I am not old enough to pretend I have touched the very first few CRT ones. The earliest that I have personally seen anything Apple was probably an LC 520 at a friend's house whose father was a doctor, and I was like 9. The first time that I had actually used was probably that CRT Studio Display that went with a blue & white Power Mac G3 in my highschool, we were using it to make yearbooks with PageMakers or something. But that thing had pretty unreliable power issues, and wasn't particularly good in display quality, and we had SONY trinitron as replacements (which were so much brighter and sharp) and never bothered fixing or using the Apple one again.
I think my personal best experience with an Apple display was the 1280x1024 15" LCD during the Cube era. At that time I was in art school, in labs we used this with Quicksilver G4 and later some G5 towers. Great aspect ratio, DVI, panel that was considered one of the best at the time, incredibly good looking form factor that doesn't compromise functions.
The ADC Cinema displays down the few years afterwards were not bad, but it was a time when other manufactures were catching up in using flat panels more effectively and affordably, often with much better connectivity. Later the 30" and then the Thunderbolt series also started pushing Apple displays into the "way too expensive for what it offers" category. The thunderbolt daisy chain or the Magsafe features while useful, but it was more exclusive for Apple products and again nothing to do with visual quality. And then the decision to go glossy was the final coffin nail for me, you simply can't take it seriously.
I think my personal best experience with an Apple display was the 1280x1024 15" LCD during the Cube era. At that time I was in art school, in labs we used this with Quicksilver G4 and later some G5 towers. Great aspect ratio, DVI, panel that was considered one of the best at the time, incredibly good looking form factor that doesn't compromise functions.
The ADC Cinema displays down the few years afterwards were not bad, but it was a time when other manufactures were catching up in using flat panels more effectively and affordably, often with much better connectivity. Later the 30" and then the Thunderbolt series also started pushing Apple displays into the "way too expensive for what it offers" category. The thunderbolt daisy chain or the Magsafe features while useful, but it was more exclusive for Apple products and again nothing to do with visual quality. And then the decision to go glossy was the final coffin nail for me, you simply can't take it seriously.
