Apple on the Cheap – Poorer Displays
My 20 inch, acrylic-surrounded, ADC Apple Cinema Display is a beauty to work on. Its picture is bright and crystal-clear, absolutely the best LCD display I have ever used and, so far, have ever seen. My 17 inch iMacG5’s screen looks like it is infused with microscopic patterns of black sand, and this has been a characteristic of Apple’s LCD displays ever since they moved to the aluminum DVI models. Don’t believe me? Take one of Apple’s current 20 inch aluminum displays and put it side by side with one of the older ADC models.
I’ve been aware of this for some time. What brought me to say something about it here was a discussion on one of Apple’s support forums by a new Intel iMac owner who had previously owned a 20 inch G4 “lampshade” flat panel iMac. These iMacs were the same generation as my 20 inch screen, and they have the same beautiful clarity and brightness it does. He complained about the new Intel iMac display’s “graininess” and established that it also affected the previous generation G5 iMac. I’m here to tell you that I noticed the same thing with my 20 inch G5 iMac, which was a first generation machine. All the G5 iMac’s suffer from this problem, which is to say that all Apple’s machines that use an LCD have since then.
If you are on a G5 or Intel iMac, open a white Finder window and look closely at the screen as you drag the window around. You’ll see a very fine but noticeable river of what looks like beach sand on the display. This is non-existent on my 20 inch Cinema Display but is noticeable on my 2.0 GHz G5 iMac.
What does this mean? It means that for some time Apple has been sticking lower quality displays in their machines. This is a crying shame because working with a display as beautiful as my 20 inch ACD is makes for an almost luxurious experience, especially after spending the day behind 17 inch LCD displays by a famous PC manufacturer. And luxury is what the Mac needs to be about. It’s part of what sets off using a Mac from the PC experience.
Apple can correct this problem by improving the quality of the screens it’s putting out there, whether that’s by changing the actual screen component, changing protective coatings, or whatever else they need to do. Otherwise, in its rush to gather more of the Windows market share, Apple is shooting its users in the foot.
This is one time (and not the only one) when older not newer is better.
(Note: For several reasons, I've been thinking of moving my personal stuff off my G5 iMac to my dual 2 Ghz G5 PowerMac. The luxuriousness of the 20 inch display is one of the reasons why, though not the only one. But the poorer quality displays on Apple's current product line is one reason why I'm very hesitant to buy anymore desktops, greater speed or no.)
I’ve been aware of this for some time. What brought me to say something about it here was a discussion on one of Apple’s support forums by a new Intel iMac owner who had previously owned a 20 inch G4 “lampshade” flat panel iMac. These iMacs were the same generation as my 20 inch screen, and they have the same beautiful clarity and brightness it does. He complained about the new Intel iMac display’s “graininess” and established that it also affected the previous generation G5 iMac. I’m here to tell you that I noticed the same thing with my 20 inch G5 iMac, which was a first generation machine. All the G5 iMac’s suffer from this problem, which is to say that all Apple’s machines that use an LCD have since then.
If you are on a G5 or Intel iMac, open a white Finder window and look closely at the screen as you drag the window around. You’ll see a very fine but noticeable river of what looks like beach sand on the display. This is non-existent on my 20 inch Cinema Display but is noticeable on my 2.0 GHz G5 iMac.
What does this mean? It means that for some time Apple has been sticking lower quality displays in their machines. This is a crying shame because working with a display as beautiful as my 20 inch ACD is makes for an almost luxurious experience, especially after spending the day behind 17 inch LCD displays by a famous PC manufacturer. And luxury is what the Mac needs to be about. It’s part of what sets off using a Mac from the PC experience.
Apple can correct this problem by improving the quality of the screens it’s putting out there, whether that’s by changing the actual screen component, changing protective coatings, or whatever else they need to do. Otherwise, in its rush to gather more of the Windows market share, Apple is shooting its users in the foot.
This is one time (and not the only one) when older not newer is better.
(Note: For several reasons, I've been thinking of moving my personal stuff off my G5 iMac to my dual 2 Ghz G5 PowerMac. The luxuriousness of the 20 inch display is one of the reasons why, though not the only one. But the poorer quality displays on Apple's current product line is one reason why I'm very hesitant to buy anymore desktops, greater speed or no.)
posted by Andy Foster at
12:47 AM
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