Shopping CartApple Thunderbolt Display MC914LL/A (NEWEST VERSION)
date : October 13th, 2011Apple TV
Review : 2 Reviews
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List Price : $ 999.00
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Tags : Apple, Display, MC914LL/A, NEWEST, Thunderbolt, Version
- 27-inch IPS display with LED backlighting
- Thunderbolt and MagSafe All-in-One Cable Connectors
- 2560 x 1440 Resolution; 16:9 Aspect Ratio
- FaceTime HD camera
- 3 USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI Cable (6.5 Feet/2.0 Meters) – Supports Ethernet, 3D, and Audio Return [Newest Standard]” href=”http://appleipod32g.com/amazonbasics-high-speed-hdmi-cable-6-5-feet2-0-meters-supports-ethernet-3d-and-audio-return-newest-standard/”>AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI Cable (9.8 Feet/3.0 Meters) – Supports Ethernet, 3D, and Audio Return [Newest Standard]” href=”http://appleipod32g.com/amazonbasics-high-speed-hdmi-cable-9-8-feet3-0-meters-supports-ethernet-3d-and-audio-return-newest-standard/”>Ethernet port, FireWire 800 port, Thunderbolt port
With built-in Thunderbolt technology-the fastest, most flexible I/O ever-the 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display can do things other displays simply can’t. Of course, it delivers a brilliant viewing experience. But connect it to any Thunderbolt-enabled Mac and it becomes a plug-and-play hub for everything you do. Features include a high-resolution 2560 x 1440-pixel LED-backlit display, a FaceTime HD camera, high-quality audio, three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and
Beautiful, well-designed — and how to reduce the glare,
I pre-ordered this and received mine two days ago. A few comments:
o The quality of the display itself is simply *perfect*. It’s sharp, bright, and super-responsive. The colors only shift very slightly when the screen is tilted.
o The real estate here is *massive*. It’s a world of difference from my 24″ low-end Acer display. Keep in mind that when you’re running it at the highest resolution (which most people will!), your menu bar and other parts of the OS X system will look a fair bit smaller than they do on other displays. Those parts of OS X are a fixed pixel size… so smaller pixels means they’ll be smaller on the screen, and there’s no simple way to enlarge them.
o Using it with Aperture in full-screen mode: it’s only now that I really see how sharp photos out of my camera are. There’s more pixels than I had before, and the pixels are sharper, and both of these help to make photos look amazing.
o The display has a Thunderbolt port on the back. You can use this to daisychain additional Thunderbolt displays, if you have an extra $1K to spend. But you can *not* plug a regular DVI monitor into this port, even with a DVI-to-Thunderbolt adapter. The second screen is dark. The manual confirms that this doesn’t work.
o The power, USB hub, speakers, camera, etc. just work so easily to dock my laptop too. It’s all automatic and easy, and *everything* except for power goes through the Thunderbolt cable. So nice!
o The speakers sound very full… in fact, a little bit *too* much bass, but that’s probably because I’m used to listening to everything through my laptop’s tinny speakers.
o I used my Huey Pro to calibrate it out of the box. The before and after calibration profiles are virtually identical — that is, colors are perfect, with no adjustment needed.
o There’s a very, very faint buzzing sound that comes from the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Sounds like a transformer. It’s not audible if my laptop’s fan is running. It is goes away if the brightness is turned down below 50% or so. It’s very faint — I only hear it if it’s totally quiet.
o The glare from the glass front panel is fairly annoying. The glare is actually worse on the black bezel than the main display: reflections against a black background are a lot easier to see than against the white. On the screen itself, especially on light-colored app windows, the glare’s not bad. (My office has indirect light from the outside right behind me.)
Still, I soon removed the glass panel and bezel from the display entirely. This improves the glare situation *immensely*. The large piece of glass is held on to the front by strong magnets, but you can remove it by carefully putting a couple of fingernails under the edge, and pulling it off toward the front. Or use suction cups (google around for info). No adhesive, no screws — just magnets, and it’ll come off easily. This will then expose the actual LCD panel itself. The panel is still quite reflective (it has a glossy finish), but then there’s just one layer of glass to reflect, rather than two, so you get half the glare or less, plus no multiple-reflections. It also gets rid of *all* of the reflections from the bezel of course — which were more annoying to me than on the display itself. There are then some magnets and screws and other hardware exposed, but so be it. I’ve seen others who have custom-fit a matte bezel to cover the innards up again. With the inner panel exposed you need to be careful about not dinging it accidentally.
But seriously Apple, please offer this in a non-glare version! The matte screen on my MacBook Pro is great to read all day, so I know you know how to do it!
p.s. A thousand bucks for a monitor? Seems like a lot, but I figure I’ll get at least five years out of this, which is less than a buck a day.
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|Crystal Clear Image Quality but lousy audio and tons of glare,
My reason for purchasing this display was the image quality which is definitely worth every one of the 5 stars I’m rating it.
Like all Apple products the Thunderbolt display is exceptionally well built and designed, offering the same display components as the beautiful 27″ iMac. There was absolutely zero configuration required beyond adjusting the brightness to my liking using the Mac OS X control panel. Once I plugged Thunderbolt cable into my Mac everything sprang to life, including all of the ports on the back. My Mac works great with the lid closed and it fits nicely underneath the display. It will turn itself on as soon as the cable connects. The display also includes a power cable for Macbooks.
The Thunderbolt Display is not for everyone, however. Here are a few cautions you should know about prior to purchasing:
1. Most important: **This display is only for very recent Macs that are equipped with a thunderbolt connection** If you don’t have a thunderbolt port on your Mac it will not work! Note that the connector looks identical to the mini-display port that can be found on most modern Macs, so it’s very important that you confirm first that your machine does indeed have a Thunderbolt connection. It will not work with anything else, including PCs.
2. The display is very, very glossy and will give off a ton of glare if any light is within line of sight to the display. It looks and operates beautifully in my home office but your mileage may vary significantly.
3. Despite Apple’s claims of exceptional audio quality, the onboard speakers are not much better than the cheap pair that came with your Dell 15 years ago. Don’t buy it for the audio quality.
I’m happy to answer questions in the comments!
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