Apple LCD's worth it?

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USMC2Hard4U

Supreme [H]ardness
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Now, I am putting this in the Display section and not in the Apple section. Hope its alright.

I have a New MacBook Pro and want to get an external display for my Mac while its sitting at home on my desk.

I want a good quality LCD. Are the Apple LCD's really proven to be better quality than other LCDs? I am more than willing to spend the $$$ if its worth it... but only if it really is the best quality choice available.

http://www.apple.com/displays/

Thoughts? Thanks.
 
They are quite good, but you can find better - cheaper.

What sets apples displays apart is the useless stand, lack of inputs and OSD settings. At a price premium.
 
Yep. Overpriced and the stand has no swivel or height adjust.
 
I don't think there are other LED backlight displays out there that are also IPS..at 24".
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
I want a good quality LCD. Are the Apple LCD's really proven to be better quality than other LCDs?
Click to expand...

Apple monitors have their cons:
- one input (a modern display must have 2 digital inputs)
- no ergonomics (no height adjustment, no swivel, no portrait, no auto brightness)
- no controls (any modern monitor must have a scalar with at least Aspect and 1:1 options, a high class monitor must have at least RGB, gamma, contrast, color temperature controls)
- relatively high price

Pros:
- standard gamut IPS panels (valuable and quite rare thing)

This single valuable Pro counterbalances Cons and makes Apples good monitors.
Some monitors have less cons and more pros - so they are better than Apple.
 
Nothing Apple is "worth it". They are WAY overpriced for what they offer.
 
albovin said:
standard gamut IPS panels (valuable and quite rare thing)
Click to expand...
Please help me understand: the gamut is determined by the backlight, right? So did they somehow create a 72% gamut LED for this Apple screen?

And how can gamuts possibly match across screen technologies that involve different physics; why would a CRT's gamut be the same as a standard LCD? I think I've heard that TN's on laptops might only be in the 40-50% gamut range. Plus CRTs heavily degrade over time. So it seems there's a gradient of gamuts out there on people's screens, and that's not even considering the fact that hardly anyone even does software color calibration!

So why is high gamut so evil? It seems like everyone is using different gamuts in reality anyway. Call me a fool but I actually like how my high gamut screen looks. The colors are just so vivid.
 
...By BL and color filters.
LED BL comprises different types, so variations are possible.
Physics are different, but finally we have light and colors - so physics are similar.

"So why is high gamut so evil?"
Due to color spaces mismatch.
The content (photo, video) is sRGB gamut, displays are WG.
We don't need WG monitors until WG images and 10-bit technology become standard.
 
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albovin said:
The content (photo, video) is sRGB gamut, displays are WG.
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Photos certainly involve inaccurate color mapping, with a sRGB picture on a wide gamut screen. But I see an advantage: our eyes see with a max gamut, and so viewing a picture in wide gamut seems more real (in spite of the color mapping being skewed).

Rendered content like games benefit from that advantage without the color mapping disadvantage. You might argue that every developer designs on a hardware calibrated sRGB screen with a low DeltaE, so anything else deviates from the truth, but 1) they might not be, 2) color in 3D games isn't so importantly precise, since users don't calibrate and their screens have gamuts between 40-92%, and 3) if explosions are more vividly red and the bio rifle shoots goo that looks extra radioactive, that's a good thing.

In short, the color mapping problem decreases realism while higher gamut increases realism, and 3D content doesn't necessarily have the disadvantage.
 
true, monitor have to have good ergonomics and connectivity. But i dont think that only having these two make the monitor amazing. Definitely display has to be good.

Apple is lacking those connectivity options. But from the quality vise, i dont think you can find any other brandnew display around same price. Apart from the NEC 2490, (which is over a grand), there are no much standard gmaut displays around. Apple has a fairly good uniformity that has none of those IPS in the same price range (ex, U2410 and HP, planar). Also sparkle free is a big plus. Most of the low level IPS (around $500) got tint issues.

Also i would like to know from people who said apple is not good, what are the other IPS standard gmaut monitors available under apple's price that out performs apple?
 
zzz said:
Photos certainly involve inaccurate color mapping, with a sRGB picture on a wide gamut screen. But I see an advantage: our eyes see with a max gamut, and so viewing a picture in wide gamut seems more real (in spite of the color mapping being skewed)
Click to expand...

That makes no sense at all.

Just because the sRGB gamut can be limiting doesn't mean that everything that is captured/edited in sRGB suffers from the sRGB limitations. Take human skin for example, that fits well in sRGB and *stretching* it to wide gamut is not only an inaccurate color mapping, it's highly unrealistic in all aspects (both perceived and actual).
 
brumwald said:
That makes no sense at all.

Just because the sRGB gamut can be limiting doesn't mean that everything that is captured/edited in sRGB suffers from the sRGB limitations. Take human skin for example, that fits well in sRGB and *stretching* it to wide gamut is not only an inaccurate color mapping, it's highly unrealistic in all aspects (both perceived and actual).
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I agree, but I'm not sure why I didn't make sense to you.

The "advantage" I mentioned doesn't apply to pictures that have no colors outside the sRGB region, like a close-up of skin. But a significant percent of pictures involve green, red, or blue. My point is that it's more natural/pleasing/realistic to look at a high gamut image since that's how we see in real life. Otherwise a picture of the sky and green grass would lack certain colors that we're used to seeing. Of course, incorrect color mapping is still a problem.

This may have some parallels to how an HDR screen might act. Maybe such a screen could selectively make different parts of an image brighter. It would be inaccurate from the original picture and real-world scene, but it might look more realistic than non-HDR. Likewise, rendered games would get the benefit and not necessarily the disadvantage.
 
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If Apple comes out with a 24" LED based, GLOSSY, IPS screen with multiple inputs.... I might just have to break down and pay their insane prices.
 
zzz said:
I agree, but I'm not sure why I didn't make sense to you.

The "advantage" I mentioned doesn't apply to pictures that have no colors outside the sRGB region, like a close-up of skin. But a significant percent of pictures involve green, red, or blue. My point is that it's more natural/pleasing/realistic to look at a high gamut image since that's how we see in real life. Otherwise a picture of the sky and green grass would lack certain colors that we're used to seeing. Of course, incorrect color mapping is still a problem.

This may have some parallels to how an HDR screen might act. Maybe such a screen could selectively make different parts of an image brighter. It would be inaccurate from the original picture and real-world scene, but it might look more realistic than non-HDR. Likewise, rendered games would get the benefit and not necessarily the disadvantage.
Click to expand...

That's not what happens, though. What you get is more saturated colors across the board. Some tones go from inside sRGB space to outside sRGB space, true. But mostly they go from inside sRGB space to a higher value inside sRGB space. That damages all types of content, even games. And even where you do gain colors, they are more likely to be in the wrong places.

ElektroDragon said:
If Apple comes out with a 24" LED based, GLOSSY, IPS screen with multiple inputs.... I might just have to break down and pay their insane prices.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the LED cinema display is "glossy".
 
Kenjiwing said:
Most of them are rebranded monitors to my knowledge.
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Well of course they're rebranded (like the foxconn iphone), they don't build them from scratch in the US. But show me another LED backlit 24" IPS monitor and then we'll talk about rebranding.
 
Apple refurbs are actually a decent price. $600 for 24" 1920x1200 IPS is not bad.
 
All the apple haters and ppl who said apple is over priced, please let me know what the the monitor you are comparing with apple that is so much cheap, IPS, LED and decent uniformity?.

If you cant mentioned that, tell me what the base of your overpriced statement?
 
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