[Moderator]

...not sure why apple is offering such sh*t, especially in the 12". The machine itself is so so..very small, light...but an overal cheapo feel....but the display..man its bright, crisp, widescreen, has a nice glaze over it that gives it a CRT feel.

Bottom line, I put it next to my powerbook and feel shame. Oh and its pretty inexpensive ($1300+-)

[tictactoe]

The "XBrite" like screen in the 700m is quite nice, but I still prefer the 12" PB. The laptop I had before my 12" PB was a 700m. Other than the screen, everything about the PB is > 700m.

[HasanDaddy]

I kinda agree though - PB's are obviously superior - but it still begs the question of why Apple is lacking in screen brightness, and in some cases, crispness, in comparison to PC's?

[Guy Kuo]

There is even considerable discrepancy between the LCD screen of my PB 12 and Titanium in terms of color gamut. The gamut is much larger on the Titanium's screen. That's the range of total actual colors the screen can actually produce. I measure and calibrate my screens with a Gretag Eye One (a spectroradiometer) and the difference between various LCD panels in terms of gamut are huge. A smaller gamut screen means colors appear less saturated than on a screen with color primaries closer to correct xy color coordinates.

You NEVER read about color gamut range or color primary accuracy in reviews because the reviewers either don't have the measuring equipment or don't realize how huge an impact this has on the on-screen image. Then again, most users don't realize how badly their screens are changing images. They don't use the colorsync profiles (not so accurate but better than nothing) and don't have the advantage of actually measuring and building a calibration profile for each screen they use. It's a must for image accuracy.

But I digress. A big reason that pictures look different from one LCD screen to another is that the underlying color of the primaries differ from one model to another. Also, the balance between the primaries needs to be set to match a standard color of gray like D65. Those can only be done with instrumentation. Only with that data, can one say something objectively useful about what a display actually is doing with the picture.

[Garage81]

i want to know why you can get a 12" windows laptop with a 1440 screen res (something like that) but the 12" powerbook only has a 1024 screen res.

i want to get a powerbook, but im waiting for more screen real estate.

[GoCats]

Originally posted by Garage81:
i want to know why you can get a 12" windows laptop with a 1440 screen res (something like that) but the 12" powerbook only has a 1024 screen res.

i want to get a powerbook, but im waiting for more screen real estate.

You're going to be waiting a while. Apple is pretty committed to keeping the current resolution:

Here's a clip from an article:

Asked whether Apple has any plans to boost the resolution of its various displays, either the Cinema Displays or those incorporated in its PowerBooks and iBooks, Brodrick said no -- the company is happy where it is right now. The ideal resolution for text, video and graphics, he said, is about 100 pixels per inch.

"I think we've put that issue to rest," he said. "It's a resolution we feel is the optimal resolution for today's systems. Our customers aren't just viewing highly detailed images. They're balancing their books. They're editing movies. They're iChatting. We're trying to strike the right balance. And to go lower than [100 pixels per inch] is not making the best use of the technology."

[SuperDad]

Well that's fine that they choose to stay at about 100 dpi these days, but when are they going to change the underlying OS and font system to support that? 72dpi is the standard that Mac operating systems have always been scaled to for text (and application rulers, etc.) to be WYSIWYG. At least Microsoft saw early on that screen resolutions were headed up and thus they settled on a 96dpi scaling for fonts, etc.

I for one am tired of having to magnify every web page just to read text that a Windows user would have no trouble reading.

In fact, to me this issue is the single biggest weakness of the Mac environment (to which I have been commited since 1984). I don't know why it does not seem to get discussed much. Is it our dirty little secret?

[cambro]

Originally posted by SuperDad:
In fact, to me this issue is the single biggest weakness of the Mac environment (to which I have been commited since 1984). I don't know why it does not seem to get discussed much. Is it our dirty little secret?

Isn't this by nature personal preference? How can you really discuss something that amounts to "what is your favorite color?"

Personally, I have no problem with my Ti-Book's screen brightness, color, or resolution. Crisper and brighter is usally going to be good, higher resolution may or may not be.

There must be SOME value of brightness and resolution beyond which things actually get worse for the user. What are those limits? Do they vary from person to person? From application to application?

[SuperDad]

Well, no. I am not talking about a preference for or against higher resolution. What I am referring to is the fact that, when the Mac first arrived--and for a decade thereafter--the 72 dpi standard was hailed because it meant that 12 point type on screen appeared the same size as 12 point type on paper. That is partly what WYSIWYG was all about for the publishing trade. Now, with resolutions and dot pitch gone higher, the font systems of the Mac OS have not evolved at all. One can not even change it as a preference item.

And the fact that the majority of the world (read Windows) has a font and display system based on 96dpi puts Mac web users at a further disadvantage. Just plain dumb.

When I can afford a 23" display, you can be I'll be running it at 1280 x 800 and NOT its 1920 x 1200. If Apple were to fix the font issue, then I could make use of the 1920 x 1200 full res and still see the text at the size it is supposed to be. Looking at 12 point text rendered at 7-8 points on the screen is not my idea of a good experience.

[power142]

You might not want to waste your money on a 23" Cinema display then, because most LCDs perform really bad resolution scaling.

[wuzup101]

IMHO they definitely need to do something about the quality of the LCDs. It's not that they are necessairly bad, but they aren't keeping up with current tech. For all the money we spend for these powerbooks, one would expect an LCD on par with the best PC notebooks out there.

[NYCFarmboy]

Originally posted by Moderator:
...not sure why apple is offering such sh*t, especially in the 12". The machine itself is so so..very small, light...but an overal cheapo feel....but the display..man its bright, crisp, widescreen, has a nice glaze over it that gives it a CRT feel.

Bottom line, I put it next to my powerbook and feel shame. Oh and its pretty inexpensive ($1300+-)

THANK YOU for this thread, I have a 12" Powerbook and the #1 letdown with it is the very very very mediocre quality screen. It is dim, has a very poor tolerance on viewing angle (i.e. NONE, you have to look at it dead on to view anything) and the colors are blah.

I don't think many people realize the 12" powerbook screens are as sucky as they are as Apple does not display them in their retail stores next to the 15" and 17" powerbooks which have much nicer screens. They stick them over by the ibooks which have identical screens (at least in the chicago and nyc stores I have been in anyhow).

[SEkker]

Originally posted by SuperDad:
Well that's fine that they choose to stay at about 100 dpi these days, but when are they going to change the underlying OS and font system to support that? 72dpi is the standard that Mac operating systems have always been scaled to for text (and application rulers, etc.) to be WYSIWYG. At least Microsoft saw early on that screen resolutions were headed up and thus they settled on a 96dpi scaling for fonts, etc.

I for one am tired of having to magnify every web page just to read text that a Windows user would have no trouble reading.

In fact, to me this issue is the single biggest weakness of the Mac environment (to which I have been commited since 1984). I don't know why it does not seem to get discussed much. Is it our dirty little secret?

Readability is MUCH more than dots per inch; it also includes physical size of the text. For many people, that web page is no easier to read on a windows machine than a Mac. This issue is not a 'dirty little secret' -- there are many threads on this very subject.

My wife would find the current resolution on 12" iBooks to yield text that is too small to read; that's why Apple sells a 14" with the same number of pixels. She has decent but not perfect vision (not quite 20/20, but she does not need glasses to drive). I suspect that would be a similar opinion for anyone with slightly out of date prescriptions, or who has had laser correcting surgery.

At the same time, the 150 dpi text on my CLIE makes reading text easier than reading on my PB -- but not because I increase the text/inch, I just set the fonts to include more dots/character. The text looks very close to low resolution laser quality.

Most of the time, people claim they want the higher resolution screens so that they can make SMALLER text and pictures (i.e. more information on the screen). We're pretty much at the highest information limit, based on biological issues.

I think Tiger is going to allow Apple to make higher resolution screens without making the text obligately smaller. That would be helpful, but I suspect there would still be people asking for the option to make the text smaller on these machines. If Tiger would allow both options, then I can see Apple moving to these next generation LCDs.

In the meantime, if you really need more real estate than can be found in a PB17, add an external display.