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That's not entirely fair. The specific information he was looking for is not made available to the public by Apple. He was only able to find the information aft
by jm4 17y ago
That's not entirely fair. The specific information he was looking for is not made available to the public by Apple. He was only able to find the information after getting the model number for the display and checking with the vendor.
There was no way of knowing exactly which display was used without access to a MacBook Pro because that's not information made public by Apple, either. It's an awfully roundabout way of finding out how many colors can be displayed.
In hindsight it's easy to say he could have done the research ahead of time, but think about this: 1) It's called a MacBook Pro and is marketed at more demanding users, i.e. professionals, 2) Apple advertises it as being able to display millions of colors despite the fact that it really only displays 262,144. Under those circumstances, it's probably easy to take a look at the specs on the Apple site and feel confident that it's the right product.
There's still the matter of Apple refusing to disclose which of its products do, in fact, display millions of colors as advertised. At least they offered him a refund in the end, but in my opinion the whole thing sucks. I don't have a problem paying more and getting my money's worth, but they're clearly skimping on parts for products directly targeting the most demanding users.
- jonknee 17y agoHe seemed to have very specific requirements, doing a bit of research isn't out of the question. I knew about the color situation (and don't care!), it has been well publicized. A class action law suit about this issue was filed last year, it's not exactly breaking news. http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11348 http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11348
- JimmyL 17y ago>>It's called a MacBook Pro and is marketed at more demanding users, i.e. professionals Which "professionals"? 8bit color is important to pretty much one professional group: graphic artists/designers (maybe two, if you include people doing video work). For the vast majority of people - "professional" or otherwise - 6bit vs. 8bit color doesn't matter. It looks good, it's fast, it runs what they want. Those are the things that matter. As a developer, I consider myself a "professional", and my life is fine with 6bit color. My roommate is a screenwriting "professional" and they're fine with 6bit color. Presumably an 8bit color display would cost more, and hence would reduce the number of people who could afford the machine, at the expense of pleasing one small market segment. Bottom line is that if a feature (any feature) was important enough for me that it would make or break my decision to buy the underlying system, I'd explicitly confirm its existence (in a way more rigorous than "millions and millions", which sounds like marketing-speak), and I'd get reviews from my peers who would have the same interests. In this case, the author did neither.
- catch23 17y agoAt the minimum, it's faulty marketing on Apple's product. They shouldn't state that it supports millions of colors when it actually doesn't. Just like the CRT monitors that are 17" but only 15" viewable... sometimes that stuff doesn't change until someone files a lawsuit.
- randallsquared 17y agoIt "supports" millions of colors; it just displays some of them with multiple pixel tricks. Which is probably fine with me -- I haven't seen a comparison where I could tell the difference without blowing the pixels up.
- greendestiny 17y agoThats the least compelling definition of supports millions of colours I've ever heard. So did my EGA display adapter in the 80s then. I'd be furious if I bought a 6-bit monitor in this day and age and it wasn't spelled in giant letters all over the thing.
- duskwuff 17y agoYou must be furious pretty often, then - because the vast majority of LCDs sold today, with the exception of a few expensive high-end displays, use 6-bit color. (This is 6 bits per channel, not 6 bits per pixel, by the way.)
- bonaldi 17y agoThe difference leaps out at you if you've done any sort of colour work at all. I can even see in the gradients on the Finder window toolbars.
- dchest 17y agoThis probably means that you have a defective display. I have a 17" MacBook Pro that has this kind of defect, where I can see bad gradients, etc. However, three other Macs in our possession doesn't have this issue.
- jmillikin 17y agoApple advertises it as being able to display millions of colors despite the fact that it really only displays 262,144. A 6-bit display is capable of displaying more than 6 bits of color information, using a technique named temporal dithering. For an example, open this image on a 6-bit display: < http://imgur.com/BeVicl.png http://imgur.com/BeVicl.png >. If the display could only display 262k colors, the squares would look identical.
- Skeuomorph 17y agoThank you, as this puts paid to anyone here saying there's no visible difference except to pixel peepers. (Well, assuming one is comparing on a true 8 bit screen.)
- jmillikin 17y agoPlease note that the 6-bit image is not what will be present on an Apple screen. The difference between 8-bit and dithered 6-bit is difficult to notice for most people.
- pbz 17y agoIs there a way to test if you have a 6 bit monitor?
- jmillikin 17y agoEasiest way: Look up the monitor's serial number online, and see if it's 6- or 8-bit.
- pygy 17y agoIt will look identical assuming the 262k colors monitor reduces the gammut using the same method used for that image.
- GHFigs 17y agothey're clearly skimping on parts This is not clear at all. Every manufacturer uses 6-bit displays, even in most if not all high-end models. This has been true for years. They choose to do so because such displays have desirable properties other than color, such as price and lower response times.