Any 24" owners w/ a good screen?

[Leon Kowalski]

I had no idea there were ISO standards for LCD monitors, outside of safety issues. Perhaps LCD is not ready for prime time professional use; at least not the monitors Apple is using for their iMacs.

Not ready for prime time? Well, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of monitors in the 22" to 24.1" size range with TCO'03 certification. And BTW, the TCO requirements for "luminance uniformity" aren't particularly demanding; most monitors pass by a wide margin -- including 'prestigeous' brand names like Acer, Samsung, and PackardBell. Click on "Search for Certified Products" at http://www.tcodevelopment.com/ -- not exactly what you'd call an exclusive fraternity.

Yep, they're all guaranteed to be three times better than my iMac -- but usually score five to ten times better in published reviews (e.g., ExtremeTech.com). OTOH, my iMac is the same (or slightly better) than any of four Apple showroom samples I measured ...and four others I inspected at a second Apple Store ...and photos of at least a dozen others posted on various forums. So far, the 24" ALU iMac is battin' 1000 on my score card.

Apple is very well aware of ergonomic standards - and sometimes even pretends to take them seriously: "Apple designs, tests and certifies our displays to meet stringent visual ergonomics (front of screen) criteria." Those are Apple's words, not mine -- in a document referring specifically to 24" iMacs, no less.

...all that's missing is a stringent definition of "stringent,"

LK

 

[Leon Kowalski]

My 23" Cinema display was patchy from corner to corner to the center.

If your ADC was even half as bad as my iMac (photos above), it was grossly out of spec, and you got hosed. Apple advertises the ACDs as TCO'03-certified -- that means a 50% worst case difference between min and max brightness. I'm measuring 150%.

Let it go or return the iMac but why post pics to point out the so-called anomaly? Posting pics doesn't help anyone especially if people are already accepting of what they have.

If you don't like the pics, close your eyes. If you wish to read nothing but glowing praise for Stevie's wonders, stick with http://www.apple.com ...

...but avoid the discussion boards,

LK

 

[SaSaSushi]

If your ADC was even half as bad as my iMac (photos above), it was grossly out of spec, and you got hosed. Apple advertises the ACDs as TCO'03-certified -- that means a 50% worst case difference between min and max brightness. I'm measuring 150%.

So why not get your money back on the iMac and go buy a Packard Bell or an HP or maybe even a Dell? Maybe that new Gateway iMac-style all-in-one has a nice display.

I read your other post in which you mentioned seeing a number of iMacs in the Apple Store that were even worse than your own. Wouldn't it have been more sensible for you to do such research before purchasing?

If you don't like the pics, close your eyes. If you wish to read nothing but glowing praise for Stevie's wonders, stick with http://www.apple.com ...

...but avoid the discussion boards,

You seem to go to that "you're a Steve worshipper" bit a lot. Trust me, there are zealots at either extreme in these forums. I believe, however, that the vast majority of posters are unbiased users who simply use the forums as they were designed to discuss Apple products and have no other personal agendas.

It sounds like the iMac's not for you. Why continue to punish yourself? If, as you say, all the machines in the Apple Store are even worse than your own what are the odds of you ever getting a machine that satisfies you?

Even if someone posts a picture in here of an iMac display you consider acceptable what is that going to do for you unless you can get Apple to ship you one just like it? Why even bother in here is the point?

I doubt many of the typical iMac users are using luminance meters to spec their iMac displays. Our own eyes are our luminance meters and noone would think of making such measurements anyway unless our own eyes detected an anomaly to begin with.

Then again, I also doubt that many of the typical iMac users are relying on their machines in a digital photography-related business. It is, after all, a consumer machine.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

So why not get your money back on the iMac and go buy a Packard Bell or an HP or maybe even a Dell? Maybe that new Gateway iMac-style all-in-one has a nice display.

I read your other post in which you mentioned seeing a number of iMacs in the Apple Store that were even worse than your own. Wouldn't it have been more sensible for you to do such research before purchasing?



You seem to go to that "you're a Steve worshipper" bit a lot. Trust me, there are zealots at either extreme in these forums. I believe, however, that the vast majority of posters are unbiased users who simply use the forums as they were designed to discuss Apple products and have no other personal agendas.

It sounds like the iMac's not for you. Why continue to punish yourself? If, as you say, all the machines in the Apple Store are even worse than your own what are the odds of you ever getting a machine that satisfies you?

Even if someone posts a picture in here of an iMac display you consider acceptable what is that going to do for you unless you can get Apple to ship you one just like it? Why even bother in here is the point?

I doubt many of the typical iMac users are using luminance meters to spec their iMac displays. Our own eyes are our luminance meters and noone would think of making such measurements anyway unless our own eyes detected an anomaly to begin with.

Then again, I also doubt that many of the typical iMac users are relying on their machines in a digital photography-related business. It is, after all, a consumer machine.

I couldn't have said it better myself Sushi.

While I DEFINITELY don't use my iMac for professional photography, I'm just a freelancer and it's my hobby. I find it more than suitable for my applications. Maybe I have a better screen than the average, or maybe my eyes are just shot, who knows. But it's fine for me.

As for Leon, I think Sushi is right, quit punishing yourself. Taken from what you've said in countless posts, you are obviously not happy.

But going back to what I already quoted from Dan, most all LCD's have these problems. I'm sure you could pay probably $3000 on the best top quality professional medical, science research, cad, photography display. And maybe be happy with it, but that kinda quality in a consumer computer or display, good luck bro.

Take it back.

Over and out.

 

[phillipjfry]

I donno about all that stuff above, but I love my 24'' iMac monitor and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen when plugged in. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever. I'm not picky but I couldn't really think of having something better

 

[Kovacs]

I donno about all that stuff above, but I love my 24'' iMac monitor and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen when plugged in. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever. I'm not picky but I couldn't really think of having something better

Same here! It's a marvel. And since I work with music production the screen estate is simply stunning.

 

[Leon Kowalski]

So why not get your money back on the iMac and go buy a Packard Bell or an HP or maybe even a Dell?

Thanks for the unsolicited helpful advice, but I already have several 24" Dell displays -- connected to more HP/Xeon/Windoze computing horsepower than you're ever likely to see in a Mac Pro. I've been doing' this stuff for a living since long before Apple or Microsoft existed.

My $2k iMac investment was purely for the stable, commercial-quality, unix platform; the Xcode development tools, and a few very cool applications that only run on OS-X. I don't give a rat's rump about the iMac's weenie-powered laptop CPUs. They're adequate for my intended uses -- not a symbol of iManlyManhood. Apple has yet to build any hardware in that class.

If Apple won't fix the disgraceful ALU iMacs, I can always upgrade to the 24" Late_2006 model -- but I'm not quite ready to roll over and accept the lame "only a consumer model" excuse. Why don't they just close up shop and shift all their retail sales to Wal*Mart?

Even if someone posts a picture in here of an iMac display you consider acceptable what is that going to do for you unless you can get Apple to ship you one just like it? Why even bother in here is the point?

Want to shut me up? All it takes is ONE photograph. Just ONE.

I doubt many of the typical iMac users are using luminance meters to spec their iMac displays.

Didya ever hear of a "digital camera?" Well, 99% of 'em make perfectly good luminance meters -- far exceeding what's needed to detect the gross POS-ness of the ALU IMac displays. OTOH, if you can't handle the truth, it's prolly a good idea to assiduously avoid measurements of any sort.

...have a blissful day,

LK

 

[Leon Kowalski]

But going back to what I already quoted from Dan, most all LCD's have these problems.

Proof by repeated assertion? I challenge you to cite ONE test or review -- of any monitor in any price range -- with brightness uniformity measurements even half as bad as either ALU iMac.

LK

 

[vansouza]

sour

Why don't we just stop already? We might think some are neurotic perfectionists and some think we are apple fan boyz times 10. So be it. Some are not happy with their screens and some, the majority I suspect, are thrilled. Perhaps it is time to just let it die.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I couldn't have said it better myself Sushi.

While I DEFINITELY don't use my iMac for professional photography, I'm just a freelancer and it's my hobby. I find it more than suitable for my applications. Maybe I have a better screen than the average, or maybe my eyes are just shot, who knows. But it's fine for me.

As for Leon, I think Sushi is right, quit punishing yourself. Taken from what you've said in countless posts, you are obviously not happy.

But going back to what I already quoted from Dan, most all LCD's have these problems. I'm sure you could pay probably $3000 on the best top quality professional medical, science research, cad, photography display. And maybe be happy with it, but that kinda quality in a consumer computer or display, good luck bro.

Take it back.

Over and out.

No, there's nothing wrong with our eyes.

By the way not to get off topic, Rev, but I wanted to thank you for your excellent posting to the Ars Technica forums with tips on installing Catalyst drivers in Boot Camp and benchmarks. I'm really hoping the optimized drivers in Leopard Boot Camp will help with Bioshock. It's the only game I have to play at less than native resolution for the moment.

The games ALL look awesome on this display anyway.

Cheers.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

No, there's nothing wrong with our eyes.

By the way not to get off topic, Rev, but I wanted to thank you for your excellent posting to the Ars Technica forums with tips on installing Catalyst drivers in Boot Camp and benchmarks. I'm really hoping the optimized drivers in Leopard Boot Camp will help with Bioshock. It's the only game I have to play at less than native resolution for the moment.

The games ALL look awesome on this display anyway.

Cheers.

Thanks.

Bioshock and Battlefield 2142 are indeed the only games I can't play native. I blame BF2142 on it's horrible optimization, cause it definitely doesn't run as good as it looks.

I'm more worried about being able to play Unreal Tournament 3 when it comes out. Being that Bioshock is run on the Unreal 3 engine. and UT is a very fast paced online game, I need to maintain a much higher FPS than I do in Bioshock.

I hope with the release of Leopard we start seeing more than piss poor support in the OSX drivers for the ATI HD series cards, I literally cant stand playing any game in OSX right now the performance is so slugish, Quake 4 gets over 100fps on the Windows side, yet gets ~20fps on the OSX side with the same settings, and it goes for more than just Q4 also.

UT2004 on OSX side is unplayable, yeah I know it's not gonna run perfect cause it runs under Rosetta, but I have a friend with a 2.2Ghz MBP, with the 8600GT 128MB, he plays it maxed out at native res in OSX, I can't even play it at 800x600 in medium settings, yet I can play it at 85fps in XP at 1920x1200, maxed out. And I know for a fact that the HD 2600 series is faster than the MBP 8600 GT M cause I've proven it with my own benchmarks.

Common Apple, people wanna game in OSX too.

 

[HLdan]

Why don't we just stop already? We might think some are neurotic perfectionists and some think we are apple fan boyz times 10. So be it. Some are not happy with their screens and some, the majority I suspect, are thrilled. Perhaps it is time to just let it die.

Agreed, but the people on here (and some are more obvious than others LK) will buy the iMac, complain about the imperfections until the cows come home, talk crap about Apple's undelivered promises but still keep the product. If someone is going to buy a product and keep it then they are accepting for what it is so at this point they need to shut it.
Sometimes it seems like the repeatedly complaining posters want people to either feel stupid for buying the iMac and join in their misery or want you to agree with them to start a protest against Apple or they are just trolling.

 

[HLdan]

UT2004 on OSX side is unplayable, yeah I know it's not gonna run perfect cause it runs under Rosetta, but I have a friend with a 2.2Ghz MBP, with the 8600GT 128MB, he plays it maxed out at native res in OSX, I can't even play it at 800x600 in medium settings, yet I can play it at 85fps in XP at 1920x1200, maxed out. And I know for a fact that the HD 2600 series is faster than the MBP 8600 GT M cause I've proven it with my own benchmarks.

Common Apple, people wanna game in OSX too.

UT2004 has a downloadable UB patch and plays beautifully at full settings on my new iMac. I don't know any late 3D games that aren't UB as Rosetta would make games unusable.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

UT2004 has a downloadable UB patch and plays beautifully at full settings on my new iMac. I don't know any late 3D games that aren't UB as Rosetta would make games unusable.

Oh really?

Cause I just tried the demo, played horrible.

 

[Leon Kowalski]

Sometimes it seems like the repeatedly complaining posters want people to either feel stupid for buying the iMac and join in their misery or want you to agree with them to start a protest against Apple or they are just trolling.

...would I be safe in interpreting that to mean you don't own a camera?

LK

.

 

[HLdan]

Oh really?

Cause I just tried the demo, played horrible.

This is the update version 3369.2. It ads UB support to UT2004. Not sure if it works with the demo but I have the full version it it flies on my iMac with the update on max settings.http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22450

 

[RevToTheRedline]

This is the update version 3369.2. It ads UB support to UT2004. Not sure if it works with the demo but I have the full version it it flies on my iMac with the update on max settings.http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22450

I found a tutorial online to make my Windows DVD of UT2004 work on OSX, all I needed was the latest OSX demo, and the latest OSX patch, and my DVD for UT2004, and my CD key. and 5 easy steps, works flawless, just as smooth as windows at 1920x1200, max settings.

I'm pretty happy, saved myself $25-30 and I find this to be 100% legal, I didn't crack anything, and used my retail CD.

 

[mavis]

I just wanted to add that the screen on my new 24" (sig) is as close to perfect as I was hoping it would be. There's a slight bit of backlight irregularity (which I expected) but after turning the brightness all the way down and calibrating with my Spyder2Pro, it looks pretty damn good!! No dead/stuck pixels, and no color shifting. I am a happy camper!