My second Apple Cinema died...

[pobrien3]

Up untill recently I was using two 20" Apple Cinema Displays on my PC, then one of them died.  I replaced that with an Eizo CE210W as the main monitor, and after a lot of false starts finally got it reasonably calibrated, but it and the remaining ACD never really matched.  Now, the second ACD has died: I had them both for under 4 years, so I'm not impressed.

So what do I replace the dead ACD with - another CE210W?  Is there something in about the same price range that would be better?  I don't need the monitors' casings to look physically identical on the desk, but they need to work together and they need to calibrate to be as near identical as possible.

I'm leery of buying another Apple given this short lifespan, and to be frank I thought this Eizo was overpriced, though it seems to calibrate a bit more accurately than the old ACD.  Is the new ACD better than the original: does it calbrate better?

I know this is a tired old topic, but any advice would be gratefully received!

Peter

[61Dynamic]

A reasonable life-span for a monitor is 3 years for both CRT and LCDs. The fact that your ACD lasted almost 4 is pretty good.

Regardless, I would not recommend another ACD not due to longevity but do to the fact the Apple displays are long overdue for an update. Your won't get very good value buying an ACD today.

NEC would be another company to look into.

[eronald]

What you get partly depends on the form factor you want. I don't like the Apple display wide aspect ratio for photos. You might use 2 19" Eizos.

Edmund

[Mark D Segal]

Peter, I would recommend looking into the LaCie 321.

An LCD should not die in 3 years. In fact neither should a CRT - it would be faded but not extinguished.

[pobrien3]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take a look at them.  I went into Hong Kong today and had a hard time finding anything other than Apple, Eizo, Samsung or Viewsonic, unless you count a plethora of cheap Taiwanese brands.  Need to shop around a bit and see what's available here.  Mark, I took a look at the LaCie on their website, but I've never seen one of their monitors in HK.  I'll dig further...

[pobrien3]

What you get partly depends on the form factor you want. I don't like the Apple display wide aspect ratio for photos. You might use 2 19" Eizos.
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Edmund,

I actually like the wide aspect you get with the ACD and the Eizo CE210W, as it gives me enough space for  pallets etc during editing, and it's unbeatable for most of my work applications.  I've just bought the CE210W so don't intend to replace that as well at this point.  I've not felt the need to go beyond 20" widescreen each when you have two monitors.

Peter

[eronald]

Edmund,

I actually like the wide aspect you get with the ACD and the Eizo CE210W, as it gives me enough space for  pallets etc during editing, and it's unbeatable for most of my work applications.  I've just bought the CE210W so don't intend to replace that as well at this point.  I've not felt the need to go beyond 20" widescreen each when you have two monitors.

Peter
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Peter, what I tried to say is that a 19" non-wide will actually show you a BIGGER PRINT than an Apple 20, unless you're into panoramas. This is the result of a vesry smart Apple marketing trick.

Edmund

[61Dynamic]

Peter, what I tried to say is that a 19" non-wide will actually show you a BIGGER PRINT than an Apple 20, unless you're into panoramas. This is the result of a vesry smart Apple marketing trick.

Edmund
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Actually it is a result of how monitors and TVs are measured. It is the diagonal measurement from one corner to the other. Since the ACDs are wider, 20" will result in a screen that has less hight than a 3:4 screen of the same measurement. No marketing trickery here, just a simple industry standard measurement method as practiced by every monitor and TV manufacturer in existence.

[eronald]

By the way, the reason I have an Eizo screen is that I had two Apple 23 inchers, and both died within a few days. The first one just died, within 48 hours, so I swapped it. The second turned magenta at one end and green at the other within less than a week. The problem seemed limited to the 23, the 20 and 30 inch screens at the time did not have these issues. However I was told that color (eg magenta/green twister) was not guaranteed by warranty, and if an Apple screen developed this issue after the return period it would not be replaced.

But the poor shop had a money-back return policy, and a stack of returned screens.  So I added my screen to the stack, got my money back, paid the "premium for quality"  and bought Eizo. I have not regretted it, the color is very good. Eizo's warranty covers uniformity and color, I believe.

The Mac to which the screens wer connected, a dual 2.5 Ghz G5 has just failed too, its power supply fried like a lot of that batch. Details about the quality of Apple Powermacs, from an unimpeachable source that cannot be called anti-mac can be found below:

http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/pmg5.html#conclusions

"But the Power Mac G5's 17% first-year failure rate remains far higher than the industry average of 5% (see Gartner's recent report on PC hardware reliability, linked below). If Apple is to maintain its premium pricing, it should provide premium reliability. As things stand, high Power Mac prices must include high warranty service costs built-in."


Edmund

[djgarcia]

While I currently have a couple of 22" CRTs running at 1792x1344, I'm waiting to upgrade them with a couple of 30" LCDs at 2560x1600 in portrait mode (?!), since it doesn't look like the 24-26" models can currently handle the dot-pitch required. I think they're almost there, I believe the Samsung looking the best so far from a gamut perspective.

At least that's the theory - that's a danged big piece of vertical real-estate!

Watching and waiting ...

[pobrien3]

... I believe the Samsung looking the best so far from a gamut perspective....[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=107553\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I can get Samsung monitors pretty easily here (never did find a CIE retailer!) - any other opinions on them? I confess I'd never really considered them.

Peter

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I can get Samsung monitors pretty easily here (never did find a CIE retailer!) - any other opinions on them? I confess I'd never really considered them.

Peter
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I got my Samsung 213T when it was on sale (probably shortly before it was discontinued), based on some recommendations here on the LL forum. It has been great and calibrates well. If it dies (or if my old Sony CRT dies -- it is now my second monitor for palettes,) I'll happily get the current Samsung (214T, or maybe 215T or 216T by that time.) For my work I couldn't justify spending over $1000 for a monitor.

[mistybreeze]

A reasonable life-span for a monitor is 3 years for both CRT and LCDs. The fact that your ACD lasted almost 4 is pretty good.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=107206\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is pretty much word-for-word what the Service Rep at Apple Soho Store told me when I brought in my 3.5-year-old dead display. I wanted to leap over the counter and strangle that mf.

THREE YEARS, AT THESE PRICES, IS UNACCEPTABLE! And I refuse to believe the 3-year/time's up bs. Apple MUST do better because their monitor competition is doing better. But I suspect their minds are elsewhere. Apple displays are pretty to look at but the thrill ends there for me. Spending this kind of money reminds me of purchasing anything by Marc Jacobs, once you wash it, it ain't the same.  

NEC would be another company to look into.
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My NEC continues to impress me (thanks Dr. Lang). Not only did it come with a THREE-YEAR WARRANTY, NEC offers an additional TWO-YEARS for a very affordable price, purchasable anytime before the first warranty expires. Someone at NEC is thinking and using the right side of the brain. My screens aren't "on" all the time so five years seems reasonable to me. Plus, I think the design is handsome (if you enjoy that high-end financial institution feel) and I LOVE all the swivel features.

Happy monitor shopping! What joy.  

[pobrien3]

I'm with you on the 3-year lifespan thing - that's just not acceptable, and I'm not going to buy another Apple monitor.

I'm rather attached to the widescreen format and can't see anything in the NEC range that fits, except for a smaller 19" monitor, so that counts NEC out for me.  Perhaps not the most rational of factors to include in my decision making, but there you are - I like that format!

I must say I'm struuggling to find something suitable.

Peter

[Mark D Segal]

Peter, if you use a dual monitor set-up and buy a 21 or 24 inch primary monitor for the image alone, would that not meet your need? Otherwise you would seem to be limiting your options quite considerably if you also want the professional features offered by the NEC/LaCie/Eizo high-resolution colour-manageable monitors.

[61Dynamic]

Whether 3 years is acceptable or not to you is irrelevant. That's the technology. While 3 years is the accepted norm, that does not mean all LCDs will only last three years. They very well may last longer. In fact I saw a host of a tech show pull out a working Silicon Graphics display from 1999 recently. It's difficult if not impossible to predict which displays will last more than the typically expected 3 years or not. You'll just have to account the life of a display into the cost of things. Just like we always have had to do in the past.

Additionally, demanding a long life-span in a LCD simply because of the price premium severely overlooks the the realities of the LCD market and technology. LCDs are still a very new tech and it costs a considerable amount to manufacture them. Companies have to strike a balance between longevity/reliability and cost. The cost of a good display rises much more rapidly than the quality. Costs are dropping rapidly fortunately, but that does not change the fact you will pay a premium for the simple reality that the technology is new; just as it is with our digital cameras.

And it should be noted that it is not Apple making the LCD screens. They, along with 80% of the tech industry, buy their display screens from Samsung.

[mistybreeze]

Costs are dropping rapidly fortunately, but that does not change the fact you will pay a premium for the simple reality that the technology is new; just as it is with our digital cameras.
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Sounds like someone should be working for one of the manufacturers. Let me see a profit and loss statement first and then I'll decide.

I hear Sharp introduced its first 14-inch LCD screen in 1988. Anyone care to tell me that my Chanel boots from 1988 in the back corner of my closet are "new." (Yep, not a scratch on them.   )

I also hear the latest LCD TV's are being sold with the promise of 60,000 hours. 8 hours a day times 365 equals almost 3000. 60,000 divided by 3000 equals 20 years. I didn't believe that bs either.

All I know is my overhead is killing me and I can't find a good man because I'm married to Photoshop. Now, with deltaE entering my vocabulary I find myself very depressed.

Apple Cinema Display (with a Samsung screen) + $300 2-year Apple Care = BAD 3.5-year DEAL. Been there, done that and NO MORE, thank you.

ps Last I heard, LCD's are keeping Sony afloat. Sounds like the atmosphere for a hefty mark-up to me. Shall we talk Bravia vs. WEGA now?

[61Dynamic]

Misty,

With your logic, DSLRs should be dirt cheap too since the first digital camera was used in 1962 in the Mariner space probe. Or if you want to go all the way back to the beginnings of the technology, you will have to go to 1855 with the Recording Telegraph. I guess the markup on CMOS chips is incredibly absurd. Of course the complexities of manufacturing, R&D, Materials development, market demand, supply and so forth are are much more involved than simple dates.

As I said, 3 years is the expected norm but that is not a definitive number and it is changing as the tech improves and becomes more mature. As well, the costs are coming down. If it was simply absurd markup then prices would not be dropping, but they are.

Really I wish I was working for the manufacturers. Then I might be able to afford to buy the best displays they make. I've just been around technology long enough to know that 9.9 times out of 10, things cost what the cost for good reason.

[Mark D Segal]

Daniel,

That plus the fact that shareholders and lenders are putting RISK capital into all this stuff (not everything they work on succeeds in the market - in fact far from it) - so what does hit the market needs to yield a risk-adjusted rate of return, otherwise they wouldn't be in the business and we wouldn't have these marvelous goodies we enjoy so much.

But back to the life span of LCD displays - my LaCie has a three year warranty. That would seem to suggest the company expects it to be useful longer than that, as warranty periods are usually much shorter than the expected life of the equipment. I think I read that at least one other company is offering a warranty extension of another two years. Like other companies, Apple is not immune from customer support issues - I won't digress into it here - will just start another angry debate. However, it remains true for them and others that if your display is guaranteed for three years and it dies on the 1096th day you are s.o.l. because they are within their rights to do nothing about it.

But for many (not everyone) all of this may be academic; in this day and age how many of us in the market for high-end equipment actually expect to use it to extinction? It's technical life is usually much shorter than its physical life. I spent a hefty amount of money for this monitor, but I expect that before the warranty is up it will become a secondary monitor and the primary monitor will be something far superior. It is the same with printers. I'd like to see a poll or a data-set on the average primary-usage period for an Epson printer in the 2200 range upward, along with a histogram of dispersion around the mean. I'll bet there is a fairly low average number of years and a fairly wide dispersion around it.

[mistybreeze]

Misty,

With your logic, DSLRs should be dirt cheap too
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I never said any product should come dirt cheap. At least one can build and sustain a career with a cheap camera if one has talent and business skill. At least you can get a 35mm sensor for well under $8000. I'm willing to pay a decent sum for a product that provides reasonable satisfaction. I viewed 3.5 years on an Apple display, considering what I paid, as unreasonable. That is why, never again.

I've just been around technology long enough to know that 9.9 times out of 10, things cost what the cost for good reason.
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And I've been at enough marketing round-table meetings to know how much "branding" can be worth to a company.