It's more than powerful enough to handle even HD video, and ElGato's EyeTV package does all the work of capturing it for you. If I can use a G4 Mac Mini for that purpose, a G5 should scream.
While you make some good points, you overlook some obvious errors.
There are only 3 ways to solve the problem 1) Use only in a dark room 2) Use a higher brightness backlight 3) Get rid of the reflected light (or 4, get a transflective display like the pixel-qi, but at the cost of poor color graphics reproduction)
Solution 1 does not apply to the original poster. Solution 2 works fine for desktop screens and TVs where you have electrical power available. A high luminosity screen on a laptop will drain your batteries like crazy and will need a fan to cool the display.
Now to solution 3. There are actually 2 kinds of reflection: Specular and diffuse. To reduce the diffuse reflection you use an AR (Anti Reflection) treatment. That is commonly applied to eyeglasses and binoculars. To reduce the specular reflection you use an AG (Anti Glare) treatment
Solution 2 in particular is in serious error since at least one company uses ONLY glossy screens on battery-powered devices and gets up to 10 hours and even more of HD quality video and graphics per charge. Interestingly, they also work remarkably well even in full, direct sunlight outdoors, though admittedly any LCD that isn't backed by a reflective surface is necessarily less clear than with one. The interesting thing here, however, is that the Glossy LCD works better in direct sunlight than a diffused or matte display. Which brings up your 'solution 3.'
At least some displays are given the treatments you describe, though no coating can be 100% and still let the glass perform as it's meant. While they do reduce the intensity of glare and reflection, they cannot completely eliminate it without adversely affecting the image quality, no matter if you're talking camera lenses, eyeglasses or computer displays. Most anti-glare treatments work by diffusing the ambient light to the point that only a tiny fraction of the original glare reaches the viewer's eyes. However, they also tend to catch far more of the ambient light, giving the display a lower contrast ratio under normal lighting conditions. One of the tricks used on CRTs to reduce glare was to add a black screen to help separate the pixels; Sony called it Trinitron and once the patent expired nearly everyone was using the same technology--but your resolution was now limited to the size of the screening. LCDs don't have that advantage--not fully, anyway. In most displays, the gap between pixels is microscopic, which makes the image look more realistic than CRTs but also sacrifices some of that contrast. By putting any kind of diffuser over the LCD, you degrade that contrast even more. You're forced to use an even brighter backlight as a result. All you have to do is compare the first LCD computer displays to today's models to see a significant difference. But when you put a glossy display next to a matte one even now, the difference can be quite noticeable. Some people harp about the reflections off the glass, totally ignoring the fact that under normal circumstances, the reflections aren't even noticeable in use.
On the average I've found the colors to be brighter and more accurate on a high-gloss screen as compared to the diffused screens of most other displays. Black really becomes black as the display doesn't catch and reflect the ambient glow, which turns it to a dark grey while contrast and sharpness are enhanced as well.
Yes, I realize there are issues as well. If you have a bright light or bright reflections behind you, or you happen to wear a brightly-colored shirt (including white) those reflections will make dark images harder to see. But by using subdued lighting throughout the workspace and eliminating any direct reflections, the glossy display is a much better one to use.
In my own case, I sit right beside an east-facing window and all I need to do is simply angle the display enough away that I don't get any direct reflection out of the window or off of my clothing.
The iPad, or any real mobility device, could make a great game manual browser. Download as ePub or PDF and go for it. No more printing costs; no more shipping costs; just pure profit.
... you don't 'think' the letters as you type, you 'think' the words. Every time you 'think' the letters, your typing speed slows down significantly, but by 'thinking' the words, you can type at 120wpm or faster. In my own case, when copying text, my typing speed is approximately 70wpm, and I am not a trained clerk/typist, but merely an amateur author trying to get his stories published. What's really interesting is that I know of clerk/typists from the time of the IBM Selectric and even older, manual typewriters who could push 140 and even higher word counts. They all told me the same thing: "Don't try to spell the words, just think the word and let your fingers spell it."
Fine, you ban the criminal from using Social Networking. Great idea! How do you enforce it? How do you prevent the predator from contacting his prey? Only one way... take away his computer, no matter what kind it is. Take away his smart phone. Take away his cell phone (it has texting, after all.) Take away everything that could possibly include an ability to access the internet in any form or manner.
Hmmm... doesn't that count as "cruel and unusual punishment?" Too many laws, not enough enforcement. How about fixing the legal system first--it obviously needs help.
No, drinkypoo, it's not that Apple hid the story, but rather that Apple chose not to talk about it because it wasn't a story. I can't name one company in the world that wants to acknowledge a problem; not Apple, not Ford and not anyone else. They usually don't discuss such matters unless and until they become a publicly visible problem, and 15 units out of 175 MILLION units do not make a publicly visible problem unless somebody goes out of their way to make it one, which seems to be a big purview of anti-Apple zealots.
NOW--- the problem as many have said, is that there is so much energy in such a small space. Lithium Polymer batteries explode, and those power adapters have ~70W of output which is more than enough to char a cable. Apple handles -each case- well (very well), I don't fault them for something like this because it's an energy density issue.
Look again. Those power adaptors don't run at 70 watts. 7w, maybe--that's hot enough to burn you, just touch one of the old C7 Christmas bulbs if you don't believe me. The power adaptor is made to recharge the battery. The battery can provide a higher wattage to the computer and thus power it properly. Using the adaptor to power the computer is misuse of the adaptor. Modern electronics, especially modern batteries, don't work they way they used to. That's why today's batteries tend to fail too quickly. Charge and Deplete is the way they're meant to be used, not Charge while Using. Think of them more like deep-cycle marine batteries rather than your car battery. You might understand them better.
The fact that your iPod may catch fire and burn down your house is not something to keep quiet about, no matter to what extent the problem goes.
Even when the odds are 1 in 11 million + units? You have a greater chance of winning a lottery than you do of getting burned by your iPod. For that matter, at least one of those cases was due to the user sitting down with the thing in their pants pocket. I can't tell you how many Nintendo Gameboys I had to repair with broken screens because the kids sat on them or stuffed them in their front pants pocket. You try sitting down with something about the size of your hand in your pocket; it's going to flex, and flexing is likely to bend the battery or some other component.
I mean, really! Out of over 175 Million units sold, only 15 had an overheating problem? That's more reliable than even the Model T!
Mercury has a magnetic field, which quite surprised planetary scientists when it was first discovered by MAriner 10, as the prevailing theory at the time was that Mercury's small size would have led to its core solidifying by now and stopping the dynamo that generated the field.
There's obviously a lot we don't know about planetary magentic fields, and I wouldn't want to judge the entire theory just by something I read on Slashdot, but I find it hard to understand how oceanic currents could account for Earth's magnetic field but not for Mercury's.
One piece of logic disrupts the idea that Mercury would have a solid core... It's proximity to the sun gives it a surface temperature hot enough to melt some metals. Granted, the opposite side of Mercury is also the coldest place in the Solar System (due to the planet's lack of atmosphere and equal lack of rotation.) This could, conceivably imply a solid core. However, just like boiling water, if you heat one side and leave the other side cold, you create a thermodynamic flow which could generate a magnetic field even without an orbiting moon to create the tidal current in that core.
Perhaps he is only playing Devil's Advocate (har har irony), but the point he makes is ridiculous: That the postulation of a creator is exactly as valid as a scientific theory constructed from what we currently understand about the Earth. On one hand, we have a scientist hypothesising that the Earth's magnetic field is created by electrical currents in the oceans (or more traditionally, by the spinning of the Earth's Iron core), and on the other hand, we have a creator who is necessarily more complex than the entire Universe and all it's systems just popping into existence and thinking to himself "Gee, it sure would be nice to have worshipers, maybe I'll make a planet of those." The former builds upon our prior knowledge, the latter defies probability.
But does it defy possibility? While I don't propose that he is correct, who is to say that there isn't some being vastly more intelligent and powerful than us who could do exactly that?
Then again, I knew a Baptist minister who clearly said, "God is no fool. He wouldn't have put all his eggs in one basket." Well, Earth is a single basket. Just because we haven't heard from our brothers and sisters on other worlds, doesn't mean they can't exist.
And this situation is completely different from gravity. We know exactly how gravity behaves and can model it perfectly (well, until you get down to the quantum level). We just don't have a very good way to break it down like we've been able to do with the other 3 fundamental interactions. In the case of the Earth's magnetic field, we don't know what generates it and we don't know why it changes direction, but there's nothing magic or fundamental going on like with gravity; it's just a difficult problem in geology.
I must disagree with your assertation. While we do know how gravity behaves and can model it, we can NOT produce it as yet. Electricity and magnetic fields, however, we can model and produce. While we may not yet be able to test the reported theory on a macro scale, I don't see this theory providing reliable results in a laboratory; its a case that the experimental sample is simply too small to produce measurable results. On the other hand, Nikola Tesla firmly believed that wireless transmission of electricity for power purposes (as compared to communications) is not only possible, but feasible. Could this concept be a confirmation of Tesla's theories?
If you do some non-wiki research, you will find out that Earth's magnetic field has reversed many times over the eons. We're overdue now by several thousand years. This Global Warming may be just another indicator that such a change is imminent.
Actually I advise people that high end Macs are a tiny bit more expensive than high end other laptops while low end Macs are much more expensive (percentage wise) to low end Dells or HPs. And I think that's better information (and I thought I read that in the article). You usually get what you pay for and I wish the article had done a more thorough analysis of the laptops component by component.
First off, the writer of the article emphasized that he matched all four computers as closely as he could in hardware and capabilities, with the Sony unable to match the base Macbook Pro. Even so, he demonstrated that if you remove the discounts, the Macbook Pro was less expensive than three of the four PCs he matched it to. This means that at the workstation level, the Mac is less expensive than the competition.
Your argument that the low end Macs being much more expensive than the low end PCs is correct, IF you discount that the lowest end Macs carry far more capability than the lowest end PCs. Again, if you actually matched feature for feature (and not JUST Processor, Hard Drive and RAM,) the Mac again comes out at very nearly the same price as the equivalent PC. The only place the PC comes out effectively cheaper is when you drop most of the capabilities that make a Mac what it is!
Ummm.... you do know that today's drug companies create medicines for diseases that haven't been invented yet, right? I mean, before a specific drug came out, whoever heard of [i]Restless Leg Syndrome?[/i]
I think its a good idea for businesses, as the cost would be associated direcly with the amount of people that use it within an office instead of buying a ton of licences that are hard to manage and may not even get used.
I would argue this viewpoint because it wouldn't be associated with the number of users, but rather the number of copies the business feels it needs. And if for some reason the company missed a payment or decided to take some other route, all documentation made within this system would become useless and potentially a catastrophic loss for the corporation.
Microsoft introduced this concept originally with Win XP saying that since they were introducing new versions of the OS every three years, 'subscribing' to updates up front would save them money down the road when it came time to implement the next version. Instead, it took MS over 5 years and the massive outlay made by those corporations gave them 0 ROI. In other words, they paid for versions they never received.
Why would anyone, corporate or individual, subject themselves to such blatant theft again?
Wasn't this concept already proven as an abysmal failure by the RealPlayer? Who wants to 'rent' the software that they will be relying on for their documentation for the rest of their lives?
This just makes me ever happier that I don't use any Microsoft software on a regular basis.
I think the thing is, vendors have started using more and more glossy screens because they hide a multitude of sins. You can use a craptacular LCD and have glossy coating on it and it looks halfway decent. Look at the latest iMacs as an example of this. Absolutely sub-par screen...and they coat it with glass so it hides how bad it is. It's something like a 400:1 contract ratio screen with many other vices. Obviously any serious graphic designers aren't going to stand for anything but a matte screen.
Honestly, I think you need to research the displays used by Apple in their iMacs (though this article isn't centered around iMac but laptops instead.) I think you'll find that the contrast ratio on the new displays is far higher than you claim, more like 800:1 or higher. Neither of you specified which iMac displays (20" or 24") you were talking about. The LCDs used in the current 20" iMacs are crappy 6-bit TN panels. The LCDs used in the current 24" iMacs are good 8-bit IPS panels. Well, maybe I can't argue since I'm using a 24" iMac, but then, comparing the 24" with the 20" at the Apple store, I really can't see any difference in a side-by-side comparison.
HP downgraded my notebook's LCD during a repair ticket and refused to fix it, despite that I sent them a copy of my original purchase order. Now I'm stuck with a POS low-rez, reflective screen which is annoying with any sort of light behind me, and is practically useless outdoors.
Probably a good idea to avoid them.
I'll take that machine if you don't want it. I could use a good laptop to download my photos onto while I'm shooting. A matte screen in a bright environment makes it hard to analyze my images unless I cover myself and the computer with a dark blanket.
I will argue this simply because I work in photography and I need something that will give me the clearest image available. I can take a RAW photo taking by my Nikon DSLR and display it simultaneously on both a glossy glass screen and an anti-glare LCD screen side by side. The difference is remarkable! In every case, daylight or night, even fireworks, the gloss screen looks exactly the way I remember the actual scene to appear as I photographed it while the non-glare screen looks soft and muted. Fireworks are especially notable as you can actually make out individual sparks in some shots that just appear as a string of soft smears on the matte screen.
Put the two side by side using RAW (not jpg) images and tell me you can't see the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more than powerful enough to handle even HD video, and ElGato's EyeTV package does all the work of capturing it for you. If I can use a G4 Mac Mini for that purpose, a G5 should scream.
While you make some good points, you overlook some obvious errors.
There are only 3 ways to solve the problem
1) Use only in a dark room
2) Use a higher brightness backlight
3) Get rid of the reflected light
(or 4, get a transflective display like the pixel-qi, but at the cost of poor color graphics reproduction)
Solution 1 does not apply to the original poster.
Solution 2 works fine for desktop screens and TVs where you have electrical power available. A high luminosity screen on a laptop will drain your batteries like crazy and will need a fan to cool the display.
Now to solution 3. There are actually 2 kinds of reflection: Specular and diffuse.
To reduce the diffuse reflection you use an AR (Anti Reflection) treatment. That is commonly applied to eyeglasses and binoculars.
To reduce the specular reflection you use an AG (Anti Glare) treatment
Solution 2 in particular is in serious error since at least one company uses ONLY glossy screens on battery-powered devices and gets up to 10 hours and even more of HD quality video and graphics per charge. Interestingly, they also work remarkably well even in full, direct sunlight outdoors, though admittedly any LCD that isn't backed by a reflective surface is necessarily less clear than with one. The interesting thing here, however, is that the Glossy LCD works better in direct sunlight than a diffused or matte display. Which brings up your 'solution 3.'
At least some displays are given the treatments you describe, though no coating can be 100% and still let the glass perform as it's meant. While they do reduce the intensity of glare and reflection, they cannot completely eliminate it without adversely affecting the image quality, no matter if you're talking camera lenses, eyeglasses or computer displays. Most anti-glare treatments work by diffusing the ambient light to the point that only a tiny fraction of the original glare reaches the viewer's eyes. However, they also tend to catch far more of the ambient light, giving the display a lower contrast ratio under normal lighting conditions. One of the tricks used on CRTs to reduce glare was to add a black screen to help separate the pixels; Sony called it Trinitron and once the patent expired nearly everyone was using the same technology--but your resolution was now limited to the size of the screening.
LCDs don't have that advantage--not fully, anyway. In most displays, the gap between pixels is microscopic, which makes the image look more realistic than CRTs but also sacrifices some of that contrast. By putting any kind of diffuser over the LCD, you degrade that contrast even more. You're forced to use an even brighter backlight as a result. All you have to do is compare the first LCD computer displays to today's models to see a significant difference. But when you put a glossy display next to a matte one even now, the difference can be quite noticeable. Some people harp about the reflections off the glass, totally ignoring the fact that under normal circumstances, the reflections aren't even noticeable in use.
On the average I've found the colors to be brighter and more accurate on a high-gloss screen as compared to the diffused screens of most other displays. Black really becomes black as the display doesn't catch and reflect the ambient glow, which turns it to a dark grey while contrast and sharpness are enhanced as well.
Yes, I realize there are issues as well. If you have a bright light or bright reflections behind you, or you happen to wear a brightly-colored shirt (including white) those reflections will make dark images harder to see. But by using subdued lighting throughout the workspace and eliminating any direct reflections, the glossy display is a much better one to use.
In my own case, I sit right beside an east-facing window and all I need to do is simply angle the display enough away that I don't get any direct reflection out of the window or off of my clothing.
The iPad, or any real mobility device, could make a great game manual browser. Download as ePub or PDF and go for it. No more printing costs; no more shipping costs; just pure profit.
Some of those glaciers have retreated more than 16 miles! If you want my opinion, it's very possible some of those glaciers could disappear by 2035.
... you don't 'think' the letters as you type, you 'think' the words. Every time you 'think' the letters, your typing speed slows down significantly, but by 'thinking' the words, you can type at 120wpm or faster. In my own case, when copying text, my typing speed is approximately 70wpm, and I am not a trained clerk/typist, but merely an amateur author trying to get his stories published. What's really interesting is that I know of clerk/typists from the time of the IBM Selectric and even older, manual typewriters who could push 140 and even higher word counts. They all told me the same thing: "Don't try to spell the words, just think the word and let your fingers spell it."
... but impossible to enforce.
Fine, you ban the criminal from using Social Networking. Great idea! How do you enforce it? How do you prevent the predator from contacting his prey? Only one way... take away his computer, no matter what kind it is. Take away his smart phone. Take away his cell phone (it has texting, after all.) Take away everything that could possibly include an ability to access the internet in any form or manner.
Hmmm... doesn't that count as "cruel and unusual punishment?" Too many laws, not enough enforcement. How about fixing the legal system first--it obviously needs help.
No, drinkypoo, it's not that Apple hid the story, but rather that Apple chose not to talk about it because it wasn't a story. I can't name one company in the world that wants to acknowledge a problem; not Apple, not Ford and not anyone else. They usually don't discuss such matters unless and until they become a publicly visible problem, and 15 units out of 175 MILLION units do not make a publicly visible problem unless somebody goes out of their way to make it one, which seems to be a big purview of anti-Apple zealots.
NOW--- the problem as many have said, is that there is so much energy in such a small space. Lithium Polymer batteries explode, and those power adapters have ~70W of output which is more than enough to char a cable. Apple handles -each case- well (very well), I don't fault them for something like this because it's an energy density issue.
Look again. Those power adaptors don't run at 70 watts. 7w, maybe--that's hot enough to burn you, just touch one of the old C7 Christmas bulbs if you don't believe me. The power adaptor is made to recharge the battery. The battery can provide a higher wattage to the computer and thus power it properly. Using the adaptor to power the computer is misuse of the adaptor. Modern electronics, especially modern batteries, don't work they way they used to. That's why today's batteries tend to fail too quickly. Charge and Deplete is the way they're meant to be used, not Charge while Using. Think of them more like deep-cycle marine batteries rather than your car battery. You might understand them better.
And this relates to the iPod problem... how? 15 defects out of 175 million sold does not make a pattern.
Now, your own problem is one to consider, and has been addressed by Apple. I believe they issued a recall on those particular power blocks.
Simple question: How does this relate to the discussion at hand about iPods?
The fact that your iPod may catch fire and burn down your house is not something to keep quiet about, no matter to what extent the problem goes.
Even when the odds are 1 in 11 million + units? You have a greater chance of winning a lottery than you do of getting burned by your iPod. For that matter, at least one of those cases was due to the user sitting down with the thing in their pants pocket. I can't tell you how many Nintendo Gameboys I had to repair with broken screens because the kids sat on them or stuffed them in their front pants pocket. You try sitting down with something about the size of your hand in your pocket; it's going to flex, and flexing is likely to bend the battery or some other component.
I mean, really! Out of over 175 Million units sold, only 15 had an overheating problem? That's more reliable than even the Model T!
Mercury has a magnetic field, which quite surprised planetary scientists when it was first discovered by MAriner 10, as the prevailing theory at the time was that Mercury's small size would have led to its core solidifying by now and stopping the dynamo that generated the field.
There's obviously a lot we don't know about planetary magentic fields, and I wouldn't want to judge the entire theory just by something I read on Slashdot, but I find it hard to understand how oceanic currents could account for Earth's magnetic field but not for Mercury's.
One piece of logic disrupts the idea that Mercury would have a solid core... It's proximity to the sun gives it a surface temperature hot enough to melt some metals. Granted, the opposite side of Mercury is also the coldest place in the Solar System (due to the planet's lack of atmosphere and equal lack of rotation.) This could, conceivably imply a solid core. However, just like boiling water, if you heat one side and leave the other side cold, you create a thermodynamic flow which could generate a magnetic field even without an orbiting moon to create the tidal current in that core.
Perhaps he is only playing Devil's Advocate (har har irony), but the point he makes is ridiculous: That the postulation of a creator is exactly as valid as a scientific theory constructed from what we currently understand about the Earth. On one hand, we have a scientist hypothesising that the Earth's magnetic field is created by electrical currents in the oceans (or more traditionally, by the spinning of the Earth's Iron core), and on the other hand, we have a creator who is necessarily more complex than the entire Universe and all it's systems just popping into existence and thinking to himself "Gee, it sure would be nice to have worshipers, maybe I'll make a planet of those." The former builds upon our prior knowledge, the latter defies probability.
But does it defy possibility? While I don't propose that he is correct, who is to say that there isn't some being vastly more intelligent and powerful than us who could do exactly that?
Then again, I knew a Baptist minister who clearly said, "God is no fool. He wouldn't have put all his eggs in one basket." Well, Earth is a single basket. Just because we haven't heard from our brothers and sisters on other worlds, doesn't mean they can't exist.
And this situation is completely different from gravity. We know exactly how gravity behaves and can model it perfectly (well, until you get down to the quantum level). We just don't have a very good way to break it down like we've been able to do with the other 3 fundamental interactions. In the case of the Earth's magnetic field, we don't know what generates it and we don't know why it changes direction, but there's nothing magic or fundamental going on like with gravity; it's just a difficult problem in geology.
I must disagree with your assertation. While we do know how gravity behaves and can model it, we can NOT produce it as yet. Electricity and magnetic fields, however, we can model and produce. While we may not yet be able to test the reported theory on a macro scale, I don't see this theory providing reliable results in a laboratory; its a case that the experimental sample is simply too small to produce measurable results. On the other hand, Nikola Tesla firmly believed that wireless transmission of electricity for power purposes (as compared to communications) is not only possible, but feasible. Could this concept be a confirmation of Tesla's theories?
No, the poles already reversed once in theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field, and are likely to keep reversing, though none of us will be around to find out.
If you do some non-wiki research, you will find out that Earth's magnetic field has reversed many times over the eons. We're overdue now by several thousand years. This Global Warming may be just another indicator that such a change is imminent.
Wait for them to forget to renew. I snagged one exactly that way and didn't have to wait very long.
The first thing I do in the morning is open 95 bookmarks simultaneously. Can't do that without tabs.
Actually I advise people that high end Macs are a tiny bit more expensive than high end other laptops while low end Macs are much more expensive (percentage wise) to low end Dells or HPs. And I think that's better information (and I thought I read that in the article). You usually get what you pay for and I wish the article had done a more thorough analysis of the laptops component by component.
First off, the writer of the article emphasized that he matched all four computers as closely as he could in hardware and capabilities, with the Sony unable to match the base Macbook Pro. Even so, he demonstrated that if you remove the discounts, the Macbook Pro was less expensive than three of the four PCs he matched it to. This means that at the workstation level, the Mac is less expensive than the competition.
Your argument that the low end Macs being much more expensive than the low end PCs is correct, IF you discount that the lowest end Macs carry far more capability than the lowest end PCs. Again, if you actually matched feature for feature (and not JUST Processor, Hard Drive and RAM,) the Mac again comes out at very nearly the same price as the equivalent PC. The only place the PC comes out effectively cheaper is when you drop most of the capabilities that make a Mac what it is!
Ummm.... you do know that today's drug companies create medicines for diseases that haven't been invented yet, right? I mean, before a specific drug came out, whoever heard of [i]Restless Leg Syndrome?[/i]
I think its a good idea for businesses, as the cost would be associated direcly with the amount of people that use it within an office instead of buying a ton of licences that are hard to manage and may not even get used.
I would argue this viewpoint because it wouldn't be associated with the number of users, but rather the number of copies the business feels it needs. And if for some reason the company missed a payment or decided to take some other route, all documentation made within this system would become useless and potentially a catastrophic loss for the corporation.Microsoft introduced this concept originally with Win XP saying that since they were introducing new versions of the OS every three years, 'subscribing' to updates up front would save them money down the road when it came time to implement the next version. Instead, it took MS over 5 years and the massive outlay made by those corporations gave them 0 ROI. In other words, they paid for versions they never received.
Why would anyone, corporate or individual, subject themselves to such blatant theft again?
Wasn't this concept already proven as an abysmal failure by the RealPlayer? Who wants to 'rent' the software that they will be relying on for their documentation for the rest of their lives?
This just makes me ever happier that I don't use any Microsoft software on a regular basis.
Honestly, I think you need to research the displays used by Apple in their iMacs (though this article isn't centered around iMac but laptops instead.) I think you'll find that the contrast ratio on the new displays is far higher than you claim, more like 800:1 or higher. Neither of you specified which iMac displays (20" or 24") you were talking about. The LCDs used in the current 20" iMacs are crappy 6-bit TN panels. The LCDs used in the current 24" iMacs are good 8-bit IPS panels. Well, maybe I can't argue since I'm using a 24" iMac, but then, comparing the 24" with the 20" at the Apple store, I really can't see any difference in a side-by-side comparison.
HP downgraded my notebook's LCD during a repair ticket and refused to fix it, despite that I sent them a copy of my original purchase order. Now I'm stuck with a POS low-rez, reflective screen which is annoying with any sort of light behind me, and is practically useless outdoors.
Probably a good idea to avoid them.
I'll take that machine if you don't want it. I could use a good laptop to download my photos onto while I'm shooting. A matte screen in a bright environment makes it hard to analyze my images unless I cover myself and the computer with a dark blanket.I will argue this simply because I work in photography and I need something that will give me the clearest image available. I can take a RAW photo taking by my Nikon DSLR and display it simultaneously on both a glossy glass screen and an anti-glare LCD screen side by side.
The difference is remarkable! In every case, daylight or night, even fireworks, the gloss screen looks exactly the way I remember the actual scene to appear as I photographed it while the non-glare screen looks soft and muted. Fireworks are especially notable as you can actually make out individual sparks in some shots that just appear as a string of soft smears on the matte screen.
Put the two side by side using RAW (not jpg) images and tell me you can't see the difference.