Impressions on the display (and a small rant on the state of the iMac)

I wonder how no one's posted their impressions of the laminated glass display. It's probably THE most important feature of this update.

A lot of us are eagerly awaiting it as the end of the glare woes, in that apple has finally delivered an imac that's not a usability disaster due to their aesthetic choice of glass cover.

A lot of us are also in the market for an imac solely for this reason. I know I am, since, as an aside, I am not only underwhelmed by apple's design (last year's design with iphone/ipad prego tapering) again with absolutely no care for any ergonomics in height and swivel adjustment of the screen (the competition is smoking them there) - and it's high time they did care.

I am also appalled at their insistence on using mobile parts on a desktop pc (when desktop parts have gained so much in terms of power effectiveness and noise), their use of custom ports for ssds (a money grab with no space saving effects as one might claim are warranted in a notebook) and piss poor repairability, as well as, their usurious pricing which this time, has gone, way, way too far.

A $100 increase on last years model with a piss poor 5,400 rpm hard drive as basic, and an added $450, for the benefit to have a 128gb ssd for the os. It would literally have cost them no more than $30 max to stick a 64gb ssd module on the (already more expensive by $100) entry model. It's almost 2013 and for a machine going into at least 2014/2015, and one costing as much it's shameless of them to not put the os on an ssd, and not only that, but to actually degrade the speed of the machine considerably by using the slowest possible spinning available on the market. And to add insult to injury to request another $450 for that benefit, and to hide the ram at the most inaccessible part possible so that means another $200 by most. That to me is akin to theft. For a small ssd for the os, and some decent future proofing with another 8gb ram, one ends up paying more than the entry level 27" incher. Shameless marketing of the worst kind so they can grab another $650 from you for components that cost them in total no more than $60-100. At best a 600% profit margin in an industry that goes by right now with razor thin 5-15% margins.

But, since most of us have been waiting half a decade or so to get one that doesn't double up as a mirror, we'll very unwillingly cough up our hard earned cash and be taken advantage of, so apple can stack a few more hundreds of billions in the bank. What can you do, when you are tied to the os... Having said that, as soon as I can, and am willing to put in the time and effort switching back to windows entails, in the next couple or so years, I am ditching them for good, as I am sure many other core users we'll be doing.

Anyway, so how's that screen? At least someone tell me they are impressed so they can lessen my pain for all the other compromises and being taken advantage by apple to an unprecedented extent.

How's the subjective experience with reflections?

It seems the panel (via ifixit) is the same as the previous mac (so I guess all that talk about individual calibration by Phil was his usual claptrap marketing for going with a three year old panel), but how is the brightness settings and contrast tweaked this time?

How does it compare to the rmp or the screen of the air in terms of reflections?

Pictures appreciated of course. Thanks boys.

jmoore5196 said:

Unless I missed something, no one is holding a gun to your head and demanding you produce your credit card.

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Marketing focused on charging customers locked in your ecosystem (after years of investing in it) +$450 so they can avoid circa 2003 hard drive speeds which will completely ruin their user experience and their investment in otherwise superb (third party) cpu and gpu tech, and for the benefit of storing the os and apps in a faster flash module (that can cost as low as $20 to apple) in 2013 is akin to theft, period.

I am into apple devices and I have quite a lot of them, I have invested in their ecosystem, I am one of the millions who have put billions in their bank accounts, they better start showing some respect to the people who's hard earned cash got them where they are now. Like I said, it would cost them next to nothing to stick one of those custom flash modules there at 32gb to allow for a decent user experience, after the user coughs up $1299 in a time of worldwide financial crises.

It's as self evident and transparent a ploy to get you to spend the extra +$450 on which they have 400% margins as anything. Same with the ipad, no sd card slot, laughable 16gb and 32gb storages for 2013 and up one goes to 64gbs where again they get their huge cuts. Same with the macbook pro retinas, out go the hard drives, in goes the custom ssd at a meagre 256, and apple want you to pay up so they can get to their comfortable margins. And you can't even use a hybrid drive, cause they've obliterated industry standard interfaces from the machine.

In every single one of their latest releases I (and I am sure a lot of others) have realized apple has tried to pull a fast one on the user, because their clout makes them think they can't: New ipad, where's the base 32gb model? A 16gb ipad in this day an age is an insult and I pity the poor souls that apple manages to sell one to them. New macbook pro retinas? Where's the standard sata to put a great hybrid drive there, let alone a dual hd ssd scenario? Why does the 13" macbook pro have ample internal space for a standard ssd yet apple under the trackpad puts a tiny custom module that's too small so they encase it in rubber so as not to bump on the sides from all the wasted available space, a pro device with 128gb of storage, less than what it had 10 years ago. And now the macs, with hd speeds at $1299 from 10 years ago...

In an industry with very very slim profit margins, where large players can at any point go under, apple by virtue of your having invested in an os and ecosystem use every dirty marketing ploy in the book to get you to keep paying them x2, x3 and x4 the margins anyone else is making. They've become a worst monster than ms ever was.

Now any ignoramus out there might not care about that, cool by me, I can't blame people for not being computer hobbyists and being taken advantage of. Selling has always been about making a fool and their money part. But when it comes to me, I am only buying apple because of my prior investment. I have become increasingly frustrated with their bs, and as soon as I can I am going windows and android ftw. Give it a few months for them to polish things up a bit, and I am selling my macs to some kids who want to look keeeuulll, cause that's what macs are about these days.

I won't be the only one, that's for sure, at some point the blatant disrespect they show for their core users will erode their market, they won't always be hip, they can't, nothing ever has been. At some point it will be hip to not own apple, and when that time comes they will wish they had stuck that $20 flash in the base imac, that they didn't sell ipads with useless 16gbs of storage, and that those overpriced adapters and custom ports, where a few custom ports and overpriced adapters too many in the grand scheme of things long term.

/eor

Now how come no one's posted their impressions from the screen?

I thought a lot of people would be very excited about it.

thanks to the poster that submitted their impressions on the screen, it's good to hear it's much better than the previous model, although the previous model was as atrocious in terms of glare as anything ever created in terms of computer displays. I 'll try to find your posts to see the comparison, thanks for going into the trouble of doing it!

Sorry you didn't get my points, maybe in the future you might, I have more than 20 years of experience in the area to know what I am talking about. I am not entitled to anything other than not being screwed over by apple. Hard drive speeds circa 2003 in 2013, for a $100 price spike is screwing me over, +$450 for a small ssd to the already expensive retail price is screwing me over. It's 300-400% margins when the rest of the biz is going with 5-15% margins.

**** poor ergonomics on the nth iteration of a product ISNT screwing me over, but it's very disappointing and it's sure going to hurt my neck, my back, and my spine when I constantly tilt my head up, counter to any computer safety manual on the globe which requires my eyes to be level with the top of the screen, and that's because apple do thin but they don't do functional and ergonomic. We had to wait half a decade to get a mac they didn't completely eff up ergonomic wise (don't take my word for it, google the explicit instructions of a number of academic and workplace environments against the headache and eye strain inducing glare on the glass imacs) our eyesight because Steve and Jony decided glass was sexy yet laminating it would be expensive hence they just stuck a glass in front of the computer not for any special functionality (as in windows 8 touchscreen aio's currently on the market) but because it looked shiny and sexy (enter not one, but three refractive and reflective surfaces and glare galore), again don't take my word for it, read the forums and the thousands of petition signers at macmatte and elsewhere.

I own apple products, I like most apple products, I don't drink the kool aid though, thank you very much.

MisterKeeks said:

I too have much invested in Apple devices, and yet... I don't feel like I have to upgrade or that Apple is screwing me over at all. Weird, huh?

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yeah it's weird why you don't feel screwed over, cause you are, and royally so, the thing with apple is they have a knack of making you liking it and forgetting about it.

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Look, these forums are about bitching too, at least respect the fact that I have some very justified issues with their pricing, their marketing and their end product. I am not bitching about losing the odd or about them dropping the firewire, or any other more minor, preference issue. I am not asking for blue ray for the nth time either. Let's face it apple's decided to use mobile parts and make an air on a stick with the 21.5, overprice it predictably, but even for apple's standards go way beyond what anyone expected and actually demand a +$450 premium for a small ssd so the machine doesn't run on a slow as hell hard drive. These are all pretty major points, what can we do? I don't like them, I 'd rather be enjoying my mac than ranting about em, but apple's given me ample reasons to do so. All the more so since this is their least upgradable machine and most probably my taking off the screen to stick a hybrid hdd in there will void my warranty.

I d be more than happy if they 'd spiked the price up by $200 instead of $100, stuck a 32gb ssd in the base model, the honest and decent thing to do, cause the 5400rpm drive is like offering the base bmw with a 2 gallon tank, and I 'd be ecstatic if besides the friction welding bs, they put their patent to use and issued a height adjustable mac. I wasn't asking for much really. I think after all the self patting and marketing bull about great products (in the slimy way Cook pronounces it), one is justified in demanding, a, well you know, a GREAT product. A thin non ergonomic imac with notebook parts on the tired years old non adjustable stand with a 5400 rpm drive isn't a great product period. I am not the one touting how great my products are, they are, they might as well then deliver great products then. It's not 10 years ago when a silent, good looking AIO was great cause there were hardly any on the market, the competition has better stands, better upgradability, touch screens, good pricing etc. etc. and apple has... thin (and os x, whatever's left of it)...That's not so great, some would say it's in many respects worse off than what the others are offering. If they want to continue their claims to greatness and the high margins to go along, they better start delivering something that objectively be called great wrt what the others are doing...simple as that...

And I 'll end up buying the 27" at the end (they did it, they made me pay even more) because it's the only decent offer in terms of pricing that's not for suckers... just tell me they offer the fusion with the base model and they don't make you get the even higher specked one.... And I sure hope they didn't ditch vesa (cause I don't see it on their site) for the 27" imac...

jediDev said:

The new display is terrific. It's got all the good things of the old display, but it's missing (a) glare and (b) that weird double-image reflection effect created by the gap between the display and the glass and (c) relatedly, double glare.

It's by now means perfect. Some slight uniformity issues (but basically every IPS LCD seems to have them, at least below an exorbitant price point). It's not retina. But it's definitely a big improvement over 2009-2011 iMacs IMO.

If you're in a pitch black room you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference, but now I'm not afraid to turn on a few more lights.

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Great post, to the point and in detail, very much appreciated indeed. I don't think Ray Soneira (sp?) of displaymate could have described it better. Great to hear about all that. As for the ips panels, it's expected, not to worry, as a great one once said. I wish they would opt for va panels at some point, I have an eizo and I love the deep 3000/1 blacks, but at least on the 27" the technology isn't there for such high res. Maybe now that samsung's ditched them and they knocked the door of au optronics we might in the future see va trickling in the imacs (au make some of the best va panels). VA contrasts with igzo transistors for retina displays. That's something to really get excited about!! If they do that, I promise I won't rant about the non ergo foot

MacOG728893 said:

Exactly my point. You sit here and complain, yet you're still going to buy one. There's a good reason Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world right now.

A consumer who is displeased with Apple and its iMac line, yet still buys the very thing he or she is dissatisfied with. If you want to send a message to Apple, stop buying their products. Ranting on here won't do a $&*% thing for you, for others who are pleased with the iMacs or Apple.

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Point taken, but bear in mind I have a considerable software and ecosystem investment, I can't pay the price of another couple imacs to replace my software with windows compatible ones at the moment. And my quote unquote ranting at least might help some people make an informed choice and go for the model that's worth its money, the 27" one, they do make some price points/products that are worth it too you know, they just don't do so often recently. When I switched to mac ten or so years ago, I price checked comparable pcs and I came to the conclusion that the apple tax wasn't really there, they they were indeed very good value for money, upgradability, etc. etc. It's not my fault that they 've gone all sealed in, and custom ssds on us, and little marketing ploys to overprice their devices.

Having said that, I do plan to transition away from them, cause I really don't like how they are playing it anymore in so many respects, I don't like the hip over functional etc. etc. (I am not going to repeat what I said obviously). I 've ditched the iphone and I am waiting for the 2013 keyboard blackberry, as soon as someone laminates the touch screen on a win 8 tablet I ll go with that for clear type and the fresh tiles interface (cause apple's taking forever to facelift the interface of ios...no widgets even), I am eyeing a nice lenovo and saving up for it (the carbon fiber x1 with the great keyboard and the full 180 screen opening) and I am thinking that if samsung can stick it to them and come up with a standalone panel (I ll get an eizo or nec variant probably) at retina before they do in a year, or a year and a half, it 'll most probably be goodbye for me permanently, stick a nice expandable $600 mini tower beast with standard ports to upgrade away under the table, and a retina panel from samsung and I am good as gold. As for the so called ecosystem, who cares about itunes and icloud when you have spotify, pandora etc. and dropbox?