Apple Cinema HD Display 23" LCD Monitor

[Archived in 19-Inch, 21" and above, Apple Computer, Flat panel, Monitors, Products]

Manufacturer: Apple Computer
Price at amazon.com: Used & new from $1450.00

List price $2,000.00



Product Features:

• Full 23-inch diagonal display area
• Supports 1,920 x 1,200 resolution for high-definition video and stills
• Designed to work with the Power Mac G4 digital graphics interface for distortion-free images
• Incredibly wide 170-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles
• Lightning-fast pixel response for full-motion digital video

Product Description:

The Apple Cinema HD Display gives you flicker-free images with twice the brightness, twice the sharpness, and twice the contrast ratio of the typical CRT display. And unlike other flat panel displays, it?s designed with a pure digital interface to deliver distortion-free images that never need adjusting.The new Apple Cinema HD Display, like Apple?s other flat-panel displays, is designed to work with your Power Mac G5?s digital graphics interface. Attach it to your Power Mac G5 using the quick-latch Apple Display Connector (ADC) at the end of the single cable, and you?re ready to rock. There are no controls to adjust ? the all-digital signal between your Mac and your display delivers pristine image quality. The ADC cable carries power, USB and digital graphics, and a two-port, self-powered USB hub makes it easy to attach your desktop peripherals.

Average Customer Rating:

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Comment: Works with Windows XP Rating:
Just bought the 23" Apple Cinema display. It works at full res with a GeForce 4 4600 and Windows XP. It has no hardware brightness/contrast controls, but the NVidia driver has these controls + gamma. You can save configurations (such as nighttime, cloudy, office etc) and access them quickly from the taskbar. I have one dead pixel, but at this resolution it is hardly noticeable. You have to buy the DVI to ADC converter to get it to work with an NVidia GeForce card ($$$). There is no loss in quality when using the converter (it is all digital). Color quality and brightness are even across the entire screen. The pixel response is fast for an LCD, but not as quick as a CRT. Still, DVDs and flight simulator rarely exhibit ghosting. Definitely happy with my purchase.

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Comment: Read this review Rating:
This monitor meets all my expectations and more.For some of you that have been hesitant in getting this monitor because of the 1999.99 price tag,please consider my review.First of all, this monitor rocks!For those of you that have never seen it,you're missing out.The amount of desktop space is incredible.Text is vivid at its native resolution of 1920x1200.I'm using a PC with the GFX5900ultra.Setup was indeed flawless.Remember to buy the 99.99 ADC/DVI connector that gives the monitor power,converts DVI into ADC signal,and provides the USB port on the montitor connectivity.It totally sucks buying that POS but you need it for PC's.I ordered it from Amazon which is an excellent company.On time is the word.I received my monitor with about 3 bad pixels which isn't even a problem.
Now I know most of you are gamers and want to know about the pixel response times.As you arleady know, Apple doesn't give the specs for this which sucks again but from what I've noticed from playing games like Halo, it's really not noticeable.There is an overall feeling that it's not quite there; like a little somethings missing to make it butter smooth.But in no circumstance does this monitor lead to unplayable gaming.In Unreal 2 the ghosting effect was a bit more evident but it isn't bad.You have to understand that this is not a CRT.From what I've seen it beats the Samsung 213T like a maestro of meatflute.Unreal 2 worked great and having it set at max resolution was a real treat.You feel as if you were in the action because of this monitors large display.One strange thing I did notice in Unreal2 was that when I tried to change the brightness and contrast in the game, the screen started to show these strange colors that made the game unplayable.This problem was quickly resolved by just changing the gamma instead and tweaking around in the video software for brightness.ANother recent game that worked nearly flawlessly was Call of Duty.There was hardly any ghosting seen.Images were crisp and sharp with nice coloring.I highly recommend playing call of duty on this monitor because of the tremendous screen viewing area.Max Payne 2 worked almost at near excellence.At first I was dissapointed at the beginning scene where he was in the hospital because he wakes up dizzy which I thought was ghosting.This in fact was not ghosting but merely a visual effect imposed by the game to emphasize that he was dizzy.Again,the visuals were very sharp and clear.It just made me realize at how much of a good buy I really made by purchasing this monitor.I would seriously recommend this monitor for all you RTS gamers out there because you can see so much of the field.Hardcore FPS shooters won't be dissappointed with this display because of the above average response times and the sheer visual aspect of feeling like youre inside the game.
Movies were another concern.Movies still had that black border on the top and bottom but again it's not even a concern.Cinema performed well with miniscule amounts of ghosting.If you were to step back a little,it becomes unnoticeable.Again, this ghosting effect is so inconspicuous but I have to mention it so you know it's there. |-| For my observation,I used the movie Matrix Reloaded.The movie quality was gorgeous.It makes you wanna watch it again just because of the immersion factor of this monitor.One thing that I did notice was that the picture brightness was too high.It seems that this monitors blacks aren't as black as a CRT.In my amateur opinion the certain tones of black are grouped into the same palette on the display.This is a bit strange especially with the border being the same color as the picture at times.I've had to slide the contrast up and the brightness down to give it that theater feeling.But overall this monitor is excellent for movies.
The monitor saves so much deskspace and uses so little electricity that it's pleasant having it on.There is basically no heat given off.Definite plus.I leaned this monitor against the wall of my room with the rear leg hanging off and the two front on the table.There are rubberlike slide stoppers on the legs so it prevents it from sliding out from underneath.
In summary,buy this monitor if you have the money.Maybe you can buy this monitor and keep a small 15" or something to the side if you have the room.Trust me,you will enjoy this monitor immensely having it at home or work.Just remember to turn the brightness down some!

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Comment: Beautiful hardware, but beware of compatibility with Windows Rating:
As a software developer with broadband internet and a TV tuner in my PC, I usually have a ridiculous number of things on screen at the same time. It's not uncommon to catch me writing code in one window, reading documentation in another, and watching TV in a third. Attaching two side-by-side LCD displays to my PC would manage this just fine, and probably more cheaply to boot.

But I also like to play games and watch movies, and for that, I wanted a single large panel. The only thing that fit the bill was the Apple display.

I purchased it after much ogling of showroom displays, and attached it to my PC's DVI port (with the help of Apple's DVI-to-ADC adapter). Windows XP detected the new monitor, my video card (ATI 9700 Pro AIW) recognized the higher resolutions, and I was instantly using Windows in crystal-clear 1920x1200 resolution, with no dead pixels.

There are a few negatives:

- The brightness does drop a bit at about 45 degrees, so the sides of the screen may appear darker than the center, but only if you sit really close to it, and are really paying attention.
- On a PC, the Power and Brightness buttons do nothing (except glow in a really cool way when touched). You'll have to use whatever display settings your video card driver provides for color, brightness, contrast, etc. As for turning it off, you'll have to either use Windows' screen-saver option for powering the display down after a few minutes, or unplug it.
- The two built-in USB ports don't suport USB 2.0.
- The ADC connector is proprietary to Apple computers (and only a few models - go figure), so you'll have to buy an adapter (either VGA-ADC or DVI-ADC) to hook it up to your PC.
- Even with my Apple-manufactured DVI-ADC adapter, I get a small amount of "static", especially on black backgrounds. My eyes are trained not to notice it anymore, but considering how pricey these are, it's annoying. UPDATE: I have since found a setting in the ATI configuration that fixes this ('Alternate DVI operational mode'). So this is no longer an issue.
- On my PC, the display doesn't show anything until Windows XP has started up. This means you can't see the BIOS diagnostics or boot menu. On forums, some people have reported this as a problem, and some say it works fine for them. If anything ever goes wrong with the boot process, I'm not sure what I'll do.

Posted at October 11, 2003 01:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)