[tavilach]

Has anyone noticed that the images of the new PowerBooks are a lot brighter than old images? I believe that Apple is aware of the screen brightness complaint, and is responding to it by fooling us into feeling that the new PowerBooks have brighter displays, when in reality the brightness on the entirety of the pictures has been upped. Tricky, tricky. Part of me did feel that they looked crisper, before I actually thought about it.

[nuggetman]

my 12" powerbook has no problem w/ brightness
i often use it below full simply because full hurts my eyes

[tavilach]

Originally posted by nuggetman:
my 12" powerbook has no problem w/ brightness
i often use it below full simply because full hurts my eyes

You've obviously never brought it outside. The brigthness issue is common knowledge...

[ender2002]

most laptops screen have horrible quality outside...

[jamil5454]

The same applies to my iBook. I was in Starbucks the other day with it and had to ask an employee to put the window shades down, as the afternoon sun was making my iBook screen hard to read. It's kind of embarrassing because at the same time there were people with their PC notebooks having no problems. Most of the time it's ok though, and I bought an iBook so I guess I shouldn't be complaining.

[TailsToo]

Apple has always had pretty good screens.

[tavilach]

Originally posted by ender2002:
most laptops screen have horrible quality outside...

Why don't you go to a store and compare PowerBooks to Vaios...

[urrl78]

Fujitsu has the "Crystal View Outdoor Enhanced Screen" where as Sony simply calls it "XBRITE". Not sure what other PC manufacturers call this technology but there definitely is a difference. I suspect we will see this technology in Apple products...when we see a 2 button mouse.

[tungtied07]

Originally posted by TailsToo:
Apple has always had pretty good screens.

Yeah, I agree. Comparing to the Dell laptops that we use at school, (Centrino) the powerbook 15in screen beats it. I admit though, comparing the 15in screen to the iBook 600mhz, the iBook's is not as good...

[WJMoore]

I'd also be very surprised if the images on the screens of the PowerBooks were really showing on them. There is almost no doubt in my mind that the pictures on the screens were Photoshopped into the images.

[TailsToo]

Originally posted by WJMoore:
I'd also be very surprised if the images on the screens of the PowerBooks were really showing on them. There is almost no doubt in my mind that the pictures on the screens were Photoshopped into the images.

Correct! The images on the screens are not real - there is no way to tell brightness from the images on the website.

[MartiNZ]

Yep for sure.... It would be nice if Apple at least made better screens available BTO, kind of like, dare I say it, dell. You can up the price of a machine by quite a bit just by taking the best screen there!

[tavilach]

Originally posted by TailsToo:
Correct! The images on the screens are not real - there is no way to tell brightness from the images on the website.

Oy. I am aware of this.

...but the screen and aluminum have both been brightened in the images, relative to older ones.

[St.John]

Originally posted by tavilach:
Why don't you go to a store and compare PowerBooks to Vaios...

Which would be indoors, then?

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by tavilach:
I believe that Apple is aware of the screen brightness complaint

To be honest, I haven't heard of any screen brightness complaint and I truly wonder if Apple has either. Obviously they are going to have marketing material that enhances the machines.

As for using my machines outside, I typically use my laptop inside plus I keep the brightness down when unplugged as it will prolong the battery at least I think it does

Finally, I think that the PB's are awesome machines, when I'm at the airport, people stop and look at my laptop, not so with the sony or dell. I think the PB is better all around then those, and if you want to use a laptop outside, then perhaps you should consider sony's, with their xbrite (or whatever they call it).

Regards
Mike

[fisherKing]

my disappointment is when i put my revC 12" alubook next to my girlfriend's 15" revC;

her screen is noticeably brighter, sharper.

having said that, the 12" is, on it's own, bright enough at the halfway setting; certainly better than the 12" ibook.

(and a lot better than my pismo screen was)

[phantomo]

Hm... I have it the other way around, my PB 12" is not as good as the new iBook 12" 1.25GHz. I put them side by side and my father-in-law said how come your more expensive model have a dark screen compare to his new iBook.

[fisherKing]

Originally posted by phantomo:
Hm... I have it the other way around, my PB 12" is not as good as the new iBook 12" 1.25GHz. I put them side by side and my father-in-law said how come your more expensive model have a dark screen compare to his new iBook.

yikes! was comparing to a friend's G3 ibook...


cmon apple make the 12" a pro machine already!

[ibook_steve]

Talk about nitpicking! They're images on a web site! I doubt there are secret reasons why the images are brighter. They are against a black background, for one thing. Relax.

Steve

[jumpjim]

For those of you interested there is a very good discussion on Toms Hardware (link HERE) which discusses the IPS (In Plane Switching) screens that you are talking about (XBrite etc.).

Although these do give a very good display angle of 170 degrees and perfect blacks they are relatively slow in display terms and the colour reproduction is average.

A very interesting article though if you want to gen up on the latest technology in screens.

[iREZ]

I'm sure Apple made the whole book appear brighter to make it look almost as white as an iBook to grab more people looking for the fad white computer equipment (ie. iBook, iPod, iMac, and eMac).

[markponcelet]

After having replaced a monitor data cable in an old iBook, I do sort of wonder if you could swap out the LCD panel itself with something that has a better contrast ratio.

I bet that if the screen accepted the data cable and didn't draw too much more power, it would probably work. Anyone want to test?

Mark

[R3z]

Actually, I always thought the best thing about the apple screens was the color. They're bright screens, no doubt, but you're right, they're also not as bright as the XBrite screens. The problem with the xbrite is in color matching and accurate color representation - those screens vary entirely too much from one to the other. A friend of mine has 2 19" xbrite lcd displays, and I spent more than half an hour trying to at the very least match the two... My Powerbook, on the other hand, I had to match once, and it's been true since. VERY accurate color representation. When you cater to the kind of audience Apple does (Video, Photo, Pre-press, Design, etc.), quality color matters a LOT more than external viewing brightness. If Apple can correct this one w/o ruining the color, great, otherwise I'll stay inside.