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second hand cinema display...

I

i0Nic

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 17, 2006
1,456
68
Sydney, Australia
Hey guys, a friend is selling his 20" cinema display and I want to buy it. However I'd like to know if these displays fade or somehow degrade over time as he has had it for over a year and a half.

Cheers.
 
The backlights on all LCDs deteriorate over time. That's just a fact of life. But they have a long life. I personally wouldn't worry about buying a used one, if it was used by a trusted person, in particular, unless it was used 24x7x365....
 
mkrishnan said:
The backlights on all LCDs deteriorate over time. That's just a fact of life. But they have a long life. I personally wouldn't worry about buying a used one, if it was used by a trusted person, in particular, unless it was used 24x7x365....
Click to expand...
It's been used quite a lot... however he says that never at full brightness levels, always on one of the lowest brightness settings.
 
Again though even if it has been used a lot, these things have AppleCare that run on them for three years - and Apple isn't in the business to loose money on replacing loads of backlights.

Incidentally, how much does it cost to replace a backlight if you need to?
 
There is rumor of new displays next week. You might want to be patient. Just a heads up. But then again there is always a rumor!! ;)
 
Yeah, one of the longstanding rumors is that the displays would get iSights in them to "complete" the transition to the iSight integrated way of doing things. Who knows if it will happen. Would not be surprised either way. But then you won't get a new display at a used price anyway.

My personal guess is that the typical LCD display should be fine for moderate usage levels for at least five or six years, and heavy usage levels for at least about four years.... But those numbers are wild-ass guesses. They get dimmer over time, but frank broken backlight reports are uncommon until you get to relatively old hardware....
 
Yeah ofcourse I'll wait till WWDC to see if theres new cinema displays, however I can't see them being much of an improvement on the design of the current ones. An isight camera wouldn't be enough to tempt me to purchase one over a much cheaper second hand option.
 
i0Nic said:
AUD$700, the retail price with student discount is AUD$1090
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great price to me. I don't know what that is in U.S. dollars but it sounds good. If you are nervous about the quality then get him to sign something saying you have 14 days to return it back to him for a full refund if it doesn't work properly. That is only fair.
 
Yeah, have a look at the surface of the display to see if there are any permanent scratches, etc., and check for dead pixels. Even if there are a few, at least you'll know what you're getting, unlike when you order a new one. If there's a dead pixel off to the side, for example, it would be preferable to getting a new one with a dead pixel right in the middle!

It's also worth noting that screen burn-in—a problem with CRT displays—isn't a worry for LCD screens.
 
MY CRT shakes violently. Gets really anoying. Especially int he corners of the screen. Very noticible and will drive someone nuts when typing a paper or doing some for extended periods of time. LCD > CRT. Buy the second hand lcd screen. I would. There wont be much improvements with new lcds. That is of course, you want the responce time from 14ms to like 8ms? like ur gona notice a difference i nthat...
 
I bought a 22" ACD when they first came out, and it's still 100% perfect. Never had a problem. I don't know if the later ones are as reliable.
 
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