New 20" iMac Screens Show 98% Fewer Colors 470
Trintech points us to an AppleInsider article about another class-action lawsuit directed against Apple Inc. This one claims that the displays on new 20" iMacs are only capable of 6-bit-per-pixel color, 98% fewer colors than Apple advertises. Rather than the 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens used in 24" iMacs and earlier 20" models, "[t]he new 20-inch iMac features a 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screen," according to the article, "which the [law] firm claims is the 'least expensive of its type,' sporting a narrower viewing angle than the display of the 24-inch model, less color depth, less color accuracy, and greater susceptibility to washout." Apple recently settled a very similar class-action suit about the displays on MacBook and MacBook Pro models.
No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
But cutting costs is part of innovation, so Apple is still the best, OBVIOUSLY.
Macs are for graphics... untrue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't say I'm surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
But in the past few years Apple quality has been slipping. They need to nip this in the bud or they'll be known as just an OS company with crappy hardware.
And for a company that pushes such a visual image - DON'T go cheap on the displays!
Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is that most people can't tell the difference, and aren't interested in paying four times as much to get a product that isn't noticably better unless you make your living working with colour.
This is a storm in a teacup.
Re:No, because quality was obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
6 Bit per pixel. (Score:4, Insightful)
cheap vs. mislabeled (Score:3, Insightful)
18 bits is plenty for many people, but it's not plenty for graphic artists - the very people who buy Macs.
Re:If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's kinda like Bill Gates standing saying that he, deep in his heart, really like linux, and use Ubuntu and Fedora at his computers at home. Heey, actually, that would have been a great April Fools if the big G did that. I think the discussion would be VERY interesting (as only about 1/4 would realize / acknowledge that it's a joke). Mad OSS priests frothing at the mouth, Microsofties claiming Armageddon, and snotty mac users proclaiming Steve is The Only True iGod.
Re:How can you judge colour quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:6-bit colors make gradients look awful. (Score:3, Insightful)
You won't see stripes, but noisy transitions, at least on the iMac. Most of the 6-bit displays (including the iMac one) dither when they are fed intermediate values.
For me, the difference is most dramatic on relatively dark gradients involving green or blue.
In any case, the worst problem with TN isn't the dithering/banding, it's the total lack of color consistency that derives from the very narrow viewing angle.
Mod parent down. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not how LCD screens work.
A pixel on an LCD monitor emits a single color. There is no dithering involved. The pixel filters out a set of wavelengths from a white light source to produce a single pixel with a single, even color.
The pixels on Apple's new 6-bit iMac displays are only capable of about 262,000 individual color states. The 24-inch iMacs are capable of over 16 million color states.
The same as 90%+ of LCDs sold. (Score:5, Insightful)
This would only affect the clueless. It was widely complained about that apple switched to TN panel on the 20" as soon as the Aluminum iMacs came out. It is not a hidden fact, you can tell by the viewing angle specs.
Apple will probably fight this one, because there is a chance the laptops did not have FRC dithering (many laptop screens don't) and thus did not have millions of colors, OTOH the FRC dithering panels are classed as having millions of colors industry wide, and the viewing angles were quoted to industry standards in the spec that would make it clear to anyone who knew or cared about display or even asked anyone for advice that these were TN panels.
In fact you would have to be living under a rock to not know, but that won't stop some people for trying for a small cash grab and lawyers from trying for a big one.
Re:Apple doesn't manufature LCDs (Score:3, Insightful)
But when the manufacturer sold it to Apple, they probably didn't lie to them about what it was.
If they did, then Apple should turn around and sue them.
Re:If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
You're an idiot. The majority of Windows PCs advertise displaying millions of colors just like Apple does.
Ah, so this is the only reason you're taking your anti-Apple position--nerd rage directed at people who are different from you. Again, you're an idiot.
Color pros (Score:1, Insightful)
It's sad but very true. As a professional in digital photography we carry 30in cinema displays and take note that the people who rent them only do so for 3 reasons.
They are big and honestly are a great gimmick to impress clients who work on shitty setups at their offices.
Their shooting style is such that color accuracy is not relevant at the time of capture.
They are ignorant to the nature of color and how it can potentially screw up their workflow. Both during and after capture.
And the forth ( I know I said 3 ) In the business of digital capture you have to offer what the other guys offer or you risk losing clients who don't want to pay for the top of the line
( ie any EIZO monitor )
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I am sure that's what they said at Apple. "Those suckers will never figure out what we sold them!" This is just another proof of "corporate honesty" being an oxymoron.
Parent is correct (Score:3, Insightful)
This in fact is the only way to count the colors if you want to claim that dithering does not count. (Conversely if you do count dithering you could claim that the screen can display an astronomical number of colors, if viewed from so far away that the entire display looks like a single dot)
However the 6-bit screen only puts out 63+63+63+1 = 190 different colors. Thus you could still claim the number of colors is 75% less.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:2, Insightful)
no, mod it down for "wrong". or perhaps "troll". (Score:3, Insightful)
Bringing in the mechanics of color perception is irrelevant, not to mention that the post is using misleading and incorrect terminology (it's nothing to do with "dithering") and that it is conveniently overlooking the fact that the three wavelengths that the cones in the eye are sensitive to are red, green, and blue.
Re: Amiga video modes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, regarding the article, why the heck is Apple of all manufacturers using TN panels, everyone knows they suck! A supply issue perhaps? I know there was a panel factory that went up in flames a while ago, which caused the Lenovo L220X to be severely short in supply.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you lose just one bit of colour information, you go from 16.7 to 8.4 million colours. I think they must just be rounding or writing it down poorly.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would this be shocking? For the last 10-15 years Apple has used the cheapest or mid-range of all components in their hardware.
Want a laptop with 1920x1200 or 1600x1200 like PC users could buy in 2002? Apple didn't think their users did. (I guess Macs aren't for graphic artists needing higher DPI screens.)
Or how about a Fast Video card, even the most expensive Mac Desktops have had mid to low range PC level video cards. If you want fast video, you can't buy a Mac unless you plan on replacing the Video, and this is on machines it is even possible to replace.
Even the Notebook Mac market uses the low end of graphics, you can get a 2004 PC Laptop with Video that is still faster than most Mac Notebooks, let alone 2005 where PC Laptops have NVidia 7950 Go GPUs that are STILL faster than anything you can get in a Mac. (I guess Macs also aren't for the engineers, drafters, animators, or even someone wanting to play a freaking game. And people wonder why companies don't develop games for the Mac? Hardware is too slow, and OS X's OpenGL performance is marginal compared to Windows or even Linux.)
We could literally go down a list of components over the years that Apple has screwed their customers with, and that is not even counting the 'complexity' of a mouse with more than one button. Cheap Hard Drives with low RPM, and loud, to even little things like the optical drives.
Macs look cool, and have a few cool features with the Magentic locks and Cables, but when you get inside, where the average Mac user never sees, Apple uses the cheapest shit they can get by with.
Now it is starting to hurt them, because their screens are not hidden, and people are looking at their friends PC LCDs and going WTF, why is yours clearer, brighter, with no banding and more colors?
Then you have to explain that apple is using LCD specifications that were outdated in the late 90s. (Sadly, the last 6bit pixel LCD I have even seen was a 1999 Pentium II Laptop.) But hey, Macs rule, right? (gag)
Apple's quality has really slipped with monitors. (Score:2, Insightful)
TN screens are pieces of crap, period.
The color was washed out, so washed out the best I could do for calibration forced apple's colorsync tool to the edge of the charts. If I were able I would have dragged the controls off the charts, and perhaps attained a passable color accuracy. That said, the lack of consistent contrast from top to bottom of the screen is incurable.
Apple seems to have caved to the flow of the rest of the pc market, which is toward screens which are no longer built for fidelity, but for hyper-exaggerated flashiness on the salesfloor.
My cinema was the last generation before this shift, and now im stuck unserviced in the computing marketplace when i want to upgrade.
I like the OSX environment a LOT. I can't stand an interface which is not document centered, and column view is important to me, but I also want color fidelity! Whenever I see an improperly calibrated screen it grates at me like a thousand papercuts, and I've locked that macbook away in a dark corner because I want to cry whenever I look at that screen.
What has happened to apple's quality standards since 2002 can best be compared to BBC news devolving into MTV news.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why apple got caught with their pants down in their lawsuit is because for decades professional graphic artists and photographers have used and relied on apple.
Despite being marked down as Troll, this is actually quite insightful. It also shows the depth of the mistake Apple has made. The real cost to Apple is not in settling the litigation, but in the trust that will be lost in the professional graphics market. Up till now you could buy a Mac and be confident that you were getting a machine that was suited for graphics work. While most professionals wouldn't settle for the 20", nor an iMac for that matter, this is the most negative publicity, in one of it's core markets, that Apple could have (not) hoped for.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:3, Insightful)
I had 2 "identical" HP flat panel displays in my job-before-last. The colour on one seemed far superior on the older screen, despite them having the same model number. At the time it didn't occur to me they might be internally different.
Computer manufacturers often redesign products without changing the part number - just look at wifi adapters for an example. It's all about the Benjamins!
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:3, Insightful)
(of course, your 24-bit signal has to actually be clean in the first place for this to even matter, which is another issue entirely)