Apple releases new 27″ LED Cinema Display – comes with a free Mac
blog.expandrive.com
blog.expandrive.com
(also, the 24" Cinema Display uses H-IPS — which is better than S-IPS and E-IPS — and is LED backlit)
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.
So Apple got a good deal from LCD panel supplier. Wait a month or two and you'll get the same deal for a display without embedded Mac.
Unless you were planning to buy iMac anyway, I don't see what's so exciting about this "deal".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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.
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!
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.
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.
Not that absolute screen surface area is the most important metric.
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.
On a unrelated note, most people refer the other dimension as height, not depth.
Apols for the depth thing, don't know where that came from. Possibly reading about bit-depth, another traditional area of Apple cost-cutting.
It's time to move to the other side....
They added the anti glare as an option in the refresh a while back.
It's sort of like putting words into your mouth, making assumptions about your worldview.
The fact that they are mercury free is just one of many reasons why LED backlights are considered a marketing point.
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.
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.
Your prescription may have been switched ;-)
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.
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 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.
Also, I find stickers on products aesthetically offensive.
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.)
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.
Unless you really hate Earth, I guess.
It's sort of like putting words into your mouth, making assumptions about your workflow.
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.