[iBook2]

Is the screen quality as bad as everyone says? I currently have a iBook 500/combo, but am thinking about upgrading to a G4 Powerbook 667/1GBram/48GB HD. The screen quality is very important to me. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance!

[seanyepez]

I wouldn't buy the 48-gigabyte hard drive with the Ti, but I think the screen is wonderful.

Even though it isn't as dense as a lot of other notebooks' screens, it's one of the easiest screens to read. Some people say it's bloated or washed out, but I think it's perfect.

With OS X, you might want some more space, but for 9, it's plenty. The next revision will probably include a higher-resolution screen to address the issue.

[iBook2]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
<STRONG>I wouldn't buy the 48-gigabyte hard drive with the Ti, but I think the screen is wonderful.

Even though it isn't as dense as a lot of other notebooks' screens, it's one of the easiest screens to read. Some people say it's bloated or washed out, but I think it's perfect.

With OS X, you might want some more space, but for 9, it's plenty. The next revision will probably include a higher-resolution screen to address the issue.</STRONG>

Why wouldn't you get the 48GB Harddrive? (besides the cost)

[seanyepez]

Besides the cost, there is no reason. I'll explain why, though.

There is already a 60-gigabyte version of the drive out. You should just go with the 30-gigabyte version. If you don't need the extra space immediately, the 30-gigabyte will suffice.

Buying a 48-gigabyte hard drive to have the best PowerBook around won't work; an aftermarket, 60-gigabyte IBM TravelStar is sold from various on-line stores already.

The upgrade to the 48-gigabyte hard drive costs just as much as a bare 48-gigabyte drive. You'll get a free 30-gigabyte drive, too.

[The Dude]

So much for screens...

iBook2: If you're gunna upgrade to that kind of hardware, don't think, just do it! The screen won't make a lick of difference when you have all that power in front of you.

[rampant]

Originally posted by The Dude:
<STRONG>So much for screens...

iBook2: If you're gunna upgrade to that kind of hardware, don't think, just do it! The screen won't make a lick of difference when you have all that power in front of you.</STRONG>

Well, it does if you're a gamer. You don't want to get stuck with a laptop with some crapppy 25ms responce time screen .

[The Dude]

Yea, but seriously. Apple knows we all love to play games of some sort...why the hell would they risk putting in a crappy LCD that has lag in refreshing the pixels?

[Mack]

I think the TiPB screen is great. Much better than my Dell notebook. In fact, PC users compliment the screen every time they see it. Some have suggested that the iBook screen is a bit brighter, but I think that's to be expected with a smaller screen. No complaints here.

[mrfoxxman]

I think that the powerbook screen is great.... I plug into my Sony from time to time for Graphic Design work.... But I love the LCD....it Rocks

[rampant]

Originally posted by The Dude:
<STRONG>Yea, but seriously. Apple knows we all love to play games of some sort...why the hell would they risk putting in a crappy LCD that has lag in refreshing the pixels?</STRONG>

I think they did it for the ibook because they knew you can't really play FPS games (the most intensive and quick so you need a faster response time) on it, and to keep the cost down. From when I had my ibook, I think the screen had a refresh of 30hz or maybe 40, because that's there my fps stuck with vsync on, and without vsync, I got tearing after 30 I think. I've heard bad things about the Ti's refresh (namely from seaneypez ) but I don't understand why they'd put a bad LCD screen in the TiBook... it's their flagship model practicly.

[nick h]

Originally posted by Mack:
<STRONG>I think the TiPB screen is great. Much better than my Dell notebook. In fact, PC users compliment the screen every time they see it. Some have suggested that the iBook screen is a bit brighter, but I think that's to be expected with a smaller screen. No complaints here.</STRONG>

The Ti screen is absolutely wonderful. The 3 problems that most people have with or around it are:

- It is a bit delicate
- The hinges can loosen up or crack
-It isn't as bright as other laptops, as Mack says

However, I have 12" iBook right here next to my older Ti400. Both screen turned up all the way under OSX with same background. They look like they are same brightness. I think I got lucky though and got an unually bright Ti screen, cause my friend's Ti667 isn't as bright as my iBook.

[seanyepez]

In my experience, iBooks tend to have a higher likelihood of developing/already having malfunctioning pixels. Some of them go away with rubbing, but I think it's probably due to the higher density of the screen.

[tanhauser]

I really like the screen quality on my TiBook 550. Before it I was using a Pismo and you can REALLY tell the difference between the two. It's not as sharp as a CRT or one of Apple's new LCD Studio displays, but it is bright enough and colors look great.

Gaming is really good, I love the way Myth III looks on the TiBook. The size is great, very nice to have that extra screen space. About the only problem I see is the limited resolution options (specially if you had been using a CRT with a 1600x1200 res), but the truth is that you adapt very quickly.

[iBook2]

Thanks for all your input. I should receive it late next week! I'll post my first impressions.

[lenz]

I don't know if this info is going to be useful to you anymore but what the heck. I own a ibook500 and a tiBook550 and I must say that there is a big difference in the sharpness of the two screens. A BIG difference. I dont think the brightness is an issue at all though. Most of the time I find myself turning the brightness down on the tiBook. The screen is a little blurry especially compared to the iBook's screen which if I am correct has the highest pixel density of any lcd out there. Go to retailer and check it out in person. You'll notice the difference

[G-mac]

I do prepress work and graphic design and find the 15.2" screen wonderful! I think the screen is bright enough and crisp enough for most anything. It is a tad dimmer than the iBook, but most people run the iBook's screen at sub-max brightness anyway because it can be painful on the eyes. I think the power you get with the TiBook far outweighs any screen differences there might be (if any).

[seanyepez]

Originally posted by lenz:
<STRONG>The screen is a little blurry especially compared to the iBook's screen which if I am correct has the highest pixel density of any lcd out there.</STRONG>

You're not correct.

The 12.1-inch display isn't anything special in terms of density; Sony has had 10.4-inch XGA screens for a while now. Sony has had the same LCD in its Z505 and R505 lines for about three years. I think 1024 by 768 is perfect for a 12.1-inch LCD.

Dell has an insane, 14.1-inch UXGA screen with a PPI exceeding 133. However, even the 15-inch display featuring the UXGA resolution is a little too small for my tastes.

While it isn't the most dense, it's one of the clearest.

[seanyepez]

Originally posted by G-mac:
<STRONG>I do prepress work and graphic design and find the 15.2" screen wonderful! I think the screen is bright enough and crisp enough for most anything. It is a tad dimmer than the iBook, but most people run the iBook's screen at sub-max brightness anyway because it can be painful on the eyes. I think the power you get with the TiBook far outweighs any screen differences there might be (if any).</STRONG>

Personally, I prefer the TiBook's screen. It's bright enough, and it is great for DVD-watching. I don't think there's a better combination for DVD watching out there; the Ti gets respectable battery life, and the slot-loading drive, despite all the loading issues some people have had, gives the machine a lot of character.

[talisker]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
<STRONG>

I don't think there's a better combination for DVD watching out there</STRONG>

...and a region free hack for the combo drive would be the icing on the cake!

[icruise]

Is the Tibook screen bad? No. It is perfectly useable, but honestly if you have used a variety of laptops you will probably know that there are much better ones out there. Much brighter ones, ones with much better resolution, etc. I personally am waiting for a better screen (higher resolution) but in generally I wouldn't say the screen is any reason to avoid a Tibook. It is true, though, that the new ibook screen is quite good in comparison. One way that you can tell the difference is to look at the itunes window. The lines that list the song info are actually alternatively blue and white, but you can barely see this on my Powerbook G3 screen or on the G4 screens I have seen, while it is very clear on my wife's ibook. The ibook screen is also much brighter.

Also, Rampant said:

I think they did it for the ibook because they knew you can't really play FPS games (the most intensive and quick so you need a faster response time) on it, and to keep the cost down. From when I had my ibook, I think the screen had a refresh of 30hz or maybe 40, because that's there my fps stuck with vsync on, and without vsync, I got tearing after 30 I think. I've heard bad things about the Ti's refresh (namely from seaneypez ) but I don't understand why they'd put a bad LCD screen in the TiBook... it's their flagship model practicly.

LCD screens don't have a "refresh rate" in the same way that normal monitors do. I don't really understand what you are referring to here. An problems you have with frame rates in games should be due to the graphics chip and (to a lesser degree) processor and ram. It is true, though, that LCDs in general are not quite as good as CRTs in terms of displaying fast moving objects, but that wouldn't have anything to do with the Tibook or ibook screen in particular.

As far as I know there is nothing "bad" about any of the screens that apple has used recently (at least since they got rid of passive-matrix screens) but there are some differences in brightness and color reproduction, as I mentioned above.

[rampant]

All LCD's have a refresh rate, as in how many times the pixels change per second, not the CRT hz, but really the same thing. Some have very shitty response times, (25ms to 40ms) and some have good response times (18ns and lower). Obviously, the shorter ns ones cost more, so they are kept for the more expensive laptops while the crappy slow ones are used for slower laptops where it probably wont matter anyway.

[mlaster]

I'm very happy with the screen quality of my TiBook. This thing is absolutely perfect in comparison to the crappy display that my Wallstreet had that had this weird "color streaking" effect. I even had the LCD replaced, and the problem came back. I've seen the same effect on other Wallstreets, so I think it was a fundamental flaw in the Wallstreet design, not just a quirk of mine.

[PeteWK]

While I would say that the Ti's screen is slightly dimmer than some Sony products I've used, it is stellar considering it's form factor. Basically, Apple used a lower voltage backlight. Saves bigtime on the battery.

PeteWK

[seanyepez]

Icruise is wrong. LCD's are the limiting factor in many of today's desktop-replacement notebooks.

The graphics chip doesn't matter after about fourty frames per second. It is nice to have "extra" frames because it makes input smoother. However, LCD's refreshing at 50 milliseconds and higher can only display about twenty "true" frames per second.

Rampant, Toshiba announced a budget-oriented notebook with a GeForce4 and a 25-millisecond LCD for $2,000. It looks like it's a great deal! It uses a desktop Pentium III, though.

[icruise]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
<STRONG>Icruise is wrong. LCD's are the limiting factor in many of today's desktop-replacement notebooks.
</STRONG>

God knows that I have been wrong before, but I'm not convinced that I am in this case. It's more a case of semantics than anything else, but I believe what he was referring to is not "refresh rate" (which is the number of times that the screen is redrawn per second) but rather "pixel response time" which basically tells how quickly a pixel can change. These are different things, though.

As I understand it, LCD screens don't have a refresh rate at all, because unlike CRTs (which use an electron gun to draw the lines that make up the screen image) and LCD is made up of pixels which are always on. So refresh rate, measured in hz, would be essentially irrelevant for an LCD screen. Pixel refresh time, which would be measured in milliseconds, is what leads to the blurring that can be seen on LCDs screens when viewing moving objects. This would certainly be important if you want to play fast moving games, but I don't see how that would affect your fps (the number of frames created by a game program). It would certainly affect the number of frames you are capable of seeing, but that is not the same thing. In other words, no matter what LCD screen you use, it shouldn't have any effect on the fps that is displayed when you play the game. If I am wrong, I would like to know, so I don't go around spreading misinformation.

[rampant]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
<STRONG>Icruise is wrong. LCD's are the limiting factor in many of today's desktop-replacement notebooks.

The graphics chip doesn't matter after about fourty frames per second. It is nice to have "extra" frames because it makes input smoother. However, LCD's refreshing at 50 milliseconds and higher can only display about twenty "true" frames per second.

Rampant, Toshiba announced a budget-oriented notebook with a GeForce4 and a 25-millisecond LCD for $2,000. It looks like it's a great deal! It uses a desktop Pentium III, though.</STRONG>

The funny thing is that they are using a 25ms display though. Doesn't that equate to about 45hz?

I'm sticking with Compaq until other companies start stealing their LCD's .

[seanyepez]

LCD's have refresh. They only can be updated at certain intervals. I've seen desktop CRT's refresh at 200 hertz. He's referring to the motion blur caused by the inherent high latency of LCD screens.