Apple 27-inch LED Cinema Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 28, 2010 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
- Mac
- Apple
- Cinema Display
Processing and Input Latency
Processing and display lag are very important for gamers, and it’s most often nebulously reported if at all. We’ve discussed this in previous display reviews, but what matters most is how the display acts in real world testing. I’ve been doing previous tests by comparing LCDs with first a 17” CRT.
To measure input and processing lag we're sending the same frame data to both the LCD tested and a 17" CRT in parallel (using our GeForce GT 120). Using our camera set to a high shutter speed we grab shots of 3DMark 03's Wings of Fury benchmark which conveniently displays frame rate and frame count.
We compare the two to determine input lag, assuming the CRT over VGA exhibits minimal lag:
The 27's input lag is nothing to write home about. It's not slow enough to cause any problems gaming in my experience but it's not fast enough to set any records either. Ghosting was also typical of other displays, I captured one frame of ghosting:
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chukked - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
very impressive review Anand, Thanks.but this is a cinema display review so response time is of prime concern.
with 12 ms response time i am sure it is having a lot of blurr.
is this the reason you have skipped the response time/ blurr/ ghost tests ?
ijhammo - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
unless I imagined it, wasn't there a screenshot of ghosting?ijhammo - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
i cant find confirmation that the 12ms quoted on the Apple website is GtG time - it just says 12ms (typical)softdrinkviking - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
does anybody know if there is some kind of after market screen coating available to make glass screens a bit anti-glare?you know, something that actually works...
i love the idea of the LED backlighting because they look closer to the brightness of an old CRT to me, and i never felt "shocked" by that amount of brightness. (i find most LCDs to be extremely dim)
so what i'm saying is, i know that there are matte finished alternatives out there (like the 27' Dell that looks nice), but if i want LED backlighting, it doesn't seem like there are any options.
svarog - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
While this review is generally up to the usual high standards I've come to expect from AnandTech, what's up with the lack of a comaprison to the competition in the conclusion? There is a burgeoning market in the 27" high-res monitor space, and from this article it appears that customers would be better served choosing a non-Apple product...?Drag0nFire - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
Looks like the U2711 looks like the better value here. Same IPS 27in goodness, but without the glossy screen, limited input options, and unadjustable stand... and roughly the same price.Seems like this deserves mention in the conclusion?
8steve8 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
the u2711 costs 10% more, has no webcam, no ambient light sensor, and uses a ccfl backlight which means the display uses almost twice the energy for a given brightness, it's a no brainer to buy the apple.softdrinkviking - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
don't forget that you lose control over the monitor without bootcamp, so it only really works on macs. at least that's what i undstood from this article.8steve8 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
what is desperately needed is a comparison of power consumption at a given brightness....comparing max brightness power is useless since displays don't all have the same max brightness ,,
a graph of all displays' power usage at 200 nits or whatever would be ideal.
just like performance per watt. we want brightness per watt, or maybe brightness per pixel per watt, or brightness per sqr inch per watt....
at the very least, a calibrated brightness comparison would be appreciated.
thanks.
seapeople - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
I don't generally hop on the "Anand is an Apple fanboi" bandwagon, but articles like this make me wonder. If you look at the data so painstakingly ignored throughout the article, it's obvious that this Apple monitor gets thoroughly trounced by the competition. It doesn't excel at anything (except it's about the third brightest and has the ability to reach brightness levels so low they'd only be usable in the middle of a deep cave) and it gets beat handily in most of the color/contrast ratio measurements. It doesn't even impress much with power consumption -- yes it's the third brightest, but it also uses a lot of power compared to the competition, and the min brightness power consumption doesn't even matter, because how are you going to get an extension cable all the way into the middle of a cave? Of course, if this was a normal PC based product, Anand would give us the relative power consumption at a certain brightness compared to the competition, but then I'm sure doing so wouldn't impress as much as showing how little power this thing draws when it's so dim and shiny that birds would be flying into it if you left the window open.What else have we learned? Well now that Apple has done 16x9, it's cool! Anand actually praised the loss in vertical pixels, with a comment of how he probably didn't use those pixels anyway. See how efficient Apple is! They know exactly what we don't need better than we do. What else don't we need? The ability to use a $1000 monitor with 95% of the computers in the world and be able to adjust the brightness. Not only can't you use this monitor with a Windows computer, but it doesn't work with older Macs unless you get a special adapter. I'm surprised that adapter isn't sold by Apple.
What is there to make up for all these issues? A BUILT IN CHARGER FOR YOUR MACBOOK! OMG!!! Think of all the desk space I save with this 27" monitor now that I don't have to use a separate charger for my macbook. It even gives me 10" to spare, so I don't actually have to physically solder the macbook to the monitor for it to charge. Thank you Apple! It's also convenient that the monitor has no vertical height adjustment, so I don't have to worry about pulling my 10" charger cord off my macbook. Now as long as I don't want to set my macbook on the other side of the monitor...
The proof of the bias in this article is how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel about this product despite the obvious shortcomings. I subconsciously want to buy this monitor now. Anand has done this to me. I logically read and comprehended the data that told me why I shouldn't buy this (especially since I don't have a Mac), but because any direct comparisons to the superior competition were avoided, and the few unique Apple nuances were played up throughout the bulk of the article, I now just have this feeling that this Apple monitor is a great buy. And so do most of the people responding to this article. Thank you Anand. Now I'll probably have to go buy this monitor and hook it up to my PC and be forced to painfully watch my own reflection during Diehard as the monitor sears my eyeballs with its unadjustable atomic blast level brightness. Then I might as well buy a Mac and an Ipad to go along with a brand new Iphone so I can facetime with people I don't even like.