Alright. I just bought an MP 500 with 17" display. I sucked them from the boxes and set it up ASAP. It's SO choice. If you have the means, I HIGHLY suggest you pick one up. Anyway, today I decided it would be good to sort through the rest of the garble that came with it all and when going through the packet of information that came with the moniter, I found a bazaar contraption. It's a plastic stick of some sort with an attached cardboard annulus. I can't figure out for the life of me what it's for and while I'm sure it doesn't matter...I WANT TO KNOW. Anyone?

~Mort

[Neo]

I'm not entirely sure, as I just got the monitor for mine two days ago, but I think it may be the tester thingie for the ambient light portion of the monitor control panel. Only annoying thing about these monitors is those two support wires that are slightly visible running horizontally through the screen in two places. I'll add that to the reasons I don't like trinitron monitors.

Overall though, the color and clarity on these things is great. If I look hard enough, I can find a slight lack of color unifirmity on one area of the monitor, but I had some bad experiences with a few 17" PC monitors too, until I settled on my Optiquest, and the issues with this monitor are NOTHING compared to the ones I had with them.

Now, if ATI would just release a 64MB version of the Radeon Mac edition, and add an Apple Display connector to it as well.

[Elderloc]

That tool is for ambient light. I have one that came with my 21" graphite studio Monitor.

[Evangellydonut]

um, can you point me to official documents saying Apple uses Trinitron (Sony)? I had always read that Apple uses Diamondtrong from Mitsubishi...

[infiniti]

Some clarification for Elderloc's response:

The little grey ring attached to a clear, flat plastic stick is an ambient light calibration tool. Using the Monitors conrol panel, you can calibrate your monitor to the ambient light in the room where your monitor is located.

A note if you care about DTP or precise color calibration. Don't touch the cardboard ring, and store it in it's envelope, as it may discolor if the oil on your hands touches it.

Hope this answered your question.

infiniti

[fbroz]

>Evangellydonut
>
>um, can you point me to official documents
>saying Apple uses Trinitron (Sony)? I had
>always read that Apple uses Diamondtrong from >Mitsubishi...

I think I can help, the Trinitron technology developed by sony is mainly the use of an apature grille instead of a shadow mask. This means that instead of a bunch of little holes for the light to go through, there are lots of tiny vertical lines. These lines make for a clearer picture and better color. Unfortuneatly, they also need a more stable connection to the CRT, so there are two slightly visible horizontal wires that keep the grille in place.

Now for the point: Apple uses Mitsubishi Diamondtron monitors, which use an apature grille (trinitron technology) So even though apple uses diamondtrons, the horizontal line phenomina are there because of the aperture grille (trinitron) technology.

--
Frank

[Neo]

Fbroz, thanks for the info... I wasn't aware of all the details. I used to work retail at an electronics store that sold a lot of Sony TVs, and always was annoyed by the slight concavity I could detect in the images on their CRTs. I got to the point I could pick it up a mile away, but never knew they licensed it to other companies. Color me informed.

Thanks y'all. I'll just put it aside in a safe place for now...I can't say that it's quite important to me, but at some pint...who knows? Anyway, thanks again. Later.

~Mort

[Evangellydonut]

ahh, okay, that helps a lot! thx.