Do the new Apple Laptops Cut It?

I agree, Drew, that it's very interesting but it's just an accusation. I'm very interested in how this plays out. Matching part numbers to spec sheets looks bad for Apple though. How could "the choice of creative professionals" do this? ;-)

I have a MBP 17" that I just got recently that's plagued by awful backlighting (among other things ) but I've never suspected that the display, or the 15" before it, was limited to 6 bits, seen any signs of dithering, graininess or sparklies, etc. My main complaint is that I want more resolution. Sadly, the trend has been away from the higher resolution notebook panels.

I decided, reluctantly, to switch to OS X with the CS3/Lightroom upgrade. I like the MBP package and the trackpad is great, but I could be easily convinced there are better road notebooks for photographers. On the other hand, my day-old Mac Pro has been very impressive so far. It really infuriates me, though, that Apple has known about the IBM T221 for so long, has supported it successfully in the past, recognizes its video modes and selects them, yet utterly fails to support it properly or even boot with it as the primary display. It's hard giving up that monitor and impossible using it at 13Hz.

Craig

I don't think Apple really supported it. It was the GPU makers which supported it. Dual Dual-Link DVI cards are hard to come by in desktops.

Maybe you should get a desktop to run it and network the laptop to transfer files. With 802.11n, even big files should be pretty quick.

I'm not sure of the working relationship between Apple and the GPU suppliers when it comes to video mode support. I'm sure you're right that it's the vendor that's tasked with doing that. Apple, though, should either retain monitors for test, disable video modes that they won't certify, or make the process of using 3rd party monitors more forgiving. It's one thing for a monitor to go into a funky mode and another for the system to fail to work at all. Apple doesn't have the (annoying) 15 second confirm that Windows does but in this case it's really helpful! In any case, T221 users seem to have little interest in the Apple platform. I think the T221 combined with the scalable interface promises of Leopard would be compelling.

Part of my switch was to build a small form factor Vista box so that I could retain Windows capability when I needed it. Getting the T221 to work with Vista using only low profile cards was comical though I did achieve it. Funny thing is that Vista benchmarked my 3D capability at 2.9 and it disables Aero below 3.0! No matter, Aero is a joke. I swear, Vista is a friggin catastrophe.

The T221 uses 1, 2, or 4 single link DVI-D's. The DG5 version came with a dual link convertor box and supported a triple link mode. I don't have that version and I'm perfectly satisfied with 31 Hz achievable with 2 DVI ports. I did buy a Mac Pro with an X1900 hoping to get the monitor to work but I think it's a lost cause. I could try an NVidia card as they are a bit better with T221 support on the Windows side. Right now it works only as a 2nd monitor using a single link at 13Hz. Switching from 100 dpi to 200 dpi and using a twinhead system is out of the question. Viewing distances are much different and the mouse acceleration blows. :-( Looks like a 30" is in my future. I hate 100 dpi.

Seems that the LCD screen, while very bright, isn't 8bit but 6 bit + dithering.

 

Very interesting indeed.

It is kind of funny that both plaintiffs went and bought two machines, one in fact 6 months after the first one. So they knew what the screens looked like

That being said, yeah it seems some people have had issues with the screens

Some fun reading, the papers that were filed.

http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/vid...ook_lawsuit.pdf

I am not sure I totally agree with some of the arguments being raised and it will be interesting on how it all shakes out. When I have to do final correction on video or photos I personally would not rely on any laptop screen for final use for the most part (maybe some web work). It is interesting that when running Paralells or Bootcamp the problem went away for people, so maybe a quick software update can do the trick. Still will be 6 bit though.