13" MacBook Pro - 6 or 8 bit color? Specs page True or False?

Here it is... My Dell 2405FPW does not show this ****** line...

http://www.baytzim.com/blog/2009/jul/14/appleand_their_colorfullies-197/

But the Macbook white of my wife (mid 2008) shows it very accuratlely (and i noticed, by the way, how bad are the view angle on these low-end TN displays)...

Tomorow, i'll go to the Apple Store downtown to check the pattern on the new MBP 13...

Well. so far all laptop screens I have seen are not very good. I plug my Macbook into an IPS external. Then I stopped worrying. Companies have touted 6-bit panels with dithering as millions of colors for years. It is not just Apple. You should include Dell, Lenovo, HP, Alienware, et all. Apple is using acceptable marketing jargon. All TN 6 or 8 bit panels are pretty horrible unless you can put your head in a vice and never move it.

I have tested the 3 MBP (13, 15 & 17 inch) @ the apple store nearby... If the test and assertion on Baytzim blog is true, then all the 3 new MBP use a 6-bit display + dithering.

But, i must admit that the illusion is very good and especially on the MBP 13 inch where the "infamous" line is visible only when you look at the screen from the bottom with more than 20° angle from the perpendicular axis and almost invisible when looking at the screen from upside... This is less true with the MBP 15 and even worse with the MBP 17 where the line appears if you just move slightly the head...

In fact, on the MBP 13 inch, the dithering is really visible (even when looking the screen perpendicularly) in the up-left corner in the green colors...

Anyway, i finally bought the MBP 13 inches in replacement of my MB Air ... badly damaged after hitting the ground last week 😟

Message was edited by: Gavroche1973

Just to throw my hat in the ring in this thread, the other contributor is the backlight. In an LCD panel, the panel itself basically acts as a filter to remove color from the backlight, yielding the displayed colors. Thus, overall gamut is limited by the spectral characteristics of the backlight itself. LED backlights have a broader spectrum than CCFL backlights, so merely by making the switch from CCFL to LED backlight, the gamut of an LCD panel is significantly increased, regardless of whether the panel is 6- or 8-bit.

Tasty info. Also calibration on LED backlights are a bit more difficult and selective with what works and what doesn't. I finally was able to get a good solid calibration of LED backlight Macbook pro. 2.2 GHz with ColorEyes and a Spyder 3. The Eye-one 2 hates the LED.

Used this website for the test image:

http://www.baytzim.com/blog/2009/jul/14/appleand_their_colorfullies-197

[img] http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3425/3722610606ac1666d594o.jpg[/img]

Tested on the following:
Asus 1000HE eeePC with LED backlit - no noticeable white vertical line
Dell 24" 1920x1200 LCD monitor - no noticeable white vertical line
Dell Workstation Notebook with 15" 1920x1200 LCD monitor - very obvious white vertical line
iPhone 3G S - very obvious white vertical line

Then I went down to the local Mac store in the mall downstairs from my office and tested on these 2 machines:
MacBook 13" - no noticeable white vertical line
MacBookPro 13" - no noticeable white vertical line

Not sure if this is conclusive or not but I guess it's one less reason for me not to buy this 😉

****** !!!! Unbelievable ... the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP with a VA panel is actualy a 6bit pannel !!!!!!!!!

The line is obvious on it (as well as the solarization effect in the upper left gree corner) ... and invisible on my old Ultrasharp 2405WFP !

As you can see on this document from LG.Philips of the panel used in Macbookpro's 4,1 (LP154WP2)
They do use only 6bit in their displays.

http://www.pdfsea.com/down/down.php?downid=37857&id=0

http://www.pdfsea.com/down-datasheet-pdf/LG-Philips/LP154WP2-TLA1-37857.html

Cheers,
K.