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bluebomberx
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« on: June 05, 2007, 08:14:24 PM » |
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I wish I had the funds. I love my MacBook, but I'd like a 15" for my photography work. I know I can buy an external monitor, but I can't take it with me on the road. How ironic is it that I just paid off my MacBook today?
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stebesplace
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« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2007, 08:32:59 PM » |
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New ones look nice, but they are charing $750 for 4 gigs of ram? Uhh, it costs a 1/4 of that for two more dual channel sticks to fill it up..
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nervouschimp
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« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2007, 10:47:02 PM » |
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this is good news and bad news. i am guessing that because only the 15-inch model got LED backlighting, it means that LED is still too expensive for large displays, and we will definitely not be seeing apple studio displays with LED at WWDC. bummer. the 17-inch model really could have used LED too. that big screen kills batteries.
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Reflex
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« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2007, 02:39:52 AM » |
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Actually LED backlights use slightly more power than the flourescent backlights in use today. THe advantage is in color range, not power.
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Fontaine
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« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2007, 10:30:33 AM » |
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Why are they always advertising then that LED backlights uses less energy?
From sony for example:
Utilizing new LEDs to create a 4.5mm LCD with low power consumption
The 4.5mm LCD of a "VAIO T-Series" notebook PC is approximately 50% thinner and 30% lighter than conventional fluorescent tube LCDs. Sony achieved this improvement by utilizing a newly developed white LED as a backlight, and by creating a slimmer light guide panel and a smaller, lighter LCD system board. The use of the white LED backlight has also reduced power consumption by about 25% at the brightest setting. Sony's ultra-slim notebooks can now operate for up to 9 hours*5, owing to various energy-saving features, including the automatic shutdown when there is no media in the internal drives. Instead of fluorescent tubes, the new LCD uses a mercury-free LED backlight*6, thereby reducing environmental impact.
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bluebomberx
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« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2007, 05:00:16 PM » |
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Are you certain they would use more power in these examples? I would imagine that LED displays wouldn't have to warm up as long as their CRT or flourescent counterparts?
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hydran
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« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2007, 05:09:44 PM » |
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why are people worried about the environmental impact of something that runs on battery power anyway (there must be a small difference between the two)? Surely the primary concern is for drain on battery and therefore battery life.
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Reflex
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« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2007, 08:46:08 PM » |
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You still have to charge those batteries, which is more frequent if it drains power faster. That would negatively impact the environment. That said, the lack of mercury and other chemicals present in floursecent lighting is a bonus environmentally speaking...
The issue with LED backlighting is that the control circuitry is far more complex than with a typical LCD since it has to do per pixel lighting of the LED's, rather than just turn a flourescent on or off. While I'm sure that the new laptop overall is better in terms of power usage, thats as likely to do with newer chipsets, video cards, and CPU power savings as it is from the backlight. But since thats the primary marketing point, its what will be mentioned the most.
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gwimby
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« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2007, 08:58:08 PM » |
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new screens kick ass. period.
Much more even and consistent lighting, and the matte screen is now as bright as the glossy. A very very good thing in my book, the old PPC ibook/powerbooks and the old MBP had very dim matte screens.
Colors look good, difference between gray and white is distinct.
on the memory - $750 isn't surprising, I mean c'mon they still charge $350 for 2x1GB!
Overall a nice update for no extra charge, although you're definitely not getting much for the extra $500 the $2499 model charges. (128mb more vRam, 40GB more HDD, .2 Ghz)
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nervouschimp
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« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2007, 10:25:11 PM » |
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Actually LED backlights use slightly more power than the flourescent backlights in use today. THe advantage is in color range, not power. That is a very broad comment, and simply not true. We are now onto the second generation of LED back-lighting, and there really is a power savings over the flourescent backlights in use today. Early prototypes and 1st gen led backlighting did use more power, but the technology always promised energy savings and was part of the motivation for switching to LED. CREE is one of the major players in this field, and more than likely what's in the macbook pro. go ahead and read their white-papers if you like. |
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Reflex
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« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2007, 08:27:44 AM » |
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Well, not according to several sites like Anandtech that have researched them. And no, its not one of the motivations for the switch. The motivation is that flourescent backlights do not allow for true blacks like LED backlights do. And thats a more than serious enough reason to accept a minor hit in battery life.
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nervouschimp
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« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2007, 07:33:21 PM » |
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Well, not according to several sites like Anandtech that have researched them. And no, its not one of the motivations for the switch. The motivation is that flourescent backlights do not allow for true blacks like LED backlights do. And thats a more than serious enough reason to accept a minor hit in battery life. hmmm. according to everything i've read, LED backlighting technology was developed in pursuit of two main goals: better power efficiency, and better image quality. now, in the case of the macbook, they have currently only achieved the opposite of what you state. the image quality on the new macbook pro is essentially the same, with the current benefits being listed as having a more eco-friendly and energy efficient display. i searched anandtech, and found no such article. the new macbook is infact using CREE's second gen technology that i linked to in my last post. but, whatever, you are right. apple is lying, and CREE's claims, and white-papers are totally falsified. |
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Reflex
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« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2007, 09:41:45 PM » |
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Or perhaps they simply don't tell the whole story.  Check Anandtech's affilliate DailyTech. I find it interesting that there is no advantage for the image quality, thats supposed to be the major improvement. |
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bluebomberx
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« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2007, 09:55:44 PM » |
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Checked. Didn't find anything of the sort. I tried searching for Apple, LCD, LED, and CREE to no avail.
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Fontaine
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« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2007, 10:29:02 PM » |
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Found these: Left; old mac, right the new macbook pro.   |
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Reflex
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« Reply #15 on: June 07, 2007, 10:46:01 PM » |
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Thats about what I expected, I was suprised at the claim that it didn't improve image quality.
bluebomberx - Its possible I was reading about it in the comments, Kristopher Kubuki often comments on certain techs based on their testing in the comments, which are not search indexed automatically. I know I have read it there. I also know I have read it on Ars Technica as well. While it is true that the screen itself consumes less power, which is where the claims are being made, what is left out of that claim is the additional power required for the control system, which is considerably more complex than a simple on/off circuit that a standard one has. Your never ever going to make a complex circuit that uses less power than a simple switch, its not possible.
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nervouschimp
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« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2007, 10:52:03 PM » |
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here is some info from displayblog.....
"using LEDs for notebook PC displays will not improve anything in the way of front screen performance. The reason is because of the type of LEDs that are used for notebook PC applications. White LEDs are used that is a combination of a blue LED chip with a yellow phosphor coating. There are other variations, but the end result is a color gamut about the same as a typical CCFL backlit LCD of around 40-45% NTSC. There are already advanced CCFL backlit LCDs that reach 72% NTSC on notebook PCs today. Color uniformity will be a big issue for LED backlit LCDs if the sizes become much larger than 12″ or 13″ because the number of LEDs increase quite a bit. The only things that will improve are power consumption, LCD thickness, and durability. On most ultra-portable notebook PCs the use of a LED backlight will improve battery life due to the fact that LEDs consume less power at lower brightness levels. As for thickness, Sony’s TX series notebook PCs is a good example of how thin the LCD can get–very thin. Because LED is a solid-state technology, durability will be better than CCFL."
i believe the new LED macbooks are probably a little brighter, but the biggest difference i think is due to LEDs being much less effected by ambient light conditions, and i doubt they achieve any more of the color gamut.
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Reflex
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« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2007, 10:58:16 PM » |
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I think they are neglecting the effect of true black levels, which is why the contrast is so much higher appearing on those pictures side by side. Color gamut is only one advantage, although they are correct that not using true white LED's will eliminate that advantage(I was not aware they were using blue/yellow like that). But contrast is a major advantage, as those screenshots reveal.
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nervouschimp
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« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2007, 11:28:37 PM » |
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I do agree that black levels are probably much better, and that probably does make a difference.... but my local mac store didn't have any out yet when i dropped in on my lunchbreak. i really wanted to see the new screens, but i also wanted to steal some kext files for the 8800 series nvidia cards. booo.
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