OK David, point taken. I also use a MacBook Pro and good as it is compared with many others, I've given-up on laptop display profiling because it's just a mugs' game. Apart from the inherent limitations, every time the angle of vision between the screen and your eyes changes a bit so does the image appearance. I'd be very interested in seeing how the results vary between roughly equivalent specified Eizo and NEC (the PA series), because there is a very large price difference between these two high-end range of displays and I've seen a fair bit of "hemming and hawing" on the part of prospective purchasers over whether the price difference really shows in performance difference.
Yes, viewing angle is the enemy of laptop image editing. Given the excellent screens Apple is now putting in the new iPad, it begs the question of when high rez, IPS screens will come to the MacBook line... eliminating the viewing angle issue.
As for the comparison of displays; Datacolor is actually working on a website to do exactly that. Since we have what must surely be the world's largest collection of display data, sent to us anonymously from any of our users who select that option in our software, its just a matter of developing an appropriate method of displaying that data to allow users to compare what different display models offer for contrast, uniformity etc. This will be a good comparison tool for those looking to purchase a display of a given type or in a given price range, and also to compare your display's specs against the model in general, to see if you have a lemon, as well as to get a sense of when your display is nearing the end of its useful life for color managed work.
C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor
CDTobie@datacolor.comwww.datacolor.com