Technical info on iMAC 24" screen Please help

ausha wrote:
My questions are

1. What type of LCD panel is iMAC? S IPS/ H IPS/ PVA or TN. No mention on apple site

2. What is the true color resolution 16.7 million or 16.2 ?? Apple site says millions of colors.......

3. Is it true 8 bit or 16 bit

Mid_2007 24" iMac: LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLB1, S-IPS, 8-bit

Late_2006 24" iMac: LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLA1, S-IPS, 8-bit

Mid_2007 20" iMac: LG.Philips LM201WE3-????, TN Film, 6-bit

Late_2006 20" iMac: Samsung LTM201M1-????, S-PVA, 8-bit

20" Cinema Display: LG.Philips LM201W01-SLA3, S-IPS, 8-bit

23" Cinema Display: LG.Philips LM230W02-????, S-IPS, 8-bit

30" Cinema Display: LG.Philips LM300W01-????, S-IPS, 8-bit

See: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk for additional panel specs.

4. How good are the blacks ?

I've seen no black-screen luminance measurements, but there have been several threads on various Mac forums documenting backlight bleed problems (with photos). This appears to be relatively uncommon. My 24" ex-iMac had no significant bleed and (to my non-professional eye) very good black levels.

5. How can one adjust the height of the screen

No height adjustment.

7. How is the effect of glossy screen on the eye. Is it a huge strain?

Extremely mixed opinions on this one. After living with a 24" for 1 month, I did experience eye strain problems (mainly, when reading text). Not sure whether it was due to the glossy screen or the 2.5:1 brightness gradient, or both.

Don't be fooled by the similar part numbers for current and previous generation 24" LCD panels; their performance WRT luminance uniformity is strikingly different. Here are some screen photos of my ALU ex-iMacs:
http://picasaweb.google.com/TheLooby

good luck

Looby

Quite a few questions ausha, but here's my 2 cents 😉

(1) Well from a couple of comments I have heard, they say the new iMac 24 inch Aluminum is S IPS and not PVA and definitely not TN. But the general consensus now and seems to be the definite point according to Mac rumors site that it is indeed the H IPS and not the S IPS.

(2) & (3) ? can't be certain.

(4) Blacks look perfectly black, the gloss screen does help to give a stong black color, see no evidence of bleed.

(5) The is no adjustment for height, however you can swivel the screen up and down to get comfortable head height.

(6) Spyder 2 Pro I use, Works fine, but the glass front does effect it to an extent for calibration.

(7) I'm in my fifties and I need to use reading glasses to read and look at the 24 inch screen. However no eye strain I have suffered. The glass screen does not affect my vision whatsoever. In fact I have to say that my vision is much improved than on the PC screen that I also have.

(8) Aperture is worth every penny IMHO, for a fantastic workflow and on the 24 inch screen with 4 GB of Ram is a dream to work with. This integrates well with Adobe CS3 and iLife products such as iPhoto. I cannot comment on Capture 1 Pro as I have never used it, but it does cost more for the pro version than Aperture.

Anthony J Howe wrote:

(1) Well from a couple of comments I have heard, they say the new iMac 24 inch Aluminum is S IPS and not PVA and definitely not TN. But the general consensus now and seems to be the definite point according to Mac rumors site that it is indeed the H IPS and not the S IPS.

The ALU 24" LCD panel has been unambiguously identified as an *LG.Philips LM240WU2 (SL)(B1)*

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4147326&postcount=58

Some sources list LM240WU2 as an "S-IPS" panel, others call it an "H-IPS" -- and I believe both classifications can be found in different parts of http://www.tftcentral.co.uk 's LCD database. I'm not sure there's really any difference other than "brand identification" one-upsmanship by competing suppliers. Are "H-IPS" and "S-IPS" registered trademarks? Do they signify real differences in panel design/fabrication/performance? Wikipedia.org is a little vague on the technology differences.

Looby

Ausha

4. How good are the blacks ?

The blacks are very rich with some minimal backlight bleedthrough at the bottom of the display, I have seen on several other LCD display brands as well.

5. How can one adjust the height of the screen

Not Adjustable, You can use a ream of paper under the stand to raise the dispaly like I do. It's not pretty but it works.

6. What color calibration software would be the ideal

Spyder2 Pro or Pantone Huey both work pretty good but the calibration is not perfect due to the slight parallax from the glass surface to the LCD surface

7. How is the effect of glossy screen on the eye. Is it a huge strain?

At First the glare is a little annoying but you get used to it, at least I did. I don't even notice it anymore unless i'm working with a black background on a webiste. Even then a slight tilt of the display and it's not bad.

8. Capture one pro vs Apples own aperture for raw editing is it worth spending extra £219 ???

If you are a professional or serious amature photographer I would recommend Aperature or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I prefer the Lightroom because it work seamless with Photoshop and has a better RAW processor in it, it costs the same as Aperature. Capture one has many limitations and is not very widley used by pros.

I hope this helps

Brian

Message was edited by: Brijar

Message was edited by: Brijar

ausha wrote:

One last question. How is the 23" Cinema display. Do you have any experience ??I have read its a S-IPS. Apple's thch info PDF claims its color gamut is wider. But how wider it is, I have no idea.

Yes, http://www.tftcentral.co.uk lists all the ACDs as S-IPS. Enter "apple" in the Panel Search box on tftcentral's home page for a complete list.

I have no first-hand experience with ACDs, other than occasional tire-kicking sessions in Apple retail stores. To my (non-professional) eye, the images appear to be of very high quality. OTOH, ACDs are seriously limited WRT features (e.g. only one video input -- DVI-D or nothing), and their warranty coverage is below-average. I strongly suspect you could find many less expensive monitors with equivalent (or better) video performance, 3-5 year warranties, and a much more flexible/generous set of video inputs and convenience features.

Color gamut is beyond my depth; I have a vague idea of what it's all about -- but nothing more, However, I'd expect that to be a property of the LCD panel, rather than the particular brand of monitor.

tftcentral lists two 23" ACD versions with different LG.Philips panels: LM230W02 and LM230WU3. If you feed those numbers back into Panel Search > panel, you'll find about a dozen other monitors that use the very same LCDs. There are also many monitors that use LG.Philips S-IPS panels of similar quality, but in different sizes. For example, Dell's highly-rated 24" 2407WPS uses an LM201W01. Enter "LG.Philips" in Panel Search > panel for a list of monitors using LG.Philips panels of all sizes and types...

...then shop 'til ya drop,

Looby

Hi Looby
LG.Philips LM240WU2 has indeed been identified.
Thee is no difference with H ISP & S ISP with regard to design, performance extra. The only minor difference is that H ISP has an extra coating to reduce color shift at angles so that blacks look black and not have a slightest purplish hue to it.
See this thread.
MacRumors

Thanks for the star ausha. 😉