeah the display is a little expensive but for me it almost exactly meets my needs and desires for a display to go with my notebook. It would have been a Christmas sale if an adapter existed for it. About the only possible improvement I could see would have been a built in Compact Flash card reader!


Dave

Going from a machine with DVI to DP won't work with an adapter. You need some sort of converter, which I doubt Apple will make. Now, going from a machine with DP to a monitor with DVI/HDMI only requires a simple adapter that alters the port interface.

Yeah, it's great if you buy everything from Apple. Unless you're going to spend the large chunk of change money a cinema display requires, you're going to need to put down extra money on an adapter. Displayport is the standard, not mini display port. It will not become the standard. What it does do is complicate things with another uneeded connector.

You might see it on say netbooks, but for the rest standard display port is small enough where there is no incentive to use mini-DP. Other companies don't let their designers build designs where the engineers need to develop creatives ways to make them usable.

Since Apple is a member of the Blu-ray association, shouldn't they be trying to promote the format rather than avoiding it?

Isn't one of the features of DisplayPort the ability to daisy chain monitors together? Does the LED Cinema Display support daisy chaining? Can the new MacBooks work with daisy chained DisplayPort monitors?

No. The connector might support it, but there's no port on the new 24" display to plug a second display in.

There is still a lot of resentment towards Apple's obsession with pulling nonstandard connectors out of their ass: ADC, Mini VGA, Mini DVI, Micro DVI. People thought it was finally going to end, but apparently it did not.

There is no guarantee that Mini DP will be the last DP variant from Apple. After all, Apple followed Mini DVI with Micro DVI. So who's to say that Apple won't decide to introduce "Micro DisplayPort" or "Nano DisplayPort"? And will free licensing also apply to any future DisplayPort variations from Apple?

Apple defenders blame VESA for not making connectors super small, and praise Apple for seeing the need for smaller connectors. So what about Micro DVI? Wasn't Mini DVI supposed to be small enough? Has Apple finally learned their lesson, or will they introduce "Micro DisplayPort" sometime in the future, and then "Nano DisplayPort" after that?

If all this praise for Apple's smaller connector is to be deserved, then Mini DisplayPort had better be the smallest connector that Apple can possibly make. There had better be no further DisplayPort variations from Apple. If Apple tries to follow up with "Micro DisplayPort" or "Nano DisplayPort", then Apple deserves all the blame that Mac users gave to VESA for not making the smallest possible connector in the first place. And hopefully, Apple defenders will have the strength of their convictions to lay that blame on Apple.

Post retracted. Continue discussion.

Wow thanks!

I've learnt something today. That's a new one for me.

Yes I know...I've done my fair share of ranting about the lack of Firewire but typically I like moving forward with technology. DisplayPort is so much better than VGA and even DVI. Just having an HDMI like auxilliary channel for audio and other signals is going to be huge for the future. People just don't like leaving their legacy hardware behind. I'm willing to do so when the potential benefits outweigh the temporary pain.



Yes..I don't know if this is enabled yet. I'm assuming that a daisychain DP cable likely has two connectors on the cable itself or we're going to need dual DP ports on monitors.

They might as nothing is set in stone, but what would be the point? We got mini-DVI for the GPUs that could only run SL-DVI and where space was an issue. Micro-DVI came out of the need for a thinner SL-DVI port for the MBA. We now have a port that is not as tall as USB and half as wide that will run a 30" display.

While the future may very well require Apple to differentiate their display port interface, the fact that they are using it on the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air which all had different ports as of 2 months ago should indicate to you that we'll have a standard port for the foreseeable future. Add to the fact that Jobs has stated that the entire Mac product line will be using the exact same port interface. When was the last time all Macs had this. It's a good thing.

ADC was a digital connection, similar to DVI. You are correct in that respect. However, an ADC cable will not plug into a DVI port. It was more than just power and a different shell, it also included USB signals. However, you could not connect an Apple Cinema Display with ADC to a PowerBook G4 with DVI (or any computer with DVI) without the expensive adapter. The adapter provided power to the Cinema Display, as well as separating the cable from a single connection to three separate connections: Power, USB, and a standard DVI cable for the video signal. The power supply offered by ADC became an issue when the 30" Cinema Display was introduced.

I've got a similar situation: 23" Cinema Dispays at work, a glossy iMac at home. The glare off the iMac screen is brutal, and it's color reproduction is unusable. My only feasible solution was to add a second monitor to the iMac. This was not such a big deal for me since I prefer a dual monitor set-up anyway, but there is one curious aspect. My second monitor at home is a cheap $200 LG 22". Color, contrast, and image quality on this low end monitor is vastly superior to both the iMac, and the Cinema Displays that I'm using. So I use the cheap LG as the main work monitor, and the iMac monitor for palettes and such.

Not only has this firmly cemented my position in the "no-glossy" camp, but it also makes me think twice about whether I'd buy an Apple monitor in the future.

Appleinsider,

an excellent review!

It puts Macworld's short and wishy-washy review to shame.

Doesn't that keyboard command also put the Mac to sleep? I believe the author was referring to turning off the monitor but keeping the computer fully active, like when you are encoding videos overnight and don't need to be sitting at the computer.

[QUOTE=Haggar;1347065There is no guarantee that Mini DP will be the last DP variant from Apple. After all, Apple followed Mini DVI with Micro DVI. So who's to say that Apple won't decide to introduce "Micro DisplayPort" or "Nano DisplayPort"? And will free licensing also apply to any future DisplayPort variations from Apple?[/quote]

I would doubt it, it's already a great deal smaller than Micro-DVI. Apple seemed to try to make this port as compact as physically possible.


Why would they? Standard display port is already as small Apple's mini ports. There's no logical reason to use a connecter that small on a computer, a netbook or handheld device maybe, but that's another story.

That keyboard command only turns off the display and backlit keyboard, if you have one. The light on your Mac will be solid, not blinking slowly, to indicate that it is on.

I thought a solid light indicated the computer is off. At least that's how Mapples work.

Didn't know that, thanks!

If Mini Display Port is all Apple will be using from now on, and there won't be adapters made for it, am I to believe my early 2008 eight core Mac Pro will never work with the upcoming LED displays? I've been drooling for months over an LED 30 inch ACD, and now it might not happen?? This makes me kind of sad.

I understand what you mean, I like having a button, but setting the computer to turn off the screen after a few minutes of non-use isn't an option? I think the option is in the same place where you turn on the screen saver, have it turn off the screen after five minutes or somesuch.

Adapters will be made, but Apple probably won't make convertors. But current Mac Pro owners are the only ones who have a light at the end of the tunnel as they will only have to buy a new GPU with mDP or DP to use any new mDP or DP displays. While that will annoy plenty, at least current Mac Pro users won't have to buy a whole new machine to utilize the new displays.

You would need to buy a new graphics card that has DisplayPort, but this illustrates another problem: the lack of graphics card options for the Mac Pro. Mac Pro users are limited to buying last year's cards at inflated prices. Instead of waiting 1 or 2 years to update graphics cards along with the Mac Pro, Apple should sell new graphics cards as soon as they become available. And make these newer cards available to current Mac Pro owners. They should also offer a card that fills the huge gap between the Geforce 8800 and the Quadro FX. For example, the GTX 260 or 280.

That's just plain false. There have been opposing LED-backlit displays for at least several weeks, if not a few months. \

And as for glare and reflections, what ever did we do before matte flat panel displays? We had glossy CRT's, if I'm not mistaken. I had an old TV that was completely unviewable without shutting the curtains and thus dictated the layout of the room. As far as I'm concerned, it's only two steps forward, one step back. No biggie. So what did we do? We had anti-glare filters that we clipped onto the monitor. Why not do it again? Apple could even approach this idea with an over-priced, aesthetically-complimentary screen filter for both the ACD and the iMac.

My error. I should have said "large", i.e., 24" and larger. Note, the ViewSonic is a 22 " 'cheap' TN+Film LCD monitor and as this tech review demonstrates, it is far less than what is expected from this new technology. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...reen-monitor/1

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/viewsonic_vled221wm

Back in the CRT days, some of us bought CRTs with Rayleigh coatings, for a visual example of one:



The little disc is a piece of untreated glass, a camera filter to illustrate the difference with direct light.

I also have a Sony, IBM and Viewsonic that have similar surface treatments as part of the original device, no tacky add-on. They weren't textured coatings either, just extremely thin optical coatings that either gradually changed the index of refraction or cancelled out reflections as they came back.

To the reviewer:
Does the audio go through the USB or the DP connector?
If it is USB, could you please plug it in to a Mac Pro and see what happens?

Also, there is a paragraph on page 2 that looks like it came from a Macbook review (the "caveat" one).

I was just reminiscing the other day about how the traditionalists argued that film could never be replaced by digital imaging .... oh the debates were fun back then. I also remember type setters screaming Mac's keyboards were far too small for them. Pre press folks love to fight progress at times.

Isn't this screen fort the MacBook? Don't professionals have a pair of 30" ACDs on a Mac Pro?

Makes sense. As far as I can tell, it's a basic point of physics that a matte, diffuse screen is going to wash out the picture whenever you have incident light. A glossy screen is going to take away that wash-out effect, so it will seem oversaturated on the same settings when those settings are probably there to compensate for that wash-out. Screens can be calibrated so if any treatment does funny stuff with colors, the color profile can probably be adjusted to compensate.

My take on it....not all that impressed.

I understand that this display is designed for notebooks and not desktops, and I imagine that as a result we'll see a 20", another 24" and a 30" introduced soon that is designed for desktop Macs and doesn't have the MagSafe connector hanging off it. Therefore I think we need to ignore the desktop factor, at least for now.

However, as a notebook dock, I'm not thrilled. Firstly, I can't understand why anyone would buy this and use their notebook in clamshell mode. I have a 20" widescreen LCD which I have over to the right of my MacBook Pro and use that for extended desktop - far better. In that spirit, I fail to see the need for the iSight (especially considering it apparently forces you to use the one on the Cinema, not on the notebook) or the speakers (same deal as iSight). I'm also compelled to wonder why the display itself doesn't have a line out (or optical) port for connecting to a separate speaker set if the user owns them, so that there's less cables that need to be connected to the laptop when you bring it home.

The fact is I got my 20" 1680x1050 display for AU$220, and a USB hub for AU$7, and I've got the same docking station experience. If I cared that much, I could go and buy a second MagSafe charger for another $110. If I wanted a 24" I could have got a Samsung or Dell for $4-600, and still come in well below the AU$1500 for the Cinema. For that price difference, LED isn't a factor.

The other thing that's completely baffling me is that Apple went to the effort of redesigning the 20 pin DisplayPort connector to make it smaller and more attractive, but neglected to add an extra 4 pins. If they had, they could have run USB through the connector with it, meaning the the new ACD would only require two connections (Magsafe and MDP), rather than 3. It would also free up a USB port! In addition to that, they could have stuck a USB connector on the DVI adaptor, and the dual link adaptor would be able to power itself through the connector rather than taking half the USB ports on your computer. And I'd say that doing that would probably help it overtake full DisplayPort as the number one DP connector.

Finally, on the glossy vs matte issue, there seems to be some confusion here. Someone was implying that turning matte to glossy involves more than a filter, but seem to be forgetting that most glossy notebooks use a special coating on the glass. Apple is doing something different with the polished glass, and it's actually more glossy than most glossy screens. And I can't see a reason why having the large plate of glass would prevent them from having matte - after all, matte screens are glass too!

Not anytime soon, the 30" LED displays I've seen up upwards of three grand...not that Apple would mind.

Yep, if we could calibrate some of those monitors back in the 80's I am sure we can calibrate anything!

Not true. The DisplayPort video signal is fully compatible with Single Link DVI. It's just the pin arrangement that's different.

Dual Link DVI is another story, it needs actual signal conversion, hence the adaptor for it is huge and needs power.

EDIT: Actually, just double checked and I appear to be mistaken. Apologies.

Seems like I must be the only guy that has no issue with the glossy MacBook Pro and the glossy 24" LED Cinema Display. To be honest, I did wonder if there would be a problem, but I now know that there are no reflection issues for me.

I collected my 24" CD on Saturday (from Mostly digital, London, ON), the display is a gem to use. No cabling hassles when I return home with my MBP, I just plug it in, no power brick needed. It means I never forget the MBP power brick, it stays in the bag.

When you ctrl + shift + eject, the MBP keeps running, it doesn't sleep. The 24" brightness can be adjusted in display settings.

My Colormunki arrives next week so color calibration will be sorted real soon, even without color calibration it is pretty close to the MBP screen.

What do I use it for, Mainly Lightroom, PS, web and then all the normal document prep stuff.
SolidWorks output also looks good on the 24" CD, very sharp (BTW most of my DWG output is solid black).

Don't complain about something you haven't tried, but I guess that if you live on a sun deck then it may not work for you.

Does anyone know where one can download the grass with dewdrop wallpaper image used in the review? Thanks!

Update: Found it! http://www.shareapic.net/content.php...owner=Turnbull

Does this display suffer from the same problems of the 24" iMac monitor, namely uneven brightness level across the whole display area? This is very noticeable and very annoying on my iMac.

Old 20" Cinema Display+Mac mini: Perfect display, no reflecions
New 24" iMac: Very uneven display, lots of reflections. A definite step backwards.