Just my perspective on the issue (and if you don't like it...I don't really care so save your breath replying)
I own two of the 20" iMacs in question. When I made the purchases I had read all of the specs detailing the differences in the displays. The 24" display is different on virtually all specs from the 20" display - viewing angle, brightness and contrast. I don't think Apple made any effort to hide the fact that these are different quality displays. I went to my local Apple store and compared the displays side by side to make my decision. In the end, for my purposes, the lower cost was more important than what I perceived as a real but not earth shattering difference in the display quality (and size). I am typing this on one of the iMacs now and I remain happy with my decision.
That being said...I did not know there was a difference in the color depth of the liquid crystals as no mention is made of this on the spec sheet....
Looking at the spec sheet the statement is
Display: "Millions of colors at all resolutions".
I suppose referring to the display as a whole gives them the out that dithering and other such techniques to allow the display to generate more colors than the underlying LCD unit make the claim defensible. For me the issue are
1) If color reproduction is critical to your buying decision - go look at the display yourself - regardless of any manufacturer claims.
2) Don't buy a consumer grade machine and expect professional quality.
3) If color is really important don't look at an LCD at all.
4) Consumers should be entitled to full and accurate technical specifications of products
I think any consumer who was "harmed" by Apple's less than complete disclosure carries at least an equal share of fault as Apple. Apple should be reprimanded and fined, but the $ amount should be small.
I will not apply for my share as I knew full well what I was buying.
Regarding "16,777,216 colours - 262,144 colours", since 6-bit TN panels can display only 262,144 colors, what do you mean the number is still in the millions? How is 262,144 in the millions?
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
I personally think they should get sued for this, but leaving aside that issue entirely, I CAN'T BELIEVE Apple is using TN panels on ANY of their desktop models. That's INSANE considering the prices people are paying for iMacs, and that many use them for photo and design work. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not suggesting that Apple should be putting professional A-TW-IPS hooded panels in their consumer computers, but my god they should at least be using S-IPS/H-IPS panels in all their desktop screens. TN panels are a complete joke.
This really pisses me off! Apple keeps making more and more money with their sales at astronomical levels, and yet they continue to get GREEDIER! Why can't they actually IMPROVE the quality of their products while getting more popular??
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
Except with dithering the color is typically listed as 16M or 16.2M depending on the technology used (except with the noted Hi-FRC above). So it's not really 260K unless folks really think they couldn't instantly notice that difference.
So let me get this straight: You thought you could get Pre-press color quality Displays in an All-In-One system versus having to suck it up and invest in Mac Pros and separate S-IPS displays; and that if you had not been deceived you would have ponied up the original bones instead of saving a bunch getting the cheaper systems?
You knew what you were buying. If Apple was able to sell Cinema display panels in their iMacs they would be cannibalizing their high end sales. Every company for that matter would as well.
Please, by all means come in and create a user account as some disgruntled business manager/owner looking for sympathy.
You won't find any in an area where people pride themselves with actually knowing the technology and it's inherent limitations.
Oh Thank YOU for writing that reply and saving ME the time to do it myself!!!
But my god they should at least be using S-IPS/H-IPS panels in all their desktop screens. TN panels are a complete joke.
Or PVA. On the other hand, the 20" is now the bottom end and for general consumer users and not pro's or prosumers really. The additional screen real-estate is worth the $300 bump from the top end 20" and the low end 24".
To me the 2.4Ghz 20" is the lowest value among the iMac line and not quite wroth the $300 bump from the bottom end.
Quote:
This really pisses me off! Apple keeps making more and more money with their sales at astronomical levels, and yet they continue to get GREEDIER! Why can't they actually IMPROVE the quality of their products while getting more popular??
Well, if we skip the G5 to Intel jump the 2006 iMac 17" was $1299 in comparison to the $1199 20" iMac today. It went from 1.83Ghz Core 2 to 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo, from 802.11G to 802.11N, 160GB HD to 250GB and 512MB to 1GB memory.
Should the middle 20" have a better panel? Possibly. But going from TN to PVA/IPS one is typically a $150 bump on 20" monitors. That would put the 20" 2.4Ghz pretty darn close to the 24" price. For an AIO with a built in monitor, not doing $150-$200 for the larger real-estate is kinda pennywise pound foolish.
Going from a 17" IPS to a 20" TN is kinda a wash price wise so the bottom end iMac represents either the same or better value than the 2006 17" given it IS $100 cheaper.
This one lawsuit I absolutely agree with, and if it goes class action, I'm going to look into joining it.
I am absolutely appalled by the poor quality monitor on my 20" Aluminum iMac. The old 20" iMac has great screens, so I had no reason to question if this one would. Even the low-end 22" LG LCD I have hooked up as a second monitor absolutely blows this iMac screen out of the water. It's by far the worst quality monitor I've ever had, and I never would have bought it if I had any idea.
By far the best scenario on the thread(concerning the newspaper guy). I didn't buy my imac to do safari and ilife. I'm a pro tools user who needs to trust specs to facilitate my job/passion. Fortunately I have the 1st gen 20". If apple was to claim a spec concerning my imac's ability to resolve audio at x or y resolution and it ultimately could not, I would try to sue them as well. It doesn't matter what you use you computer for. This newspaper guy has to live with a decision he made based on specs that are still posted on the imac website. He (or any one really, not even my grandmother) should not have to research the dark back alleys of cupertino to see if the manufacturer's claim "actually" pans out before purchase as some have suggested. What if the aluminum in the keyboard wasn't really aluminum. It's just cosmetic right? No one really uses it for its metallurgical properties right? I guess we shouldn't complain about that either.
BTW the issue about the eye not resolving millions of color is BS. That's not the point. Technically we're not suppose to hear anything beyond 20KHZ either but that region of audio has long beet touted for its psychoacoustic effects. You won't find a decent studio in the land that doesn't run Macs or can't process audio beyond 20KHZ.
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
The temporal/FRC dithering fools the eye into seeing 16.2 million colours. The number of colours isn't the problem with the TN display in the 20" iMac, many TN displays can look perfectly good, albeit with the viewing angle limitations that TN displays have. The fast response makes them good for games though.
Clearly the issue is that besides being a TN display, it is a poor TN display. It might mean that it isn't even using temporal/FRC dithering. It could have a poor colour gamut and/or use a poor backlight.
Fact remains that it is the low-end iMac, and you can try before you buy. I do think that Apple could give the panel type in the detailed specifications. It's still arguably good enough for most users, and professionals shouldn't be buying all-in-one low-end computers to do graphics on anyway.
is this on both the 20" 2.0 ghz and the 20" 2.4 ? ... i am about to purchase the 2.4, but know i am unsure. i need to watch movies, ad edit photos. is this really a big deal ?
I think the one of the reason apple uses TN display for the iMac because some home users uses it for games (Windows convert) whereas they dont really expect professional photo editor to use iMac, I guess they thought professional photographers will be using MacPro instead of iMac which is aimed for consumers.
You wont have problem it watching movies or edit photos unless your work is really for professional use. Normal people usually wont notice the colour difference.
is this on both the 20" 2.0 ghz and the 20" 2.4 ? ... i am about to purchase the 2.4, but know i am unsure. i need to watch movies, ad edit photos. is this really a big deal ?
I have the 2.4. It's particularly bad for those purposes, because you often get an odd posterized effect in the shadows and heavily saturated areas. like I said in my previous post, my quick and dirty solution was to add a second monitor that had better image quality. Working with dual monitors is pretty nice anyway, so it's not all negative.
I think I will abstain from this "millions of colors" thread. I am still annoyed from last time.
I will say this though: When it comes to using technology indetectable by humans - be it microscopic engraving, super-fast framrates w/ temporal dithering, or what-have-you - we are at the mercy of manufactures to tell us the truth about what we're getting. If they tell us we're getting the best when in reality we're getting the worst, only a handful may notice... but we are being lied to regardless.
-Clive
Apply that same thinking to the drug companies and it takes on whole new level of importance!
I think we need to clear up some of the technical issues as there's a bit of mis-information and confusion here.
First up: 8 bits per sub-pixel doesn't mean those sub-pixels have only eight colour levels. 8 bits have 2^8 = 256 different combinations.
Second up: people are talking about spatial and temporal dithering but some may not understand what this means.
Most people are familiar with the traditional "spatial" dithering, in that each pixel on a screen actually exists as three seperate sub-pixels - pure red, pure green and pure blue. As the sub-pixels are so closely spaced together, at normal viewing distances the human eye cannot discern the individual colours and the pixel appears as a single entity that can display 256*256*256 = 16,777,216 different colours, the red, green and blue primary channels mixing together. If the sub-pixels are 6 bits rather than 8, each one can display 2^6 = 64 different levels, leading to 64*64*64 = 262,144 different colours per pixel.
Again, this is "spatial" dithering, relying on the eye's limited "spacial acuity", or "resolution" if you like, to mix the three primary-channel colours of the sub-pixels together into a single colour.
Another dithering method is "temporal" dithering, which relies on the eye's limited "response time" to mix colours together. Imagine a 6-bit red sub-pixel than can display 64 different levels of red. If that red sub-pixel is rapidly changed from level 50 to level 51, it will appear to the human eye to deliver level "50.5", if it's at level 50 for 50% of the time, and level 51 for the other 50%. "temporal" dithering is used in conjunction with "spatial" dithering in 6-bit TN displays to deliver millions of colours, so they're relying on both the eye's lack of acuity and limited response time to deliver that level of colour.
The problem here isn't that Apple have used a TN panel in the 20" iMac, it's that they have quite blatantly implied that both the 20" and 24" iMac have the same "quality" display, when they do not. The 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" an IPS panel. By all accounts, IPS typically delivers better colour accuracy and slower response time compared to a TN panel. Some people, especially gamers, prefer the TN technology as it can handle motion better.
I find that Apple's marketing in this respect is deceptive and they deserve to lose this suit. It would be much better if they just clearly state that the 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" uses an IPS panel and leave out the traditional (for Apple) arrogant marketing hyperbole.
If you go back and read the original article, you will see that previous 20" iMac had higher quality 8-bit (per channel) LCD.
It seems that you fail to realise that the 20" iMac is now the bottom of the line and is also cheaper than the old 20".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. H
The problem here isn't that Apple have used a TN panel in the 20" iMac, it's that they have quite blatantly implied that both the 20" and 24" iMac have the same "quality" display, when they do not. The 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" an IPS panel. By all accounts, IPS typically delivers better colour accuracy and slower response time compared to a TN panel. Some people, especially gamers, prefer the TN technology as it can handle motion better.
Sorry but that is not true. If you read the specs for both displays at the Apple website you will see how they are completely different so if you assume that both screens are the same quality it is your mistake.
Sorry but that is not true. If you read the specs for both displays at the Apple website you will see how they are completely different so if you assume that both screens are the same quality it is your mistake.
I'm not talking about the specs. page (where the only clue that the 20" is a TN-panel is that it has a lower viewing-angle than the 24"), I'm talking about the information provided here.
Folks, I've been around Macs for a long time. In the past, Apple's quality was unquestionable. There was simply nothing like the attention to detail that put into the smallest of things like the key action on your keyboard. Now, it's evident that Apple has been cutting corners. Everytime you see a teardown of a new product, you see obvious cost saving measures. This was never the Apple way.
So, what if the iMac is the bottom of the line? So those that don't like moving the cursor over acres of screen real estate to access the menubar has to be punished? Apple products cost a premium. Apple users have long been willing to pay that premium because they've gotten quality parts, the Mac user experience is second to none, and there's something about just being different and owning a Mac. But now they keep lowering the standards on us in the name of profit.
Apple needs to be held accountable. Macs are used by design professionals everyday. The screens, if attached, need to be usable for that type of work. When you're in the prepress business, color variations mean a lot. When Apple touts that their colors are accurate, they better be accurate.
Honestly, I say the Mac community needs to make plenty of noise about the ever cheapening of the Mac. It's the only way we can force the company to make the products better.
Comments
I own two of the 20" iMacs in question. When I made the purchases I had read all of the specs detailing the differences in the displays. The 24" display is different on virtually all specs from the 20" display - viewing angle, brightness and contrast. I don't think Apple made any effort to hide the fact that these are different quality displays. I went to my local Apple store and compared the displays side by side to make my decision. In the end, for my purposes, the lower cost was more important than what I perceived as a real but not earth shattering difference in the display quality (and size). I am typing this on one of the iMacs now and I remain happy with my decision.
That being said...I did not know there was a difference in the color depth of the liquid crystals as no mention is made of this on the spec sheet....
Looking at the spec sheet the statement is
Display: "Millions of colors at all resolutions".
I suppose referring to the display as a whole gives them the out that dithering and other such techniques to allow the display to generate more colors than the underlying LCD unit make the claim defensible. For me the issue are
1) If color reproduction is critical to your buying decision - go look at the display yourself - regardless of any manufacturer claims.
2) Don't buy a consumer grade machine and expect professional quality.
3) If color is really important don't look at an LCD at all.
4) Consumers should be entitled to full and accurate technical specifications of products
I think any consumer who was "harmed" by Apple's less than complete disclosure carries at least an equal share of fault as Apple. Apple should be reprimanded and fined, but the $ amount should be small.
I will not apply for my share as I knew full well what I was buying.
Regarding "16,777,216 colours - 262,144 colours", since 6-bit TN panels can display only 262,144 colors, what do you mean the number is still in the millions? How is 262,144 in the millions?
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
This really pisses me off! Apple keeps making more and more money with their sales at astronomical levels, and yet they continue to get GREEDIER! Why can't they actually IMPROVE the quality of their products while getting more popular??
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
Except with dithering the color is typically listed as 16M or 16.2M depending on the technology used (except with the noted Hi-FRC above). So it's not really 260K unless folks really think they couldn't instantly notice that difference.
So let me get this straight: You thought you could get Pre-press color quality Displays in an All-In-One system versus having to suck it up and invest in Mac Pros and separate S-IPS displays; and that if you had not been deceived you would have ponied up the original bones instead of saving a bunch getting the cheaper systems?
You knew what you were buying. If Apple was able to sell Cinema display panels in their iMacs they would be cannibalizing their high end sales. Every company for that matter would as well.
Please, by all means come in and create a user account as some disgruntled business manager/owner looking for sympathy.
You won't find any in an area where people pride themselves with actually knowing the technology and it's inherent limitations.
Oh Thank YOU for writing that reply and saving ME the time to do it myself!!!
But my god they should at least be using S-IPS/H-IPS panels in all their desktop screens. TN panels are a complete joke.
Or PVA. On the other hand, the 20" is now the bottom end and for general consumer users and not pro's or prosumers really. The additional screen real-estate is worth the $300 bump from the top end 20" and the low end 24".
To me the 2.4Ghz 20" is the lowest value among the iMac line and not quite wroth the $300 bump from the bottom end.
This really pisses me off! Apple keeps making more and more money with their sales at astronomical levels, and yet they continue to get GREEDIER! Why can't they actually IMPROVE the quality of their products while getting more popular??
Well, if we skip the G5 to Intel jump the 2006 iMac 17" was $1299 in comparison to the $1199 20" iMac today. It went from 1.83Ghz Core 2 to 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo, from 802.11G to 802.11N, 160GB HD to 250GB and 512MB to 1GB memory.
Should the middle 20" have a better panel? Possibly. But going from TN to PVA/IPS one is typically a $150 bump on 20" monitors. That would put the 20" 2.4Ghz pretty darn close to the 24" price. For an AIO with a built in monitor, not doing $150-$200 for the larger real-estate is kinda pennywise pound foolish.
Going from a 17" IPS to a 20" TN is kinda a wash price wise so the bottom end iMac represents either the same or better value than the 2006 17" given it IS $100 cheaper.
I am absolutely appalled by the poor quality monitor on my 20" Aluminum iMac. The old 20" iMac has great screens, so I had no reason to question if this one would. Even the low-end 22" LG LCD I have hooked up as a second monitor absolutely blows this iMac screen out of the water. It's by far the worst quality monitor I've ever had, and I never would have bought it if I had any idea.
BTW the issue about the eye not resolving millions of color is BS. That's not the point. Technically we're not suppose to hear anything beyond 20KHZ either but that region of audio has long beet touted for its psychoacoustic effects. You won't find a decent studio in the land that doesn't run Macs or can't process audio beyond 20KHZ.
Since when did the 24" iMacs have 8-bit screens?
If that's a proper 8-bit screen then we're all screwed!
I think it's just a misunderstanding. I initially took it that it displayed 16.5 million colors instead of 16.7, as the person you're referring to did.
Obviously 260K instead of 16.7 million is a bigger difference.
I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit. I guess it might seem merited, what with that big color number difference and all. But at the same time, claiming Apple is deceiving us because our "stunning displays" are made of the "cheapest components" is a little silly. If it works, so be it!
The temporal/FRC dithering fools the eye into seeing 16.2 million colours. The number of colours isn't the problem with the TN display in the 20" iMac, many TN displays can look perfectly good, albeit with the viewing angle limitations that TN displays have. The fast response makes them good for games though.
Clearly the issue is that besides being a TN display, it is a poor TN display. It might mean that it isn't even using temporal/FRC dithering. It could have a poor colour gamut and/or use a poor backlight.
Fact remains that it is the low-end iMac, and you can try before you buy. I do think that Apple could give the panel type in the detailed specifications. It's still arguably good enough for most users, and professionals shouldn't be buying all-in-one low-end computers to do graphics on anyway.
You wont have problem it watching movies or edit photos unless your work is really for professional use. Normal people usually wont notice the colour difference.
they dont really expect professional photo editor to use iMac
Perhaps they should stop showing Aperture running on an iMac then...
is this on both the 20" 2.0 ghz and the 20" 2.4 ? ... i am about to purchase the 2.4, but know i am unsure. i need to watch movies, ad edit photos. is this really a big deal ?
I have the 2.4. It's particularly bad for those purposes, because you often get an odd posterized effect in the shadows and heavily saturated areas. like I said in my previous post, my quick and dirty solution was to add a second monitor that had better image quality. Working with dual monitors is pretty nice anyway, so it's not all negative.
I think I will abstain from this "millions of colors" thread. I am still annoyed from last time.
I will say this though: When it comes to using technology indetectable by humans - be it microscopic engraving, super-fast framrates w/ temporal dithering, or what-have-you - we are at the mercy of manufactures to tell us the truth about what we're getting. If they tell us we're getting the best when in reality we're getting the worst, only a handful may notice... but we are being lied to regardless.
-Clive
Apply that same thinking to the drug companies and it takes on whole new level of importance!
First up: 8 bits per sub-pixel doesn't mean those sub-pixels have only eight colour levels. 8 bits have 2^8 = 256 different combinations.
Second up: people are talking about spatial and temporal dithering but some may not understand what this means.
Most people are familiar with the traditional "spatial" dithering, in that each pixel on a screen actually exists as three seperate sub-pixels - pure red, pure green and pure blue. As the sub-pixels are so closely spaced together, at normal viewing distances the human eye cannot discern the individual colours and the pixel appears as a single entity that can display 256*256*256 = 16,777,216 different colours, the red, green and blue primary channels mixing together. If the sub-pixels are 6 bits rather than 8, each one can display 2^6 = 64 different levels, leading to 64*64*64 = 262,144 different colours per pixel.
Again, this is "spatial" dithering, relying on the eye's limited "spacial acuity", or "resolution" if you like, to mix the three primary-channel colours of the sub-pixels together into a single colour.
Another dithering method is "temporal" dithering, which relies on the eye's limited "response time" to mix colours together. Imagine a 6-bit red sub-pixel than can display 64 different levels of red. If that red sub-pixel is rapidly changed from level 50 to level 51, it will appear to the human eye to deliver level "50.5", if it's at level 50 for 50% of the time, and level 51 for the other 50%. "temporal" dithering is used in conjunction with "spatial" dithering in 6-bit TN displays to deliver millions of colours, so they're relying on both the eye's lack of acuity and limited response time to deliver that level of colour.
The problem here isn't that Apple have used a TN panel in the 20" iMac, it's that they have quite blatantly implied that both the 20" and 24" iMac have the same "quality" display, when they do not. The 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" an IPS panel. By all accounts, IPS typically delivers better colour accuracy and slower response time compared to a TN panel. Some people, especially gamers, prefer the TN technology as it can handle motion better.
I find that Apple's marketing in this respect is deceptive and they deserve to lose this suit. It would be much better if they just clearly state that the 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" uses an IPS panel and leave out the traditional (for Apple) arrogant marketing hyperbole.
If you go back and read the original article, you will see that previous 20" iMac had higher quality 8-bit (per channel) LCD.
It seems that you fail to realise that the 20" iMac is now the bottom of the line and is also cheaper than the old 20".
The problem here isn't that Apple have used a TN panel in the 20" iMac, it's that they have quite blatantly implied that both the 20" and 24" iMac have the same "quality" display, when they do not. The 20" uses a TN panel and the 24" an IPS panel. By all accounts, IPS typically delivers better colour accuracy and slower response time compared to a TN panel. Some people, especially gamers, prefer the TN technology as it can handle motion better.
Sorry but that is not true. If you read the specs for both displays at the Apple website you will see how they are completely different so if you assume that both screens are the same quality it is your mistake.
Sorry but that is not true. If you read the specs for both displays at the Apple website you will see how they are completely different so if you assume that both screens are the same quality it is your mistake.
I'm not talking about the specs. page (where the only clue that the 20" is a TN-panel is that it has a lower viewing-angle than the 24"), I'm talking about the information provided here.
So, what if the iMac is the bottom of the line? So those that don't like moving the cursor over acres of screen real estate to access the menubar has to be punished? Apple products cost a premium. Apple users have long been willing to pay that premium because they've gotten quality parts, the Mac user experience is second to none, and there's something about just being different and owning a Mac. But now they keep lowering the standards on us in the name of profit.
Apple needs to be held accountable. Macs are used by design professionals everyday. The screens, if attached, need to be usable for that type of work. When you're in the prepress business, color variations mean a lot. When Apple touts that their colors are accurate, they better be accurate.
Honestly, I say the Mac community needs to make plenty of noise about the ever cheapening of the Mac. It's the only way we can force the company to make the products better.