IMac Display Quality vs ACD

I was at the store the other day and I was comparing the 15" MBP with the 24" ACD to the 24" iMac both set to the same display settings and the 15" MBP with the 24" ACD appeared noticeably sharper to me. They both looked great and I'm sure either would be just fine for me but is it possible that the MPB with the ACD could deliver a sharper picture?

The new 24-inch Apple Cinema Display uses LED backlighting. The MacBook Pro also uses LED backlighting. The iMac uses with older CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) technology for backlighting.
That may have contributed to your impression of sharpness, although the two displays use the same resolution at the same LCD panel size, so they should be the same in terms of how "sharp" they look. The image on the MacBook Pro may look sharper, because each pixel on its display is smaller.

Similar Messages

Should I get a 20" or a 24" Intel iMac (display quality issue)

Hello everybody,
next week I'm going to buy a new iMac.
I was about to purchase the 20" but with 2,4GHz and the bigger graphic card.
Because I do a lot of graphic and video work.
Now I read that a lot of people seem to have problems with their 20" screen.
There should be a faded upper left corner (because of the hot HD). And the colors are different depending how you move your head. The upper part is much brighter than the lower part, and so on...
Now my questions:
- Does this affect only the first iMacs produced, or are the iMacs in the stores right now still affected?
- Is the 20" with the bigger graphics card (same as the 24") has a better display behaviour?
- Are there happy designers out there with a 20" iMac?
- Or is a 24" the only solution for a graphci designer (I'm afraid it's to big for my table).
Any thoughts, suggestions, experiences are welcome,
Jan

Good Morning Jan,
Well, from a business standpoint I have just approved a final document which will add the Apple iMac 20" to our student-side standards list. What this means basically is that we've tested, extensively, the 20" iMac and found it's quality (as a whole) to be above and beyond what we normally receive from our other vendors.
One thing to keep in mind is that when you read the posts here things seem a lot worse than they are in the real world, this is because the Apple Discussion Forums are intended for support purposes so the majority of people posting here have a very specific problem. What isn't reflected here are those out there who have had no problems at all with the iMacs and are happy computing along and will for many years.
From a Graphic Design point of view I think you will be unhappy with both iMac models, sadly, due to the glossy screen which is more oriented towards consumers. You might give thought to a MacBook Pro with an external screen as an option as the specifications are virtually identical to that of the iMac, and it's portable!
Hope this helps! 
David

IMac Display quality, Ok?

Hi,
I have just seen the new 24" iMacs and they look awesome.
My question is, would they be suitable for viewing of commercial-grade photography.
As many photographers go for the Ezio monitors, I am wondering if the iMac screen is as good in regards to viewing angle, color fidelity - and/or ability to calibrate with hardware.
Has anyone used an iMac in a professional environmnent for this kind of work?
Really interested in hearing your experience before I make a decision on which way to go.
Cheers,
Chris

The 24" screen is better than the 20", but many professional don't think glossy screens are suitable for work.
but see here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1017&message=24321625

MBP vs. iMac Display: Better for Photo Editing?

Would anyone care to give their opinion of the display pros/cons of using a MBP vs. iMac for photo editing?
I have been considering getting a new iMac, and I would like to do photo editing (somewhere in the middle between professional and iPhoto). First I thought 20", but then I learned about the relatively poorer display quality. Then I thought 24", but still had concerns about gradients. Then I waited for the new (Penryn) iMacs, but it sounds like there hasn't been an obvious improvement in iMac display quality. Perhaps a MBP would be a better bet.
Thanks in advance.

The quick answer depends upon the quality of work you intend to do:
1) Are you a general amateur photographer? As long as you perform your own color calibration of the display, and NOT use the dull color profiles Apple provide, you're fine.
2) If you are a PROFESSIONAL performing color management on your images then the answer for BOTH the MacBook and MacBook Pro are NO. You are kidding yourself if you think you will ever get full accurate colors on their LCD displays.
All of Apple's LCD laptop displays have, up to this point, been only 6 bit color capable. A professional requires full 24 bit color, which is what the human eye is capable of seeing, which requires an 8 bit color capable display.
Note: 6 bit color = 262,144 colors. (It was incorrectly listed above). 8 bit color = 16,777,216 colors. This is a drastic difference. Apple use an FRC dithering method to fake the other colors, but this by no means equals real 'millions of colors' depth.
Do not use an iMac as the same 6-bit color depth remains the case. You must use either a VERIFIED 8-bit LCD display (note- one of the Apple Cinema Displays is ONLY 6-bit, so buyer beware), or use a CRT. The CRT still provides more colors than any LCD display, AND you don't have to worry about the viewing angle problem that plagues most LCD displays. (Shift your head up or down, right or left and you will see the contrast and color quality of lower quality LCD displays change. This ruins them for professional use).
:-Derek Currie
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Is the 27" iMac display exactly the same as the 27" ACD?

I'm looking at updating my existing set up and want to know whether the above displays are exactly the same. From memory the ACD's were usually of a better quality compared to the iMac displays. Have they achieved parity now? Where will I find full specifications as I can't find them for the iMac - only that they are ips displays, and the resolution and speaker wattage.
Thanks guys.

Read the specifications on each (available on Apple's site) and you will have all the information you need.
This displays's specifications are at:
http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html
The computer's specifications can be found by typing in your serial number at:
http://support.apple.com/specs/
Roger

Colour Calibration / White Point setting - Is Imac Display really professional quality

I am trying to calibrate my imac 27" using i1 Display2 calibration software. I am trying to set a traget of 6500 using the software but it advises the current is only 5600 and suggests moving the RGB sliders to get this current white point up to my 6500 target. Unfortunatly i have no idea where i find these sliders on my imac. Can anyone advise how i change my current white point to get to the 6500 target?
Also, on the brightness issue, does shades work to reduce my brightness or will it simply interfere with my colour calibration?
Finally, i was going to use my iMac for professional photography. (Mainly on line but some print work required). Honestly, is the iMac display up to the job or should i consider changing
Thanks
Gary

Corbybhy, the glossy screen is the biggest and silliest myth out there. Really.
I have been a professional art director & designer for over 26 years, and by the way, for many years my high end professional CRTS were made of glass (and glossy). Another myth is that the screens cannot be calibrated, and are too bright. Hogwash. I use Spyder3Pro and have had few problems, guessing your device will be the same. Actually, the monitors seem to stay consistant for a heck of a lot longer than the old high end CRTs did. In the old days, most professionals calibrated to 5000k, but these days 6500k is the standard.
The amount of MISINFORMATION that is being spewed always amazes me. If you can keep your lighting consistant and somewhat dim, your life will be easier. Reflections are simply not a major issue, and are also overblown as a issue (by the way, my iMac sits next to a window, I just use shades to dim the ambient light).
I work mostly in print, and produce mostly publications, advertising & marketing materials. I have ZERO issues with my screen matching my proofs. ZERO. I do a huge amount of imaging, retouching & post-processing... all from my 27" iMac.

Latest iMac display vs. Cinema Display

I posted this also on the Intel Mac Displays area, but wasn't sure if that was the best place.
I'm hoping to get a new Mac for graphic design at work. I'd love to get a tower unit and 23" display, but I may need to save the company money and go for the iMac with maximum RAM. At home, I have a 20" Cinema Display with my G5 and a 17" iMac (all just prior to Intel conversion). The iMac display doesn't look as clear and sharp as the Cinema Display.
Can anyone tell me how the latest iMac 24" display compares with a 23" Cinema Display, as far as quality of what you see? Is the graphics card the determining factor?

I'm not sure why you would think the 17 inch iMac didn't look as clear as the 23 inch cinema display. I've seen a fair few of them, and they look fine to me.. The graphics card shouldn't have anything to do with it.
I've seen a 24 inch iMac and both the clear and metal 23 inch Cinema displays, and the display quality seems comparable to me. If anything, the metal cinema display and iMac are better than the clear cinema display.

How do you know the best iMac display size

how do you know the best iMac display size
Only on them fits in the screen window and that makes the font so tiny. The others are too wide or too tall. I usually view at 150 - 200% for vision issues.

You say it's better to do the Media Browser? I'm fairly new to movie, dvd and garage band. How would I go about using the Media Browser instead of straight to iDVD?
Select Your project - go up to Share - Share to Media Browser and as Large (Not HD)
In iDVD select a nice theme - click on Media button - click on Movie - Select Your movie.
NOW - Save as a DiskImage - and test this before burning DVDs - if this Plays OK then either burn the Image by using Disk Util tool (and set down burn-speed to x4) - or burn via iDVD (will take more time)
I want to keep as much quality as I can.
Then don't use iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - as they all discard every second line resulting in less quality on the DVD. I use iMovie HD6 or FinalCut any version.
Also...I tried to split my project in iMovie...but couldn't find a way. I wound up just making a copy and then deleting out a handful of scenes from the copy...I still have the original at 4:12hrs. Is there a way in iMovie to split a project?
I would make a copy and cut away a bit from the end - calling this Part 1 and from start of the other copy Part 2.
OR - there are other programs that can squees in more to a DVD e.g. Roxio Toast™ - BUT this has two cons.
• It costs - to me it was well spent mony as it can so much more e.g. back engineer a DVD to an editable form
• Squeesing in more on a DVD - costs in QUALITY - and as You want as much as it can be - then 90 minuts portions encoded with Pro-Quality encoding and full quality interlasced material from a video-editor that delivers this is the way to get 100% of what DVDs can do.
DVD is as standard only SD-Video - HD not possibly. Then You need Blu-Ray. (also Roxio Toast™)
Yours Bengt W

27" iMac Display

Hiya guys,
General opinions on the newest 27" iMac model in terms of display quality?
I heard it's glossy-ness has caused a lot of fuss. How is 1080p screening?
Purchased one, awaiting delivery.
Thanks in advance!

I just went to an Apple store and picked up a new 27" i5. Out of the box and on it's second day I can only describe this machine as awesome. Everything on my machine is perfect and it all tests out great. No display issues (thank the maker) and a quantum step ahead of my two g4 machines. I hope to see more positive testimonials about these machines as the weeks go by and issues are resolved. I wish the best of luck to those still battling the display problems and can say mine seems defect free and BEAUTIFUL so far, so keep the faith.

Putting iMac display to sleep, when using TV as a screen.

I have just connected my iMac to my 42" Panasonic 1080p TV, the connection was easy and is working fine. My questions relates to putting the iMac display to sleep when using the TV as a monitor, if I am watching You Tube, Sky Player or a DVD, I intend to use my TV as the monitor. Is it possible for the iMac to puts its display to sleep, whilst leaving the TV on. I played around with this today, however was unable to manage this.
Regards Craig

Hi Craig
There is no way to independently sleep either the iMac's Display or an attached Display/TV. However if in the Display Arrangement Preferences you set the attached Display or TV to be the Main Display and turn Mirroring Off, then FrontRow and the Full Screen Mode app's like, DVD player, QuickTimePlayer, etc. will black out the unused iMac display.
Dennis

Intel imac display glitch and involuntary restart

Just want to know if anyone else has experienced this specific problem, there are plenty of complaints about intel imac displays but I can't be bothered to sift through them all trying to find a match for my problem.
A couple of months ago I was watching a video in quicktime and noticed that my screen was glitching and flashing fragmented diagonal lines - like a commodore 64 loading type thing. Then the spinning-ball came up and a force quit didn't do anything so I had to force shut down. I started up and it occured again. Then the screen went blank/black, but still lit up, and restarted without me doing anything. It also got stuck during start up the second time this occured. I panicked and ran out to buy a 500GB external drive, backed up all of my work and then re-installed mac osx from disk, archive and install job. This seemed to sort it and for the following two months it seemed OK. No sign of any problems.
Since then I have updated from 10.4.7 to 10.4.10 (which I have suspicion that it screwed the firmware in my motu 828 firewire audio interface, costing me a £130 repair - but that's another painful story).
It happened again tonight (the screen thing, not the motu). And the ball came up and I couldn't do anything. Force shut down, restart - screen glitching again. Then I had 2 unexpected restarts, one getting stuck in startup. Then a successful startup but accompanied by the glitchy graphics, mainly red/pink pixellated diagonal lines flickering in and out. I ran a disk first aid - no problems. Did a disk permission repair. Shut down and ran a hardware test, the first few minutes of the test the screen was still at it but then stopped glitching, hardware test found no errors (it was an extended test too). Now I'm back on it and it's all OK.
Any suggestions/similar stories?
When it occured 2 months ago I had the original ram that came with the imac. Now I have 2x1GB sticks of crucial ram.

That's it! Well, that's what I have. Unfortunately, I don't know about the cause, but I don't ever recall having it prior to an update going back about a year ago. I recall an update, and that update being immediately followed by some sort of Apple Graphics something-or-other. I feel pretty certain that's when I first noticed this. I just had my LCD replaced for another reason, but I think you'll agree, it's not an LCD issue. In my case, browser activity, scrolling up or down in a page, seems to be the most common trigger. I've also seen "pieces" of the torn page, on the screen when minimizing the browser to the dock (usually Firefox, but I think I've seen it with Opera and Safari too). Is there a way to find update packages installed somewhere? I'd know it if I saw it, and I'd definitely try removing that suspect package/update.
Message was edited by: geekboy2000 - corrected OS

User Contributed Tips in Intel-based iMac Your Intel-based iMac Display

*The following User Contributed Tips are located in the Intel-based iMac > Your Intel-based iMac Display forum:*
a brody - Using a second Mac as a display for a first
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1587927
Publish date: July 7, 2008
*The following related tips are located in other areas of Apple Discussions:*
See also User Tips Library

My 20" 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo had become almost useless due to freezes and crashes- with NO crash reports in the logs.
They were often preceeded by video glitches, so I assumed it was a bad video card- unfortunately soldered to mother board.
Apparently, from forum postings, this is not an uncommon problem. The computer would run longer if the day was cooler, but rarely more than 10 minutes, so I suspected it was aggravated by heat.
Then I found this post from Bodomann on an Apple Support forum:
"Following up on my previous posting regarding my son's late model 2006 iMac that required a $900 logic board replacement:
Turns out the problem is apparently related to a bad CPU temp sensor. I installed 'iMac Fan Control' (Google it) which reported the CPU temp always at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (obviously incorrect). The same software allowed me to adjust the CPU fan manually. After multiple trials I set the CPU speed to 2800RPM after which the system would run forever - never freezing with the dreaded grey box 'reboot me' screen. I tried several times reverting the software to default speeds and the system would always crash within 10 minutes. "
I downloaded free Fan Control 1.2 for Imac from Derman Enterprises (they have an Intel iMac and a Mac Book/Pro version). It installs as a system preferences control panel. I cranked up all three fan speeds. The fans sped up noticeably. Horizontal lines have gone from screen (so far), no color artifacts and no crashes yet. I may have a real computer back! Hope Apple checks this out-
The control panel also gives the temps sensors are reporting at the CPU, hard drive and DVD drive. The CPU sensor reports the CPU temp as 32 degrees F- which is clearly wrong, unless Apple has been installing little refrigerators inside.
So thanks to Bodomann for posting- Hats off and three cheers to Derman and Cristoph for source code.
http://www.derman.com/iMac-Fan-Control
http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/index.html

When streaming a movie from an imac to apple tv, is there a way of putting the imac display off? I find it a waste having the screen on in another room. Any advice?

When streaming a movie from an imac to apple tv, is there a way of putting the imac display off? I find it a waste having the screen on in another room. Any advice?

No problem.
This is a user forum so you are not addressing Apple. There's nothing to fix, that's how home-sharing works. There would be no way for the ATV to recognize your library and display content if the computer is in sleep mode.
You can always airplay from an IOS device or use icloud if you don't wish to keep the computer on.

IMac - Display doesn´t work after restart

My iMac 21 Display doesn´t work after restart. If I turn it off and 1 hour later I want use it again the iMac shows the white screen with the mac logo and then the display goes off. I connected an external display to check if the iMac was ON and with the external display I can login and do everything but the iMac Display doesn´t work .
If I turn it off and wait 3 or 4 hours and then turn it back on the display works OK.
This is very strange behavior I have spent hours and hours trying to fine the solution or a similar issue but nothing so I am looking help here at apple.com
BTW When I bougth the iMac 21 there were some spots over the display so the display was replaced by the provider. The warranty has expired by now.

To tell you the truth, I don't know if they have to repalce the LCD panel or what they do for a bad backlight. In this reality of block or assembly replacement it probably involves repalcing the panel and not the backlight component. Don't know what it would cost. You'd have to ask that of a service center.

Why does my iMac display go off when I am starting up or waking up my machine from sleep..

Why does my iMac display go off when I am starting up or waking up my machine from sleep..?
When my iMac goes to sleep I then later try to click the magic track pad or keyboard and it will usually then show the initial password entry login screen and then go off. The machine is still on but the display is black and will sometimes flash up the screen again if I press the magic track pad or keyboard but will then black out again..

Well, there are many different reasons why it does this. It might shut off due to power voltage problems, system overheats, or there is a System Problem. The reason it might be hard to boot up is because your power button might not work properly or your system hard drive is damaged.
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IMac Display Quality vs ACD

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