Buying iMac now, or waiting? (screen issues etc)

[MFKitten]

ok, so i´m trying to get rid of my 3 year old eMac. it´s working perfectly fine, and there´s nothing wrong with it, but i need more "OOMPH!" when editing music. 20+ tracks with lots of processing per track tends to beat the poor thing up!

i´m looking at a 20" iMac, 2 GB of ram, otherwise stock, and with logic studio 8 pre-installed. it´s pretty good as far as the price goes, but i´m really choosey and picky about audio and visual quality. i also do image editing and video editing, and so i want it all to look nice, obviously.

i´m not concerned about the gloss screen, because i love those myself, what i´m concerned about is the screen bugs and issues that seem to plague the later generation iMacs. i chose the eMac over the then-current generation of iMacs because of the nicer-looking CRT screen (of course, i didn´t consider the fact that it´s not just a noisy machine, but CRT screens love to interfere with guitar pickups ).

With the "grey turning brown" bug when viewing at an angle and the "saturation/brightness fade" towards the bottom, not to mention the "turning everything to a bland mess" thing when viewing from above... have any of these flaws been fixed? also, i heard a rumor about a screen synch/lag/refresh rate issue, is that a usual problem?

in other words, is it worth getting one of these in the coming month/months, or should i just wait and see if they bring out an update? or should i just go for some other mac?

thanks!

Morten, Norway

s

 

[Vulcan]

It will be a while until they update them, right now we are expecting updates to iPods, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Apple Displays, Mac Mini's, and Mac Pro's before we get to iMacs, so I'd recommend getting one now.

 

[Slippery Gimp]

To be honest mate, it sounds as if you're going to be using a new computer for audio purposes primarily, so the screen angle issue etc won't affect you. I do graphics stuff and I manage fine, so you will too.

Get the iMac: I just sold my old eMac to get one and it's so much nicer. Love the glossy screen!

 

[MFKitten]

on a scale from 1-10, how noticeable is it? like, if you do a solid color background, d you notice it well? aside from the different viewing angles, i mean, just looking straight at it?

and doing photoshopping and stuff, is it enough to affect my work? like, would it end up with me over-compensating, and the pics all getting darker and over-saturated at the bottom?

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

on a scale from 1-10, how noticeable is it? like, if you do a solid color background, d you notice it well? aside from the different viewing angles, i mean, just looking straight at it?

and doing photoshopping and stuff, is it enough to affect my work? like, would it end up with me over-compensating, and the pics all getting darker and over-saturated at the bottom?

My friend has an iMac which he bootcamps for gaming on XP, and I don't notice a thing except that the colors are really sharp and just awesome. Photoshopping isn't an issue, since it is viewing angle, not color accuracy. just relax, as long as you view displays within its range then you should be fine. unless you stare at it from the side or something.

 

[Slippery Gimp]

Just sit looking at it straight on (which is how it should be anyway, I feel) and it'll be fine. I do Photoshop stuff and 3DS Max stuff (via Bootcamp), and it's important my renders look good, so if I get by, anyone can. I haven't looked at a 24" to compare.

 

[tri3limited]

The 20" has a worse display with regards to the amount of colors it can show.

I've just received the 24" and the display is perfect. I'm doing software based color correction on it and it seems to be close to perfect for that... It surprised me!

 

[MFKitten]

ah, so it has a worse color range then? that sounds a little... annoying?

of course, i´d only be annoyed because i technically new it was like that

 

[The Hammer]

ah, so it has a worse color range then? that sounds a little... annoying?

of course, i´d only be annoyed because i technically new it was like that

The 20" still displays more colours than the human eye can distinguish or so I've been told. The ones I've seen looked just fine.

 

[skubish]

The screen issues with the iMacs are grossly exaggerated. I have one and the screen is flawless and awesome.

 

[MFKitten]

i´ve decided on the 24" imac, not jsut because of the screen itself, but also because of the general specs being better. also, i can upgrade the GFX card as well

 

[J71]

I think your last post nailed the same reasons I choose the 24-inch over the 20-inch. In addition the viewing angles are much better than the 20-inch.

Enjoy!