[argyllcms] Re: Display of iMAC

On 2008 Jul 19, at 1:55 PM, Volker Sauer wrote:


I'm thinking of getting an iMac (24") as a replacement for my linux
box.
Some people told me, that the display of the iMac is crap because it
actually can't be really calibrated - only by some software settings
in the iMac.
Other people say, that quality is good, it doesn't need calibration and 
profiling is enough to achieve good colors.

What's your experience on that?
I have an aluminum 24" iMac that I'm very pleased with. I would say that the quality is quite good, but it's not excellent. I'm sure the folks who do color-critical work at, say, National Geographic, would find it insufficient. For the rest of us mere mortals, it's all we need.
I would offer a few caveats to be aware of. First, I've observed a rather significant drift in the native color temperature over time. Search the forums for my name and you'll see a few different posts with the output of dispcal -R and you'll see what I mean. I think it was around 6700K when I got it, and now it's in the 5800K range. If you're doing critical work, you'll probably want to calibrate and profile weekly or whenever you do color-sensitive stuff, whichever is less frequent.
Next, it's subject to persistence aka ``burn-in.'' Much more so with full brightness and elevated temperatures. The display is around 160 cd/m^2 at minimum brightness, which is quite useable and not only reduces persistence but saves you about 50 watts of power (and heat). You'll want to use smcFanControl to run the fans at the highest speed where the sound isn't noticeable or objectionable (around 2K rpm for me, but there's more ambient noise then I generally like here...you may well prefer slower if your office is quiet). And, either use a solid white image for the screen saver or LCD Scrub. If you set your desktop background to 50% / 18% gray, it'll be easy to spot the burn- in, which is most noticeable along high-contrast areas like window borders.
Last, what everybody talks about: the reflectance. If your work environment is properly set up, the glossy screen is wonderful, better than the old CRT displays (which, you may recall, were also all glossy). If you have bright lights behind you, you're screwed -- but you wouldn't be able to do color-critical work on a non-glossy display in such conditions, anyway.
I'd say that, in general, it's an excellent value for the money. It's not cheap, and you get something that's quite good. It's also not top- of-the-line...but you're not paying top-of-the-line prices for it, either. If you're aware of the limitations and either they won't affect you or you can work around them, then go for it.
I have no regrets whatsoever about my purchase. If my budget were the same, I'd do the exact same thing again. Of course, if I had tens of thousands to spend, I wouldn't give it a first thought, let alone a second, but.... 

Cheers,

b&

Other related posts: