Amazingly, the new iMacs have s-IPS screens, too! So not only are you getting a free Mac, but you're getting a tremendously higher quality display as well. (Actually, I don't think any other LED-backlit IPS screens exist for sale.)
Too bad it looks like they still use the glossy finish. Especially on a screen that size, it's got to be tricky to find a geometric configuration in which you get no reflections throughout the day.
I have the 24" glossy iMac, and after putting blackout curtains on the windows of the room it's in, I've had no issues. I guess that's not an ideal solution...
That's not a 'not ideal solution' that's not a solution. If you have to remodel your house because the manufacturer of the screen put a mirror on it in stead of a piece of anti-glare glass why bother with it.
These 'glossy' screens are the biggest set-back in display technology in years and I really don't get why people put up with them.
Even with 'no issues' try looking at a screen that is partially black and partially high intensity (like a terminal screen), you'll still see yourself sitting in it.
I agree that I would prefer a screen with no glare. However, I prefer the glossy screens with their high brightness and contrast (at least, so it seems to me) over matte screens with lower brightness and contrast. I find that even though I can see the reflections when they're pointed out, in practice I don't notice them any more, partially because they're at a different depth than the data on the screen.
The interesting thing is that you mention the high brightness and contrast, I'm writing this on a cheapie LG 24" and I have the brightness turned down considerably from the default settings, and in low light I turn it down even further. I noticed that since I started doing that my eyes are a lot less 'tired' after sitting behind the machine for a whole day.
It used to be so bad that it simply hurt to work in longer stretches.
But when are they going to finally release actual new Cinema Displays, sans iMac? The Dell 3008WFP is such an ugly piece of plastic crap, in my opinion.
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. I can't comment on the actual display itself, but the thought of spending $1,300 on something that comes in such a poorly designed faux-futuristic plastic housing is an instant deal-breaker for me. I don't mean to knock anyone who has one. I know the function is what matters, but I can't help caring about the form too. It's just not something I could be happy with on my desk.
Hands down the Dell is ergonomically better. You can raise and lower it, tilt it, etc.
By contrast the Cinema Display's ergonomics sort of remind me of the old circular iMac mouse and how awful it was. Jobs usually gets it right, but when he's wrong he's really wrong.
Yeah, those mice really suck. So does the Mighty Mouse, because you have to physically remove your other finger from the mouse to right click. And so, it seems, will the Magic Mouse — just watching the manner in which the guy demonstrating it has to contort his hand makes me think, ‘Oww’.
Yes. I have a 3008 and I'm constantly distracted by the horrible plastic. I can't imagine how I use it daily...
Now without the sarcasm - The monitor is fantastic. It's been fantastic for over a year. I really couldn't care less how the non-glowing part of the display looks.
Let me guess, you use one of those pressboard corner computer hutches with fifteen hundred shelves and hidden compartments, complete with printer cart on casters and CD rack, as your desk; and a folding chair you picked up at a rummage sale to sit on? Sorry, I couldn’t resist ;)
Snarkiness aside, I do care about what the non-glowing part looks like. The aesthetics of the space I’m in materially effect my general mood and productivity level, and having control over that environment is one of the reasons I’m self-employed, because I can’t stand being surrounded by plastic, linoleum, and carpeted cubicle walls.
Objectively, it looks no different than any other piece of consumer electronics. But that’s the general problem I’m lamenting. If I’m spending $1,300, can’t they spend some money on the product design and make it look sleek, sexy, and expensive? For $1,300 I want to be proud to have it on my desk! Of course, since most people don’t care what the housing looks like, that’s exactly why they don’t, so I don’t blame them.
Dell is starting to get that aesthetics matter quite a bit to some people. Their designs are coming around, slowly. For a product like the 3008wfp a refresh will take some time. They probably skipped 3009wfp to avoid another debacle like the 3008wfp launch.
I am waiting with baited breath for a 27-inch stand-alone LED display based on the new iMac's display. As my eyes age, I appreciate more and more large-format displays. I am using a Dell 2709WFP on a 13" Macbook Pro 2.53. The very beautiful (both aesthetically and technically) Apple 24" LED-backlit display is somehow too small after seeing a 27" with the same content. (How're you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?")
I am actually one of those liberal, Obama-voting hybrid Mac users who has used Macintoshes since the first Bloom-County classic Mac in 1984. I also have always had to use both platforms, because as much as I would like it to be otherwise, business runs on Windows, very probably because of the misguided belief that cheap hardware makes their IT solutions cost-effective. Every single day of my life I have had some unwelcomed anomaly happen on my Windows computer. This is great for those in IT who make a living chasing Windows bugs, but is false economy for business in general. Even to this day, Microsoft Word runs better under Windows that it does on OSX. Too bad.
Did they specify the dot pitch on the 27" screen? I recall testing the 17" MBP @ 1920X1200, but the text felt a bit small. Considering the old 24" was only 1920 pixels wide, packing 2560 pixels across into 27" seems tight.
You shouldn't need to increase font size. If there is 12pt text, it should be 12pt on screen, regardless of the resolution you are running.
Actually if you set larger font to compensate screen resolution, it could wreck the hinting/scaling system in fonts, as the designer assumes that the characters are certain size. The letters are usually differently shaped at different sizes, and with highres screen you actually want those small-size shapes because they are optimized for small sizes.
edit: just to say, yes I fully agree that higher pixel pitch is definitely a good thing. I feel like displays are one of the most slowly advancing part of computers. Yes, they are getting bigger and bigger, but we are stuck on the same <100 PPI pixel pitch for large part of desktop LCD monitor history. At the same time mobile devices are having 300 PPI displays, and even laptops have higher pitched screens than desktops. Its just not fair!
Thats why we have PDF. 1 inch on a PDF is on 1 inch on my screen. And it will be 1 inch on all properly configured readers. And as a bonus point it will still be 1 inch when I print it out.
Yes, techically HTML/CSS should be as scalable when used in a scalable way, but I'm not sure of current web browser situation. If someone has better info please reply.
1 inch on a PDF is on 1 inch on my screen. And it will be 1 inch on all properly configured readers.
Not on your life. Despite pretensions to the contrary, DPI has been completely meaningless on the screen for several decades. If you're writing an application, never pay attention to DPI metadata unless you're placing the item on a printed page, and never add DPI metadata to files unless they came from a scanner.
it will still be 1 inch when I print it out
This is true in an ideal setting. Unfortunately, there's a lot of shitheads out there that think '72 DPI' or '96 DPI' on files is meaningful because that's what the platform uses. I hope their heads fall off.
Are you familiar at all with the PDF format? Its specifically engineered so that it looks equal everywhere. It doesn't embed "DPI metadata" on files, but uses real-world units (millimeters, points) in most, if not all, measurements instead of pixels. And Adobe Reader (almost defacto reader for PDF) has the option specify custom PPI value, or use the value operating system supplies. Therefore my original claim that 1 inch is 1 inch on all properly configured readers still holds true, as all properly configured readers have correct PPI setting set either by OS or by user. And if current operating systems wouldn't be so crappy at scaling stuff, PPI could be set system-wide at installation, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's actually quite baffling that there isn't more noise about the insanity that 1 inch rarely (in other software than PDF) is 1 inch
Are you familiar at all with the PDF format? ...uses real-world units (millimeters, points)
...and has an obnoxious dimensional limit of 5.08 meters on each side. It would have been so much better to be based on no units at all, just ratios or floats. Besides, the PDF viewer generally has no fucking idea what size your screen is.
Therefore my original claim that 1 inch is 1 inch on all properly configured readers still holds true
You're begging the question in the classical sense. Your original claim holds true given that you assume that it's true.
Nobody has their display resolution configured correctly in Acrobat except by accident or anal-retentiveness. I'd bet you $5 that it's not correctly set on your computer -- go ahead, zoom to "actual size" and hold a matching piece of paper up to the screen.
It's actually quite baffling that there isn't more noise about the insanity that 1 inch rarely is 1 inch
It's not 1984 anymore, noone gives a shit. Users rightly care more about being able to see what they're looking at than some hypothetical WYSIWYG benefit.
I use a 17" Macbook Pro. Generally the OS's font is okay. But when you are used to coding with fontsize 12, it becomes really small on my macbook. I use fontsize 13-14. It's big and looks really smooth.
While many apps provide zoom for content they present, I am yet to find an app that allows increasing font size in its UI elements (Though I think OSX should solve this problem in some standard way, not individual apps).
Regarding screen size - the fonts are OK on my MBP too, but 27" is another story - you have to sit farther from such a huge screen. iCal and many other apps on my parents' iMac 24" are pretty much unusable because of tiny font sizes.
You are right to point out that on a 27" screen, you would have to sit farther away.
I am still on 10.4 though. One thing that bugs me is the size of the mouse cursor. It is too small for me -- I increase it and it all becomes jagged and ugly.
The DPI of the 27" iMac display is 108 vs 133 on the 17" MBP. It's closer to the 110 DPI on 15" MBP. I use a 13" with 113 DPI and feel the text size is not that bad.
It also has it where it counts: depth. Almost everything I work on is helped by better depth: writing, coding, browsing. After a while, even the 1600 pixels of the 30" seem shallow. The iMac sure is wide, but it only has 1440 pixels in depth.
I know why they're doing it -- 16:9 widescreen panels are cheaper because of the demand for TV panels (it's almost impossible to get 4:3 panels these days) -- but I think it's a pity.
I seriously doubt that 16:9 panels would be cheaper because of TVs. First of all, TVs are usually somewhat larger. Secondly TVs have a lot worse resolution. Because of these factors, I don't believe that manufacturing panels for TVs affects the manufacture of computer display panels directly.
On a unrelated note, most people refer the other dimension as height, not depth.
Neither of those factors play a role: there are plenty of 27" televisions, and it's not the resolution that matters, it's cutting the glass. The official Lenovo blog talks more about this: http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=220
Apols for the depth thing, don't know where that came from. Possibly reading about bit-depth, another traditional area of Apple cost-cutting.
Actually, if you read the Lenovo post, TVs are precisely why the 16:9 ratio is being pushed by screen manufacturers: there's more TVs made (at 16:9), therefore, if they maintain the same aspect ratio for all screens they manufacture, there's less waste in the glass cutting process, which means 16:9 screens will be cheaper than custom-ratio screens like 16:10..
Now if only Apple would get around to putting in a non-glossy 1920x1200 panel in a 15 inch MBP, I would have even less reason to not move on from my aging Dell 8600.
Well, e-waste IS a massive worldwide problem, so you should be considering how you're purchases will be disposed and what effect that will have on the environment. Is that a worldview?
If you haven't seen Frontline's Digital Dumping Ground episode, it's worth watching: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/vid...
From the site: "They basically are here to earn a living. But you can imagine the health implications."
It's not obvious to me that these poor people would be better off not recycling the e-waste. I certainly wouldn't fancy doing it, but if the alternative was starvation for my family I might consider it.
I'm not at all sure that it would benefit the people of Ghana if there was no e-waste.
As for dumping toxic waste that's a problem enabled by government/courts that don't function properly.
Further it's not clear in the video how the e-waste gets there. There's the implication that the West simply dumps it there, but clearly the governments of the West don't do that, nor do companies like Apple. Probably what happens is that Ghanian companies import it from e-waste collection companies in the West.
I find it funny that you fixate on one part of the overall sales pitch as offensive. Can you imagine a consumer that is thinking to themselves, "I need a laptop that has a 15" screen and is environmentally friendly. I don't really care about the color gamut but I would like to be assured that I am not going to kill the environment."
I think it's no secret that one of the reasons Apple products appeal to many people is that Apple promotes a left-wing political worldview.
When I am looking for a product to buy, I don't wish to have a political debate or have someone make any assumptions about where I stand on various political issues.
How exactly is stating that a product has less impact on the environment in any way political? Is there a brand of politics I'm not aware of that says that building piles of toxic waste is a good thing?
The people in Ghana who work on the e-waste must think it's a good thing (good meaning better than their alternatives) else they wouldn't be doing it.
We might not like the thought of them working with e-waste but until we provide them with a better alternative it's not right to remove their best opportunity to earn a living.
That's certainly an interesting take. Would you say the same thing about poor people that are earning their living as a result of war or other things that negatively impact the planet as a whole?
People should be allowed to engage in dirty, risky behaviour if it's their own choice. That covers the act of working in e-waste individually, as for any pollution it causes it's up to the authorities in Ghana to deal with that, but it could be that they feel the decrease in poverty of those engaged in e-waste outweighs the problem of pollution. That's for Ghana to decide though not us.
I am very much not a left winger, but I have no real problem with any company that advertises how easily recyclable their products are. I simply look at it as a selling point, because (eventually) I will need to dispose of the item and being easily recyclable will make it cheaper on me.
I think a reasonable philosophy is "clean up after yourself". I see no problem with advertising a product being able to easily meet that goal.
LED also provides a much more consistent brightness across the backplane. Combine that with no 10 minute warm-up time and better lifetime performance, it's hard to whine about them advertising it.
The benefit of an LED display goes beyond just the environmental benefit. LED backlights don't have a warmup time like CFL backlights, and they provide a more uniform brightness level across the panel. The panel will also be cheaper to run over the lifetime of the device because of its energy savings (lower TCO, to borrow a term from the server community).
The fact that they are mercury free is just one of many reasons why LED backlights are considered a marketing point.
Wider (nonstandard) gamut is not always a good thing if applications are not aware of it. With no color correction, normal srgb images will look oversaturated and cartoonish. Even with proper application support, overly wide gamut isn't that useful because there just isn't a lot of wide gamut material to display on your fancy screen. And therefore you are just wasting precious bits to represent colors that will be rarely used in most desktop usage.
Image editing is one area where there is an actual use for wide gamut, but for all other uses, it creates more trouble than what it is worth.
A Color gamut argument is something that I cannot attest to but the colors on my MBP are vibrant if that matters. I also have it plugged into a 24" Dell Ultrasharp and the colors look more believable(aka White looks white and does not have a tinge of yellow. FWIW, I did not setup my screens with a calibrator as I do not have one.)
The sales pitch should only mention the performance benefits of a technology, leaving any environmental benefit to perhaps a subtle sticker on the product that one can easily remove.
The fact the Apple is _not_ the only company that prominently highlights the effect of its product on environment only proves that they are significant number of people out there who actually cares about the environmental impact of the product they are purchasing.
I have a hard time understanding why anyone would be "irritated" by this.
I am interested to know which "position of your worldview" was violated by apple's promotion of environmentally friendly product.
A sales pitch should mention the things the company believes will interest their customers. Apple obviously believes that a lot of their customers care about the environment as well as performance. There are a lot of people out there who won't buy a product unless they believe it to be 'green'. A lot of Apples customers fall into this category. Selling a product on its 'green' credentials is common in all industries, and had Apple left it out of their sales pitch it would have been an obvious mistake.
I have at times been accused of being a raving right wing, gun loving, lunatic libertarian. Even I appreciate companies that work to reduce environmental impact of their products. I mean where will I take my assault rifle to shoot Bambi if the forests are covered in e-waste? I don't make purchasing decisions purely based on performance benefits, I base them on a range of things that I value. Whether you believe in AGW or not, conservation of natural resources is a good thing.
Also, I find stickers on products aesthetically offensive.
Yeah, something that caught my attention was the bragging about how much less power it uses. If I didn't already like Macs, I would certainly assume they were trying to make me feel better about buying a more expensive machine which will run perceptibly more slowly. Shutting down a processor core between keystrokes seems like one of those things that sounds great in theory, but in practice will produce the old familiar beachball more often, since sometimes my 24" iMac has trouble keeping up with my typing already.
But probably you can turn that off, just as I've had to do with the low energy settings on my iMacs and old Powerbook.
Haha, you're not likely to find anyone sympathetic to that perspective in this forum. Anyway, Apple has a fairly explicit leftist worldview itself, and it's never been a policy of SJ to be all things to all people.
BTW, I think the whole idea of liberal vs conservative is also offensive as it assumes that people fall into two groups each of which thinks alike on a whole host of issues -- as if their worldviews were a result of brainwashing.
