I just bought a new Mac 27" and did the Spyder 3 calibration which I had not done in awhile anyway. It's looks fine, but I thought maybe it looks like a warming filter thrown over a cool blue scene. i.e. Seeing it with the with vs. without calibration at the end button.
Here is the question: How do you know it's accurate? Sure I love Datacolor, but there is no consensus tool and says, yes they did a great job, and your monitor is 100 accurate/ calibrated, correct?
Also, isn't it subjective or not? Honestly, the non calibrated looks nice. It's more neutral tone, but blue, kind of like how I remember shooting at the beach. The "calibrated" is much warmer. They both are fine to look at, and over time my eyes will adjust to either. What is the truth?
A good question, I think.
The reality is that you can't know how accurate your screen is unless you measure the result with a known accurate probe.
And even with that, the appearance of displays with different technologies look different to us, even when they measure the same. Ie. a plasma display has a different feel than an LCD (LED) or an LCD(florescent back light) or an OLED screen or a DLP projector.
The best you might be able to do is to compare your image on your display to the same image on a known accurate display set to the same white point and brightness level.
All I can add is that I use the iOne Display Pro calibrator and the results compare quite well to other displays known, to me, to be quite accurate. (I have used my display, calibrated with the iOne, to color correct movies for theatrical distribution and all looked great in the theater, though each theater looks slightly different, even when they a near accurate)
If you are not printing your photos, then they'll be viewed by others, on their own uncalibrated displays, and everyone will see something different. And there's not anything you can do about that
Get the iOne Display and assume everything is close enough.