Newer 30" screens vs apple 30" cinema display? any feedback

[nigel1210]

I'm looking at getting a 30" screen to go with my new mac pro i'm getting. I will be using it for graphic design ( photoshop, indesign etc), logic pro, ableton live and maybe later on flash and after effects.

I can get the acd 30" for just under ?1000 with he discount. How does this compare to other 30" screens? I've seen the nec 30" lcd3090 but this is around ?1600 which is way over my budget.

Just after some feedback on the acd and how it compares to current screens.

Any thoughts on this appreciated

[dotoko]

I wouldn't recommend the Apple 30" Display, it's a nice piece of kit but I didn't think it really did anything above and beyond what any other monitor would do.

Do you even need a 30" for that matter? I though I did but I recently replaced my 30" ACD + PowerMac G5 with an aluminum macbook and the new 24" LED display and I must say the 24" is a much better size if you're sat at a desk. The colors on the LED are another world too, it's actually the first Mac Display I've ever had that will play a movie full screen without butchering the blacks.

[nigel1210]

Basically I want it for the extra resolution it will give me over the 24". Also I'm not keen on the glossy finish on the 24" cinema.

Desk Space isn't a problem as it's going to be wall mounted.

Did you calibrate your 30" acd when you had it?

[Strolls]

I wouldn't recommend the Apple 30" Display, it's a nice piece of kit but I didn't think it really did anything above and beyond what any other monitor would do.

Do you even need a 30" for that matter? I though I did but I recently replaced my 30" ACD + PowerMac G5 with an aluminum macbook and the new 24" LED display and I must say the 24" is a much better size if you're sat at a desk.

The 30" is a higher resolution. It's 2560 x 1600 as opposed to 1920 x 1200 of the 24".

I've been using twin 1600 x 1200 monitors for over 5 years - previously 19" Trinitron CRTs, recently upgraded to 20" Dell TFTs - and looking at the specs of the 24", I don't find it very compelling, to be honest.

I don't mean to be critical of what you're happy with, it's just what I'm now used to, and I have long found myself easily able to spread out over all the space available to me. Looking at the specs of the 24", it looks about the same vertical height & resolution of my displays, but my desktop space is a good extra foot wider.

I was in the Apple Store today, for the first time & just because I thought it'd be faster to get a repair done their than send it away (apparently not), and saw the 30" for the first time. I find the 30" really very impressive.

To be fair, I haven't seen the 24", and I'm generally cynical about widescreens. I've used plenty of them but only upto, I guess, about 21", but I have never before seen one that made me go "oh, wow! that looks nice" (not even "wow! widescreens aren't so bad after all"). Basically the Apple 30" is good enough that I might consider switching - it actually makes me wonder if perhaps this is the effect I've been trying all these years to achieve with my 2 x 4:3 monitors. It kinda makes me wonder if I'm compromising at present, but I didn't sit down with it and play enough to really fall in love. ?1000 would be very hard to justify when I'm pretty happy having paid ?250 secondhand for what I've got now.

Nigel: I would suggest you ask on somewhere like the DP review or Talk Photography forums if you're interested in this monitor for graphic design & are thinking about colour calibration. There are FAR more people on there who will have tried it - I know on the DP review site there are people who make very decent livings at wedding & event photography, and who don't think too much at spending thousands on a camera lens or a new MacPro. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are guys on there who have bought and tried more than one 30" display before settling on one, and others who may be able to make comparisons from personal experience.

Stroller.

[dotoko]

Did you calibrate your 30" acd when you had it?

Yeah, I work for a marketing company and when they buy this stuff our IT guy calibrates them with some obscenely expensive box that matches them to our printer/plotter profiles or some such rubbish.

In the end I suppose it's down to taste, I prefer the LED due to the vibrancy of the colors, especially blacks and whites. Displays were always what let Apple down for me but I can honestly say I'd never seen anything like what this display can do from any monitor or TV.

If you need the full thirty inches the ACD is perfectly functional though, it served me well for a good few years, I just can't see it doing anything better than any other similar sized monitor.

[nigel1210]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

After scouring the net for info came to the conclusion that acd's are poor for colour accurancy, due to only having a brightness control.

Couldn't afford the 30" nec so went for the 26" Nec 2690wuxi2 in the end. Just gotta play the dead pixel lottery now!