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Photog Rob Galbraith Rates MacBook Pro Display "Not Acceptable"
An anonymous reader writes "Professional digital photographer and website publisher Rob Galbraith has performed both objective and subjective tests on laptop displays, finding that the late-2008 Macbook Pro glossy displays are 'deep into the not acceptable category' when used in ambient light environments. The Apple notebook came in dead last for color accuracy, and second to last in viewing angles (besting only the Dell Mini 9). He concludes: 'Macs are no longer at the top of the laptop display heap in our minds.'"
I wonder if they will test the macbook pro 17" which has a $50 matte option?
Is this one of those words that has surreptitiously entered our language like "blog" or was the title just cut-off?
Are you calling the matte option "pay-to-play?" You know, all Mac users aren't photographers or graphics professionals.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Apple is running away from the niche markets (like imaging) that sustained them through their dark days as fast as they can. The new unibody Macbooks (and the 24" ADC^H^H^HMini-DisplayPort external LCD) are slightly faster but in many ways less functional than the models they replaced. Glossy is a bug, not a feature.
Meanwhile, HP and Dell are shipping laptops with RGB LED-backlit displays with 105% NTSC color gamut. Apple is slipping, badly, from this user's perspective.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Why make it a feature when it can be a "special bonus" or an "extra"?
Plus... haven't you heard of "downgrading to XP" costs for Vista laptops and desktops?
"Downgrading" is the new "works out of the box".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Photog" is as much of a real word describing "A person who takes photographs" as "sandw" is a word used to describe "Two or more slices of bread with a filling such as meat or cheese placed between them".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Just when wide gamut LCDs are approaching the range of colors once possible on CRTs, Apple has taken yet another step backwards with their new LED backlight displays.
My LED MacBook has a spectacularly bad display, so I went to visit the local Apple store to see if this was typical. Sadly it is, and what's more, it looks like all of Apple's LED displays are vastly inferior to that of my old iMac G5. (which has an S-IPS panel and conventional fluorescent backlight)
Color wise, the LED MacBook Pro and Cinema Display are better than the MacBook, but they are all shamefully bad, and definitely worthy of a "worst in the industry" rating. (at least color-wise)
Sounds to me like they deliberately choose an option with hope of failure. The matte display has been an option since the previous macbook introduction.
Yes, because someone who concluded 18 months ago that "Apple was making one of the finest laptop screens we'd seen for use in a pro digital photography workflow." is bound to be setting Apple up for failure.
Thank you for reaffirming my belief in self-delusional fanboi nature.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Mod parent up (and the article down...)
ALL laptop displays are "unacceptable" for serious graphics work, because they are all TN-type (TN is the thinnest).
TFA even admits that the only recent laptop that had an IPS-type panel, a Lenovo, is discontinued.
Rob should know by now that laptops are not for color critical work. This has been blindingly obvious for years.
I'm just wondering where the "unacceptable" and "not acceptable" from the blurb came from. The article repeatedly says the Macbook's display is acceptable. I think 'timothy' needs to read articles before accepting stories.
Uh.. it's only a $50 pricing difference if you were already going to buy a $2800 laptop.
If you only need a regular macbook, it's a $1550 option.
(and the more expensive laptop is only 30% faster, so really it doesn't seem like that great of a deal to me.)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Regarding the usability of GIMP, I would say that yes, they are geeks living in their parent's basements.
The biggest problem with GIMP is that its developers aren't the intended users. I don't think they "get it."
Right now I'm in a market for a 15" MBP to replace a PPC Powerbook but the glossy screen is preventing me from purchasing it.
Why don't you buy the Lenovo recommended in the story & install (a retail copy of) OS X on it? That way you'll have the best of both worlds. Decent hardware & a unixy OS that runs your workflow tools.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Mod Parent up.
This "story" is a pretty egregious example of the slashdot submitter posting something that's utterly out of sync with the linked article (who I otherwise tend to assume is actually the blog author himself trawling for traffic).
Now, I've been around here long enough not to get all worked up and grumpy: "Jeez, slashdot editors, how about RTFA before you post these things?" Because I know it has always been this way and always Shall Be.
But nowadays, the difference is, there are other places I can go for online news and some of them actually do try to maintain some kind of quality control on submissions.
I'm not gonna disappear. I stopped taking slashdot seriously a long time ago. Now I just come for the women.
But continued relevance is at stake. Jeez, slashdot editors!
It's industry jargon.
Photographers use the term and understand it.
That would make it a real word, wouldn't it?
-- My Weblog.
Rob should know by now that laptops are not for color critical work. This has been blindingly obvious for years.
That's not really the point.
The point is a digital photographer has to take something with him/her on the road. So what do you take with you?
Just throwing up your hands and saying "all these panels suck! don't accept any of them!" is not really helpful. Because that's equivalent to saying "you can't work outside the office". And clearly that is not at all true - you can work outside the office, with any laptop. The question is just which laptop works best for this kind of thing?
Ever since I first started reading this site several years ago, there is always a certain group of people that take an absolute all or nothing kind of attitude, which just ends up being defeatist. Because it's not realistic. Nothing is perfect, and if you're going to expect it to be, then you're just not going to be able to work. That's reality.
But people do work, including photographers, and they work just fine even with imperfect equipment. That doesn't mean they don't want the best equipment available, but it does mean most people in the real world are (surprise) realists, and they will use whatever they have to to get their work done.
So yes, we should all be pressing manufacturers for better laptop displays. That doesn't mean displays that currently exist are "unacceptable" for photographic use. The vast majority of digital photos you've ever seen in any professional capacity, be it in a magazine, a newspaper, a book or a web site, were taken by a photographer walking around with both a camera and a laptop. Some of these were probably even viewed on laptops with (gasp) glossy screens. Most of them were no doubt viewed on laptops with TN screens.
So to make this blanket statement that laptops are "not for color critical work" is just not a statement you can make. They may not be ideal, but then nothing ever is. Hell, the cameras photographers use aren't perfect either, they're always a series of compromises. Does that mean every camera in the world is "unacceptable" for taking photographs?
That explains BOTH sights (on matte and glossy screen)
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com