Why is the Apple Cinema Display sooo thick?

[Yazolight]

Hello guys!



Passing by an Apple store, I was just wondering why is the Apple cinema display almost as thick as an Imac. I mean, It's just a screen! Why it cannot be as thin as the screen of any Mac book? Even some enormous LED tv are like 1-2 cm thin.

why it can't be at least as thin as a closed mac book! How can it be justified?



http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/13-and-15-inch/

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3314484?start=0&tstart=0

The 2011 mac book pro is 2.41cm (0.95 inch) thick, the retina is 1.8cm (0.71 inch), and the air is 1.7cm (0.68 inch) at his thickest point. They got a screen, many ports, circuit board, plus all the stuff that the Apple display doesn't have. Yet, it is thicker.
The cinema display is about 1.25 inch, 3 cm (Apple only give the depth size with the stand, which of course should not be considered). The thickest apple laptop is about 30% thinner, the air being almost 50% thinner... including all the stuff that a computer have and that I screen doesn't.

Seriously, what's inside that can justify such a thick stuff? My brain just cannot compute the fact that a screen and a complete all in one desktop (the imac) are both as thick.

 

[M0esmac]

IMHO, I love that thickness. I do not want it to be like RMBP... That would look bad.

 

[brentsg]

Those incredibly thin TVs do not have LED backlights. They are edge lit which doesn't work as well.

 

[bollweevil]

I was wondering this exact thing last week, while shopping for a 27" monitor. I went to Costco and Microcenter and read specs online, and this is what I found:

1. The 27" Apple Cinema Display is actually significantly thinner than the HP ZR2740w and the Dell U2711, both of which use the exact same 27" 2560x1440 IPS panel internally. My HP is at least 2" thick. Although the HP and Dell are much thicker than the Apple, they weigh exactly the same amount (23.1 lbs for HP and Dell, 23.5 lbs for Apple).

2. The LED backlight is probably thick - that is what I deduce from looking at a number of screens. The thinnest screens are invariably edge-lit.

3. Think about the connector ports - the Apple display has USB, Ethernet, Firewire, and Thunderbolt ports. Sockets cannot be made smaller than they need to be, they have some minimum size. There are three ways to put sockets on a display (I saw all three from various manufacturers):

i. Put a lump on the back of the screen, and then put the sockets facing down from the underside of the lump. This is what most screens do (including my HP). It is obnoxious, because you cannot see to plug things in. Also, the lump adds thickness, the lump must be as thick as the sockets are wide.

ii. Put the sockets on the side edge of the screen, facing sideways. The entire screen must be at least as thick as the sockets are wide. This is nice because you can see to plug things in, but I think it looks funny once stuff is plugged in, because it juts out the side of the monitor.

iii. (The Apple choice) Put the sockets on the middle of the back, opening backward. Now, you can see to plug things in (the benefit from option ii), but you can also hide the cords (the benefit from option i). Unfortunately, the screen must now be as thick as the socket is deep, plus the thickness of the LCD panel and LED backlight and stuff.

I suspect Apple made it as thin as they could.

 

[rkdiddy]

I can't wait until we see an OLED ACD - it could be potentially the thickness of an iPad.

 

[ivnj]

And thinner is more breakable.

 

[LaazyEye]

Thicker lcd panel to reduce cost, backlight, power supply, pcb for interconnects, speakers, fan...