Apple Cinema Displays

Hello all,

About time for another "what's the best monitor" thread?

I'm seriously in the market for a new (flat) display for image processing and after doing a lot of 'net research I have concluded that the Cinema Display might be the way to go. Specifically, I'm looking at the 23in HD display. The going price for the beast seems to be in the ballpark of EUR 900 in these parts.

I'm currently a PC user, but looking forward to going Mac in the coming years.

Any other suggestions out there? I know Dell has some great stuff as does ViewSonic, although theViewSonioc stuff seems to be very expensive compared to e.g. the Cinema Display.

???

timo

Hi timo,

This might help. In case you haven’t seen it, here is a buying guide info link http://textblog.anands.net/archives/11 for LCD monitors for photographers.

In the beginning, he starts off with the “Big Guys†Eizo, NEC, Lacie (Lacie which are rebranded and more expensive NEC’s), and Apple.

Take a look at NEC’s MultiSync 2070 NX 20-inch LCD monitor http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/Product...84-cf3e0cd0ba41

The 20-inch is an IPS panel type used in most $1,000 and up monitors because of its 8 bit per channel, true 16.7 m colors, and 700:1 contrast ratio, which are great for photo editing

For slightly more than one 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, I was able to get one for my PC as well as one for my new Mac G5. They many not be the best money can buy, but they were the best for what money I had to spend.

Also some food for thought, most magazine publishers like World Publications (publishers of Sport Diver) do not use super high-end monitors. Several of the art directors and photo editors I know there are still using either old CRT’s or LCD’s like ACER, HP, Gateway, and DELL, half of which were likely purchased from the Office Depot down the street.

Thanks Walt,

Interesting link.

I have been looking at the NECs, but they are very hard to get in Finland. I could of course buy from abroad, but shipping costs would pretty much negate the savings vis a vis something available locally.

Currently - after seeing one at a friend's place - I'm leaning towards the Dell 2407 WFP-HC. At about EUR 800 this seems to offer the most bang for the Bu^h^hEuro.

And yes, I know this is very much over-engineered for my actual demands, but hey, it's a long term investment and so forth...

timo

I have the Dell 2407 WFP-HC and I am VERY happy with it. It calibrated very nicely and easily and has stayed calibrated. I did a search and found that the panel for this display is a Samsung:

2407WFP (*) (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) S-PVA (Samsung LTM240M2 eller LTM240L2) panel.

Cheers

James

I have the Dell 2407 WFP-HC and I am VERY happy with it. It calibrated very nicely and easily and has stayed calibrated. I did a search and found that the panel for this display is a Samsung:

 

2407WFP (*) (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) S-PVA (Samsung LTM240M2 eller LTM240L2) panel.

 

Cheers

James

I have the same Dell 2407 24" Widescreen running dual mon with an older Dell 2001 20" screen. Both are excellent, easy to callibrate, and look gorgeous. I really like that the 2407 has a Compact Flash & SD card readers built into the left side of the screen. (And a bunch of USB ports) Very handy.

Check out TechBargains for current or future deals. Recent price on the Dell 2407 was $567. (I paid $665.01 last December.)

http://techbargains.com/cheaplcdmonitor.cfm

Dave

How about this !!

Gateway XHD3000 30" Widescreen High-Definition LCD Flat-Panel Display

http://www.gateway.com/accessories/product...272R.php?seg=hm

30 inches of High Definition .. for $1700 !!

That beats the Cinema display.

What's the big deal over the Apple. Price is the same really 30" Apple HD is $1729 at B&H

That may be it's price in the US .. i bet you it's more like $2000 or more if bought in the UK.

Infact Amazon.co.uk has it listed at 1200 GBP which is $2437

Amazon France has it listed at 1942 Euros which is $2745

Amazon.com for the USA lists it at $1799

So you can see .. the difference is BIG if you are not buying in the USA where you guys have the lowest prices apparently on everything from Apple Screen to Gasoline !

That's weird - with the USD to Euro or Pound exchange rate, I'd expect the price to be higher in the US and lower in Europe. Weird.

James

Economics works in weird ways .. but at those differences if you lived in England you could get a $200 flight to new york, one night hotel .. buy the screen from the apple store fly home and still have saved money !

The price for the Dell 30" shows up at $1499 for me. Don't know how that translates to other countries. I've purchased two of those and paid less in both cases.

The Dell 30" is a great monitor for me BUT it is difficult to calibrate due to its brightness. I use ColorEyes now and get what appears to be good color but with a slight tendency toward green and, perhaps, a bit too much posterization in shadows. Don't know how my result compares to other 30" displays but it isn't as good as my old T221 was. It does calibrate easily as well as my MacBook Pro screen does using the same software.

I hated my first experience with the first generation Apple 30" display but I love them now. :-) Give me two!

Craig .. the UK site has that Dell one for 1,189 GBP which is $2,423 USD

The European Price is 1,781.00 EUR which is $2,514 USD

Why don't people look at buying a LCD tv instead of a monitor ... would the TV version not like having the same image on it for a long time ?

You can get a 32" from Best Buy for as little as $600 ... has a VGA input .. you could upgrade your video card to do HDMI also ... I am probably being stupid suggesting it .. but i don't see why not .. TV's have more features and are cheaper .. than a monitor .. whats up with that ?

Craig .. the UK site has that Dell one for 1,189 GBP which is $2,423 USD

The European Price is 1,781.00 EUR which is $2,514 USD

 

Why don't people look at buying a LCD tv instead of a monitor ... would the TV version not like having the same image on it for a long time ?

 

You can get a 32" from Best Buy for as little as $600 ... has a VGA input .. you could upgrade your video card to do HDMI also ... I am probably being stupid suggesting it .. but i don't see why not .. TV's have more features and are cheaper .. than a monitor .. whats up with that ?

The problem is resolution. The Apple 30" operates at a max of 2560x1600, the best HD TV still only has 1080 horizontal lines of resolution....making for ~ 1920x1080 max resolution. Figure a 37" 1080p TV has 2,073,600 pixels where as my the ACD 30" is 4,096,000 pixels.

ACD 30" = 136,533 pixels/horizontal inch

15.4" MacBook Pro = 84,155 pixels/horizontal inch

38" 1080p HDTV = 54,568 pixels/horizontal inch

This is an over simplification, but you can see the relative "quality" of the display based on pixel count. The better option is to use a computer monitor as a HD television monitor, but then you are wasting pixels as, again...the highest res TV is only 1080 lines horizontal resolution.

30" 16:10 display is 25 1/4" wide or 101 dpi

17" MBP is 14.5" wide or 116 dpi (132 dpi for high res version)

15.4" MBP is 13.1" wide or 110 dpi

38" 1080p set is 33.2" wide or about 58 dpi

One of the problems of HDTV is overscan. You don't know what actual resolution you will get when you drive the set with a PC or a mac. On my Sony set, I get 1832 pixels (or 55 dpi on that 38" set). On my Samsung (with a mac) I actually get greater than 2000 (strangely enough). Both were very difficult to set up with macs, easier with PCs, and both require HDMI inputs that aren't switched by any HDMI switch products. Both sets calibrated with my Spyder2 but you have to decide what color temps, gamma, and other image settings to use. I think driving a 1080 set with a PC/mac is certainly viable but I would never use it for any more than casual use. Mine are used primarily to run iTunes and browse the web. They work great for that and I can watch downloaded content easily. Sadly, I've decided that I have to use a 1.8 gamma with the mac since QT doesn't play nice with "properly" calibrated displays.

Sorry to hear that the Dell displays are also overpriced outside the US. I'd probably get an Apple display for their (reported) ease of calibration but I'm not going to pay a big premium for that.

Wish I could try a big antiglare filter to see if that cuts down on the Dell's brightness. I'd even try a ND filter gel if that helped!