Well, the results are in: it was a disaster!
First, the technical problems with the display itself. I use Windows XP in bootcamp and this thing is basically useless there. When using the display in XP, you cannot set it to be the primary monitor. Nor can you clone the laptop's display to it. When in Display Properties>Settings, you have two check-box items listed for each display: "use this device as my primary monitor" and "extend my desktop onto this device". Both checkboxes are grayed out for the laptop's screen, and only "extend my desktop onto this device" is available for the cinema display. So that means you only enable or disable the cinema display, and then tweak position, resolution, and color settings. That's it. My research on Google shows that this is the case for others, so I imagine this is the status quo until they add something to the boot camp support package.
To add injury to insult, it acts very glitchy when used in XP. Sometimes when I boot into XP, the display will not turn on. Other times, it will turn on but be very dim. And one time, a strange smear of neon-colored pixels appeared on both screens.
Now, the display itself was breathtaking and I could have easily just used it in OSX alone...
...but WoW is unplayable on this screen. Normally on my macbook, I have everything maxed out except for v-sync being off and shadows at minimum. This grants me an average 30fps in most zones, in both OSX and XP. When playing on the cinema display, I get a SINGLE-DIGIT framerate with every single possible graphical setting DISABLED OR DECREASED TO MINIMUM. This is being tested in a deserted corner of Nagrand. With both screens active, I can play WoW on the macbook's own screen with the same performance I normally have. Its only when I move the game window to the cinema display that this happens. I can even put WoW in windowed mode on the lowest possible resolution (800x600) and as soon as I drag it onto the cinema display's screen I am back to getting single-digit framerates. Seriously, you can drag the WoW window back and forth across the screens and watch it switch between 30fps and 3fps.
Single-digit framerates. With every possible graphical feature at minimum/unchecked. Running at 800x600.
Obviously this issue goes far beyond the expected performance hit of an increased resolution. It seems as if the integrated card cant handle driving both the monitor and driving a game on that monitor. And its definitely not an issue with overall resource use of the card, because as I said if you click-drag WoW back over to the macbook's built-in screen the performance immediately goes back to normal. I would bet that with the MBP's dedicated video card you would see this issue completely eliminated rather than just reduced.
I was too offput by my initial impressions to test other things such as Photoshop, but I'd imagine that any intensive application might have the same issues, game or non-game. In short, if you are reading this it means you are a gamer and you have an aluminum MB, which means you should NOT get the LED Cinema Display.
Disgusted, I returned the cinema display today, having purchased it yesterday. I had to haggle with the Apple Store manager to waive the 10% restocking fee. He explained that they would charge me a restocking fee since there were no physical defects with the display itself. I had to lay out several points to convince him otherwise:
A.) Its not as if I was trying something out and decided I didn't like it. I returned it because of specific issues I discovered with it.
B.) I felt that the issues I experienced, when taking into account traditional experiences with external displays and the amount of information Apple makes available for this product, were unforeseeable and outside of reasonable expectations. I shouldn't lose $90 just to take a display home for one night to find out it can't handle the tasks I would reasonably expect it to.
C.) The random nature of the monitor's operation in Windows XP means a physical issue with the display isn't out of the question, on top of the other intrinsic issues I already had with it.
D.) Whether the problem is with the macbook, the monitor, or both, in the end it is all part of Apple's hardware ecosystem and by Apple's own mantras I should expect great synergy between them unless they note otherwise.
He begrudgingly waived the restocking fee "this one time". I'm glad he did, otherwise you'd be reading a Page 2 story tomorrow about someone going postal in an Apple Store.
My original plan as a Mac initiate was that I would get this MB and the LED Cinema Display, then at some point in the near future purchase a MBP for the extra horsepower. As I was dealing with this problem, it dawned on me that that was the wrong plan. What I am now going to do is save some more dough and buy a top of the line iMac when they are (supposedly soon) refreshed. With an iMac I would still be getting a 24" 1920x1200 display, as well as a machine that might very well crush the best MBP performance-wise, all for significantly less than the cost of a maxed-out MBP alone. Add in the $900 I would save by not buying the Cinema Display and the fact that 2 mobile Macs would be redundant, and its a no-brainer for me.
I hope someone has benefited from this. Its late (early?) and I'm tired, so pardon any incoherence on my part.
