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Where's my 4k 27" Thunderbolt Display ?
- Thread starter Radiating
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Has it been dragging it's feet? 4K standards are not standard yet, and all Apple retina screens so far have had pixel doubling. 4K would fall far short of pixel doubling the current 27" screen.
I think most 4k screens around that size are 28 inchers are VN panels. Don't know of any 27 inch 4K off the top of my head.
Only IPS ones (or equivalent) are the 24 and 32 inchers. I have been tempted by the larger ones as an all in one multimedia screen.
Only IPS ones (or equivalent) are the 24 and 32 inchers. I have been tempted by the larger ones as an all in one multimedia screen.
Yeah basically the Sharp k321 IGZO (and it's Asus and Dell clones 3214Q, and PQ321), is the only game in town for most pros, but their back lighting technology is still very poor among other issues.
The hope is that Apple is going to release a much better 4k display.
Since they missed to introduce proper UI scaling with Yosemite, I don't know what the future will bring. Probably they'll wait until a 28"/27" 5k panel is available and sell it as the new retina Thunderbolt Display.
No one knows if the nMP will ever be able to drive such a thing.
So maybe, just maybe they will come up with a 24" 4k pixel doubled retina solution of their own. I would really hate to loose the work screen estate of my 27" displays.
It's a trapped situation if you ask me. No ideal solution anywhere in sight.
No one knows if the nMP will ever be able to drive such a thing.
So maybe, just maybe they will come up with a 24" 4k pixel doubled retina solution of their own. I would really hate to loose the work screen estate of my 27" displays.
It's a trapped situation if you ask me. No ideal solution anywhere in sight.
The backlighting colour uniformity issue was why I gave up on an iMac and went to the nMP.
I read a review of the TN 4k Samsung panel that said the colour was not uniform either.
I have not seen any bad info on the k321 or clones, do you have a pointer? I am hoping that an Apple 4k screen will be a good choice - the rumour was AUO would be the producer of a 27" screen.
Cheers,
Matt
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While the Dell 3214Q shares the same IGZO panel, it uses a wide gamut backlight which is different from the Sharp/Asus.
True but it's still a PWM backlight, which isn't as good as Apple's:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation.htm
Ideally you want high gamut and non-PWM in a pro monitor.
It's better waiting.
Current 4K standards have big chances to become non-standard in the future. It's not just streaming 4*1080p pixels to a display. A good compression protocol is needed. Even a nMP is unable to sustain a stream of uncompressed 4K data. The reason is not a lack of processing power, but I/O buffers. One second of uncompressed 4K video at 60fps would require a faster PCIe SSD (faster than 20Gbps).
If Apple already supports 4K video in some displays and some Macs, it's just a workaround for early adopters. It's not the 4K protocol that will be widely adopted in the future...
Current 4K standards have big chances to become non-standard in the future. It's not just streaming 4*1080p pixels to a display. A good compression protocol is needed. Even a nMP is unable to sustain a stream of uncompressed 4K data. The reason is not a lack of processing power, but I/O buffers. One second of uncompressed 4K video at 60fps would require a faster PCIe SSD (faster than 20Gbps).
If Apple already supports 4K video in some displays and some Macs, it's just a workaround for early adopters. It's not the 4K protocol that will be widely adopted in the future...
It sounds like you're talking about 4K video content which is a bit of a mess. Here we're talking about 4K desktop computer displays which use the Displayport interconnect standard and GPUs with large frame buffers and plenty of bandwidth. There's no issue with bandwidth or I/O buffers outputting 4K at 60Hz over display port. DP1.2 easily handles 4K. DP 1.3 will support 8K. The only issue with early 4K displays for desktop use is the fact that they rely on multi-stream transport to drive the large panels, although that is also a standard so it's not going away. Of course, the newer panels will use a single stream which is more elegant and future proof.
Bottom line, if you need a large high-density panel today, the technology is there. However, the technology is rapidly improving all the time (like anything) and delaying purchase will of course benefit those who can afford to wait.
Personally, I'm waiting for Apple or someone else to offer an IPS 4K panel with decent specs that uses SST (rather than MST).
OS X did have "proper UI scaling" at one point:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060119152725322
It didn't work well with a lot of scales. Third party apps got broken.
So it was removed, and we have the scaling system we have today. The old UI scaling way isn't coming back, and Apple is no longer telling third party devs to code their apps with it in mind.
"Proper UI scaling" isn't coming, there are no plans for it, and if you're waiting for it, you're going to be waiting forever.
I have a MBPro for home use, but am about to get an 13" MBA for work. I need to replace my PC laptop setup with dual display. I am so frustrated with the poor reviews of the TB Display, I want to wait. Just not forever! When is the updated display (with USB 3.0, powered ports, better performance, fixed sleep/docking issues) coming???
I don't think 4k is necessary.
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Probably not. They do need to refresh the apple display though to a thinner retina type display for $999.
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Probably not. They do need to refresh the apple display though to a thinner retina type display for $999.
What poor reviews of the TB display? The Thunderbolt display is third best monitor money can buy around 27" behind HP's 2 dream color displays and excluding Sony's $21,000 pro displays.
It's just that we are at the beginning of a revolution and Apple hasn't entered the race yet and people want them to.
Just looking at Apple's own site... there are 288 reviews and 78 people saying One Star and comments saying "Don't Buy". Mostly issues with trying to get the monitor to find USB devices (keyboards, peripherals), waking up from sleep, then wish list items like USB 3.0... and... biggest of all, there are many people raving about their new monitor, but a disturbing number of people complaining about monitors dying after one or two years. All makes me think it is worth waiting for the new replacement (since this model has been around for some time).. I want to buy a dual monitor setup, and I'd be pretty upset if I spend $2k USD on two monitors, only to have this model replaced in the next 6-12 months.
likely you'll have to wait until at least fall for the new 4k screens. fall is where new hardware such as the iphone/ipad/mac mini, etc will be introduced. it's always been around fall, especially with 4k being so damn on the horizon.