Save an additional 3% on all MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros: Apple Price Guides updated July 24th (exclusive coupons)
RSS
 
–
A
+


Sunday, December 07, 2008, 07:05 am PT (10:05 am ET)

Apple's LED Cinema Display: the review

Review By Katie Marsal

Apple's first major update to the Cinema Display line brings a much greener design and a raft of welcome feature updates, especially for MacBook owners. At the same time, a partial shift away from Apple's mainstay professional crowd makes one wonder where the company is going and whether it hasn't lost focus.

A brief history of the Cinema Display

Despite being named after a movie theater, the Cinema Display was introduced in 1999 as a screen first and foremost for desktop-owning professionals; if you didn't have a Power Mac using the then-new DVI standard, you were effectively locked out of ownership. It resembled a painter's easel and had nothing but its video input for a connection, but its matte, undistorted, widescreen image was a boon for AV editors who needed both workspace and a more representative picture.

That all started to change in 2002, when the first DVI-equipped PowerBooks rolled out of Apple's factories. While the graphics hardware inside portable Macs was still somewhat anemic for a full dual-display setup to work well, it meant that PowerBook owners could buy a Cinema Display and use it as a desktop replacement. By late 2003, even the 12-inch PowerBook could make the pure digital connection to a Cinema Display — albeit through a bundled dongle.

Combined with the front-facing ports of the Power Mac G5, these more advanced portables helped shape the first complete redesign of the Cinema Display introduced in June 2004. Aside from a thinner and more adjustable aluminum enclosure, which was ultimately a hint at the design of the iMac G5, its biggest additions were a pair each of FireWire 400 and USB ports that made it infinitely more useful for not just peripheral-laden desktop users but also PowerBook (and later MacBook) users who wanted a permanent hub for their peripherals. At the time, it was embraced as a strong example of Apple finally answering longstanding requests.

After that, however, Apple fell silent. Beyond a quiet panel update in late 2005 and periodic price cuts, the displays had largely remained the same and increasingly felt like relics (which the 20- and 30-inch displays still do, as of this writing). In the meantime, third-party displays became increasingly less expensive even at the high end, where quality has improved as well; while there have been arguments made in favor of Apple's approach to color management, even Mac users have been known to joke in recent years that you bought a Cinema Display only to coordinate the fashion of your monitor with your computer. In some respects, the 24-inch iMac has been more suited to visual editing thanks to a significantly more modern LCD.

November of this year finally brought some relief through the LED Cinema Display, though this is the first instance in which a significant update to an Apple display hasn't represented a complete remake of the entire form factor; as we'll soon see, though, most of the real changes are on the inside.

LED Cinema Display in the shadows


Tags:
Jump to comments (198)
Categories:
 

Lowest Prices Anywhere!

 
MacBook Pro
READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST
11-inch MacBook Airs Price Savings 13-inch MacBook Pros Price Savings
1.4GHz/4GB/128GB+AppleCare $854.99* $293.01 2.4GHz/4GB/128GB+AppleCare $1,199.99* $348.01
1.4GHz/4GB/256GB+AppleCare $1,044.99* $303.01 2.6GHz/8GB/256GB+AppleCare $1,499.00* $349.00
1.7GHz/8GB/256GB+AppleCare $1,329.00* $269.00 2.6GHz/16GB/1TB+AppleCare $2,399.00* $349.00
13-inch MacBook Airs   15-inch MacBook Pros  
1.4GHz/4GB/128GB+AppleCare $949.99* $298.01 2.0GHz/8GB/256GB+AppleCare $1,899.00* $449.00
1.4GHz/8GB/512GB+AppleCare $1,579.99* $269.00 2.3GHz/16GB/1TB+AppleCare $2,849.00* $599.00
1.7GHz/8GB/256GB+AppleCare $1,429.00* $269.00 2.6GHz/16GB/1TB+AppleCare $3,099.00* $549.00
Click Here For Dozens More Configurations
* Price after applying coupon code
AP08072014
during checkout (before entering billing info). Need help? See our illustrated help guide or check out the Price Guides for dozens more configurations.
 
 

On Topic: Current Hardware