Best 30" LCD Monitor Display?

[dcloward]

Hello,
I don't know if "Neoprinter" will read this post, but he seemed to be the qualified expert on color accurate displays. However, I will be pleased if anyone can help me with my question.

I am not a serious photographer. I have a Canon Digital Rebel XTI and am a point and shoot user, but want to get the best quality results I can with that approach. As probably is common, my pictures sit on a hard drive and never get printed. I find that everyone is glued to my slide show screen saver, so I decided about a year ago I wanted to buy a display and frame it on the wall and run a slideshow constantly. I first looked into TVs and DVD players and now am looking at a 30" LCD monitor and probably a Mac to drive it. We keep our photos on my wife's new Macbook. I first looked at the Apple monitor, but then read reviews that gave the Dell 3007WFP and most recently the yet to be shipped Samsung 305T much higher ratings. When I visited the Apple store today, they told me the same thing I have heard a few times - although the other monitors may have better specs, the Apple has much higher "color accuracy."

So, I assume that color accuracy means just that - the colors are more true to life. So, given my intended application is to simply display my photos in a slideshow on the wall and since I won't be probably doing any serious edit work beyond the beginning tools in Apple's iPhoto- will I notice the difference between these displays?

Is the Apple worth the money over the Dell?

Has anyone read enough about the Samsung 305T (suggested retail $2K) to comment on that one?

Having said that, when I bought my last TV years ago, I did notice a big difference between an $8K Pioneer Elite and the other Pioneer or less expensive TVs. I did pay to have the TV's color temperatures set and calibrated. I don't really want to have to a bunch of adjustments to this LCD monitor and from what I have read so far on this forum, it sounds like you can't really adjust the color accuracy well.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave

[gorosh]

If you'll only use it for that, then just go for the cheapest one you can find (I suppose that would be Dell). Differences between those displays won't affect you, so there's not point in spending more cash.

[eronald]

The Apple 30 is nice out of the box. If you think it worth to have a 30 incher to display your images, then they might as well look good. Go for it.

Edmund

[John_Black]

The Dell and Apple 30" monitor both use the same LCD panel:


Dell 3007WFP (*) (widescreen) has a 30 inch 14 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM300W01) panel.

Apple M9179 (Widescreen) has a 30 inch 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM300W01) panel.

BenQ FP301W (widescreen) has a 30 inch 8 ms (g2g) S-IPS (LG.Philips LM300W01) panel.

LG L3010T has a 30 inch 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM300W01) panel.


The Dell is $1249 vs $1799 for Apple (B&H PSJAN* special).  I have the Apple and like it; it replaced a Dell 24".  When I bought the Apple the price difference was ~$300, then Dell price slashed the 30".  If I could do it again I'd probably save the money and buy the Dell.  With OLED coming to market I consider my Apple 30" a short term solution since better things are coming.

[convergent]

This thread is a couple of months old, but I thought I'd update the info.  Dell now has a new 30" (actually I think it was announced when this thread started) LCD with an improved panel - 92% color gamut vs. 72% on the older version (and the Apple LCD).  This is a big improvement for photographic accuracy.

I you are after doing a rotating slideshow on a wall display, then I would think the least expensive way to do it would be a micro-ATX box running Windows XP.  The thing is you'd need to get a graphics card that can drive the 30" display which required DVI-Dual.  I believe this inexpensive Micro-ATX motherboard does have that ability... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131072 .  Alternatively, you may actually be able to run Ubuntu and use its included F-Spot program to run the slideshow.  So effectively, you'd only need the motherboard, a case, hard drive, memory and CPU... no OS cost.  Its an interesting exercise, and now you've got me thinking about this.  If you ran XP Media Center, you'd have a better user interface, but the linux approach could give you a very inexpensive slide show computer.

[Nill Toulme]

This thread is a couple of months old, but I thought I'd update the info.  Dell now has a new 30" (actually I think it was announced when this thread started) LCD with an improved panel - 92% color gamut vs. 72% on the older version (and the Apple LCD).  This is a big improvement for photographic accuracy.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

92% of what?

Nill
~~
[a href=\"http://www.toulme.net]www.toulme.net[/url]

[tomrock]

I you are after doing a rotating slideshow on a wall display, then I would think the least expensive way to do it would be a micro-ATX box running Windows XP. 

I don't know if you've seen the photo screensaver in Mac OS X but it's a lot nicer than the one in XP. I know this is really silly, but that screensaver is one of the things that is high on my list of "why I prefer Macs".

Also, for hanging on the wall, the bezel on the Apple monitor will look more attractive. But you have to buy a $30 accessory to make it VESA mountable. The Dell is mountable out of the box.

I keep telling myself that my next monitor is going to be a Dell but I just keep buying Apple.