Apple laptop displays

DJ Rep

DJ Rep

How Interesting...
Is it just me or does the so called "industry leading" laptop displays suck! I am sitting here typing this on a 15" Powerbook current TOTR but I only get a native resolution of 1280 x 854 now lets be honest compared to other wintel laptop displays this is pants! I mean alienware have just brought out a laptop with a display of only 16.1" that has a native res of 1600 x 1200! thats a huge difference in pixels but not a huge difference in display size (just over 1 inch) now from what I understand apple use TFT XGA displays in their laptops and their flat panel displays, whereas the higher resolution display wintel laptops use UXGA, is that the reason for the higher pixel count? I love apple laptops, I really do but one thing that has always bugged me and I am sure others is the displays I wish apple would live up to their claims of "rejecting the panels that other companys except" well this maybe true but the wrong way around! The powerbook is due for an upgrade soon an I hope beyond all hope that apple get inline with the rest of the industry and release a 17" with 1920 x 1200 or something allong those lines to get with the likes of sony and release a 1600 x 1000 (widescreen) or nearest for the 15".
 
it is a fact that wintel laptops do have better resolution screens on laptops.
what i am wondering (as a non-expert) is if resolution plays such an important role in screen quality.. ??

does a 1600*1200 screen quality mean its better than my 12inch powerbook display ? im not so sure.

for example, if i compare My screen with my dads 15inch Ti powerbook screen (of higher resolution) id say mine looks much much better, and thats what i care bout since this is my LAPTOP, and not my desktop machine...


ill be waiting for answers..
 
Take a look at the new Sony VAIO laptops. Their LCD screens are *gorgeous*. Much brighter and clearer than any other laptop TFT on the market. Hope Apple incorporates those soon into their laptops.

Higher resolution doesn't necessarily mean a better screen. It just means that you get more screen real estate. While that is nice, I don't see that as being very important. 1024x768 suits me just fine. I do agree that 1400x1050 and above resolutions on laptops are a nice touch though.
 
Yes I know that a higher res is just for more screen real estate and thats what I would like, you know when you have like 4 to safari windows open and you expose them, but without the blur - that would be cool! Anyway the powerbook cycle is soon so hopefully they might up their displays a bit as it has been a while since they have
 
actually higher resolution means less transparency for the TFT. Either this gets compensated with a brighter lamp that will suck more energy (deadly for a mobile device) or the screen remains darker. I find 1280x854 for a 15.2'' more than enough and I think the over-resoluted screens are useless.
Also: imagine the menu on a 15.2'' screen and 1900x???. I don't want to bend down to the screen to see what's the time..
 
@ soulseek yes I can see your point of view but if you don't have a desktop system and your kick ass powerbook could be used as a replacement you may want the higher resolutions
 
I have thought this for the last couple of years. I love my Powerbook G4 15" 1.25ghz, but the display is the weakest part of the machine. All of Apple's laptops displays look washed out compared to the sharpness of some of the Wintel competitors. Part of it is OS X. Quartz uses a great deal of anti-aliasing, which makes images on the display look a little flatter. Windows is still using a bitmapped display engine, and as a result, much of the stuff looks sharper.

But it goes deeper than that. I was walking through Fry's last week looking at the Wintel laptops, and several of the newer models with the "XBrite" technology looked amazing. The display looked incredibly vibrant and almost glass like. It really put the display on the Macs to shame - especially the iBooks.

I love my Mac, but Apple really needs to see what is currently being offered on the other side and get with the program.
 
The problem with such a high res at a consumer level is that people can't USE them, and LCD screens scale horribly. Windows allows you to make everything bigger (screen fonts, screen elements etc), whereas Mac OS X doesn't. Dell tries to sell people the WUXGA resolutions and tells them to turn on Large Screen Fonts in Windows Display Properties, for clarity. You can't do that on OS X.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a higher resolution on my PowerBook, but there's no middle-ground on OSX. I use my PowerBook at home with a 17" CRT monitor running 1600x1200px spanned onto my PowerBook, so it's maximum screen real-estate... and my screen looks way nicer than my friend's high-res Dell, in brightness and clarity, plus its Colour Calibration is PERFECT in OS X.
 
I also think that the screens are nice. I think that the G5 Powerbook will be something to remember, so I wouldn't disregard anything Apple has on the cards yet :)
 
Well, i just have to say my 12" iBook display is far brighter, and much superior to my 15" Fushitsu-Siemens C-series Lifebook. My iBook is also much older. Plus, I can actually see at angles on the iBook, whereas on my Fujitsu, I can't get more than a 25° angle without losing the crispness and coloration.
 
that is something i forgot mentionin about screens. viewing angles..

i must say my powerbook is extremely good when viewing from the side or top...
i dont know exact angles but its quite impressive..

and somethin also as important is battery consumption :)
noone has actual facts. but i know that my battery lasts quite a bit in comparison to all my friends laptops:)
 
Agreed. Powerbook and iBook battery life tends to be very good in general. Only the Centrinos in the Wintel world can come close to the iBook and Powerbooks in terms of battery life.

My Powerbook lasts about 3 hours when doing CPU intensive tasks. Not too shabby. I've seen an Athlon64 laptop that barely lasted over an hour when I used it the way I use my Powerbook :)
 
i have a dell m60 and a 15" Al Powerbook. I'm used to the screen on my powerbook at 1280 x 854 so I thought 1900 x 1200 on my Dell was just too many pixels crammed in a 15" display. My eyes strain when using it b/c everything's so small. And it doesn't look right when I've it on any other resolution (ie, 1200 by xxx). The only reason I got it was for industrial design projects. I hardly use it anymore. Anyone interested in buying it?
 
hulkaros said:
Apple laptop displays DO NOT suck! :p
Click to expand...

I have to agree with that. While Apple's portable LCD displays do not offer the highest resolution, nor do they offer the brightest displays (both which suck battery life like you wouldn't believe as they go up), they most definitely do not suck. They are of extremely high quality and suit most laptop users beyond their needs.

Suck is an extremely strong word, and I think it's been used incorrectly in this thread. Perhaps if the thread started off something like, "I think my Apple laptop's screen could use some improvement," it would be better received. Not trying to "flower" things up or anything, it's just that Apple's laptop screens don't suck.
 
Yeah. I am fine with my PowerBook's resolution... what's more important is the brightness, sharpness, and overall quality... which are all the exact opposite of sucky.
 
if im not mistaken, mac displays are just the same as equivilent wintel displays. iirc, powerbook have an sxga display, just like an equivilent thinkpad.
 
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