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Mar 04, 09 - 12:04 pm Comment from: Tiger Leopard

I've had NVIDIA graphics for quite awhile and have been mostly pleased with their performance.

Mar 04, 09 - 12:10 pm Comment from: Crabs

Does anyone else find it odd that the new iMacs aren't LED backlit?

Are the displays better than the previous iMac models?

Mar 04, 09 - 12:38 pm Comment from: HotinPlaya

would it make sense for Apple to buy Nvidia

I read somewhere that Intel was not wanting to work with them, if Apple owned them, wouldn't that be clout??

Mar 04, 09 - 12:45 pm Comment from: It's About Time

>Does anyone else find it odd that the new iMacs aren't LED backlit?

I don't think I've seen an LED backlit monitor larger than 17". I was hoping the new iMac's would open that door. Despite its green claim, mercury is still part of the machine.

Mar 04, 09 - 12:46 pm Comment from: steve32465

@ Hotin Playa: it would make more sense to me for Intel to buy Nvidia, but what do I know.

@Crabs:
Not really. The whole point of LED backlighting is that it's more power and space efficient, but that's mainly important in laptops.

@Me:
That remains to be seen. The 24" panel on the old ones was decent, while the 20" panel was a TN pane, which resulted in poor color accuracy, blacks, and viewing angle. It remains to be seen whether the drop in price of the 24" has resulted in using a cheaper panel. Though to be fair, TN panels are what most consumers already own/buy, as they are substantially cheaper to produce and maintain a superior response time to any other type of panel.

It's interesting that despite a focus mostly on Nvidia, Apple chose an ATi Radeon 4870 as their top performance option on the Mac Pro.

@It's About Time
The 24" Cinema Display is backlit LED.
So no real reason other than price (you wouldn't expect to get a premium monitor on a premium priced computer would you)

Would it give you guys pause to but the mega-iMac given that it is the only Apple product with an ATI card.

While having the extra power is enticing, I'm a bit concerned that because of volume, neither Apple nor ATI would be as motivated to fix issues as would Apple and Nvidia.

Thoughts...

My two year old Samsung 56 inch DLP TV is LED-backlit. Ultimately this will save me money - the cost of replacing the usual bulbs in large-screen TV’s is around $200 every 3 to 4 years. I haven’t had this happen to my current 18 month old iMac, but I expect it sooner or later (the day after its Applecare ends, no doubt).

@Ken,

DLPs generally use filament bulbs which eventually weaken and break similar to how traditional household bulbs function.

The "bulbs" used in LCD screens do not have such filaments and thus do not have the same 5000ish hour mean time between failures.

LED is superior should you have a defect, generally produces better blacks, and uses less energy, but you will likely have long given up on your iMac before its bulb gives up on you

Mar 04, 09 - 06:11 pm Comment from: ken1w

> Does anyone else find it odd that the new iMacs aren't LED backlit?

Probably a cost issue. There are quite a few internal changes with these models. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple added an ultra high-end model added to the lineup (in about six months) that had the quad-core CPU and LED backlighting. Both those technologies would filter down the lineup with subsequent refreshes.