Life after Cinema

FelicityW said:

My 24" LED Cinema display went dark yesterday. With a flashlight, I can still see the video on the screen, so it is pretty clearly a burned-out backlight or whatever it is that illuminates these things. Since it was discontinued in 2010, it has gotten over four years of good use. I used it a lot.

So... What to do, what to do. Any guesses on the cost to repair? I am madly in love with the iMac retina, but if its display burns out in four years, that screws whoever owns the computer then (four years is my record for keeping a computer, the 2009 13" MBP which I upgraded last year with the 13" MBP retina w/ 16GB RAM, so it might not still be mine). Side question: what happens with all the iMacs today? Do their displays burnout?

Any third party displays with retina-like sharpness? I don't relish spending the money on a new computer given I just bought this laptop Nov 2013. If I did buy the iMac retina, I would probably sell my MBP and get the new 12" MBA for my sitting around computer.

Any possibility Apple has a retina display in the offing? Time frame? I really need a larger display than 13" (although I am enjoying the retina.... The irony was not lost on me that I waited for retina on my laptop and hardly ever use it as just a laptop) so I will need to decide on something soon.

Thank you for your input!

Click to expand...

Separate "Retina" (i.e. 5K, not 4K) Apple displays will require Thunderbolt 3 (offering 40Gbps, compared to 20Gbps of Tbolt 2, and 10Gbps of Tbolt 1), which won't arrive until late 2015 at the earliest. Tbolt 3 will need DisplayPort 1.4 which has only been ratified in late 2014 (exactly the same time as HDMI 2.0 as it happens which offers similar quality, which is useful as Tbolt 3 carries MINI-DPort signal of course, and thus with an adaptor, Mini-DP/Tbolt 3 ports can therefore plug into HDMI 2.0 devices — unless of course, Tbolt 3 uses a new smaller reversible cable connector, then that might change things?!).

Dell have an (expensive) $2500 5K display, but is uses MST which is not as good a technology as Apple's built-in homemade designed in-house controller used on the 5K Retina iMac, and can have 'tearing' issues for many users.

I'd suggest CES likely had some prototype devices on show (perhaps??), and most of those that make it to market do not do so until Spring at the very earliest, usually later if very advanced technology. But without Tbolt 3 being 'officially' announced yet, and guessing it might be over the next few months, I'd not hold much hope of Apple then going on to actually release a separate (non-MST) 5K display until very late 2015, at best.

I could be wrong, I doubt it, but who knows at this stage.