20-inch iMacs shipping with janky LCDs?

3 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/20-inch-imacs-shipping-with-janky-lcds.68061/

20-inch iMacs shipping with janky LCDs?

Apple took some flak a few months ago for shipping 18-bit LCD panels in the MacBook and MacBook Pro -- a hue and cry that reached its inevitable conclusion with a class-action lawsuit over the "sparkly" and "grainy" quality of the screens. Well, it looks like Cupertino isn't too fazed by the uproar, because it appears that the new 20-inch iMac is shipping with a similar 18-bit panel -- and, not surprisingly, prompting the same type of complaints. We're not sure how widespread the issues are, but we're starting our lawsuit clock...now.

18-bit is just a fancy way of saying 6-bit because it is 6 bits for each channel -- red, green, and blue ( 6 + 6 + 6 = 18 ).

8-bit is the current "good" color depth and would be represented as ( 8 + 8 + 8 = 24 ) bit color, or what is called "True Colour".

It's a choice made by LCD manufacturers, and companies like Apple, Dell, or Sony sometimes no have choice but to choose a 18-bits screen to be able to offer their product at the targeted price, And if they choose to put a higher price to offer a more expensive 24-bits screen, they are giving sells to competitors (which them didn't hesitate to use 18 bits screens). That's the rules of a competitive market. You don't want iMac to be more expensive, do you?

However, going through the display calibration tool should make the screen look much better. It's a shame that most people will never calibrate their displays, whether it's a computer monitor or an HDTV. OS X does have an extremely nice display calibration tool, so I definitely recommend other people to use it if they have not done it already.

nepcker said:
However, going through the display calibration tool should make the screen look much better. It's a shame that most people will never calibrate their displays, whether it's a computer monitor or an HDTV. OS X does have an extremely nice display calibration tool, so I definitely recommend other people to use it if they have not done it already.

This was copied from engadget user comments, right