How good is the Imac screen?

[thedon1]

One thing i will be doing one my imac when i get it is watching movies and tv shows.

I have seen LED tvs and they look stunning.

How does apples screen compare?

[Hellhammer]

Go to a store and have a look. Generally, they are great. IPS panel and LED backlight are the best available. It still isn't a 40" TV though

[davidnssbm]

Well, the rez is higher than HDTV, so I remember reading it technically gets stretched and a little pixelly...? Wish I could answer better.

Where's Hellhammer when you need him?

edit: LOL, beat by the man himself.

[Hellhammer]

Well, the rez is higher than HDTV, so I remember reading it technically gets stretched and a little pixelly...? Wish I could answer better.

Yeah. LCDs are designed to run at native res so if you run something that isn't the native res (e.g. a DVD on HDTV), it won't look as good as Blu-Ray would because the picture is stretched. iMac's resolution is so great that there simply isn't a movie at that resolution. So it will anyway run out of its native res. However, the viewing distance plays an important role as well. Sammich made a good post (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=10505516&postcount=20) about it.

So to summarize, the iMac is nice for watching movies but movies cannot take full advantage of it. It also depends on how far away you will be sitting as the closer you are, the blurrier and pixelly the picture will be. The viewing distance is actually the main thing here. This is getting pretty confusing now :D It's hard to explain but yeah, it will be good for movies and stuff, just don't sit too close to the display.