New Apple LCD displays by third-party manufacturer
A lineup of three new displays meant specifically for Mini DisplayPort-equipped Macs has been announced by Collins America, carrying a much lower cost than similar Apple displays, and perhaps slightly lower specs as well.
The displays are being produced by Collins America, a relatively small system component builder headquartered in Nashville, TN and having extensive manufacturing contacts in both the US and China. The company was founded in 1971 and has previously concentrated on OEM products, but has decided to begin to build and sell product under its own brand name.
The CinemaView LCD displays announced by Collins America come in three sizes: 19-inch at 1440×900 pixels of resolution, 20.1-inch at 1650×1050 pixels, and 24-inch at 1920×1080 pixels. They’re expected to be priced much lower than similar products from Apple, at $299, $399, and $499, respectively. They are built to compete with the Apple LED Cinema Display, according to an Apple Insider story. In the Apple lineup, a 24-inch display sells for $899, $400 more than the Collins equivalent size. Collins America says the displays will ship by September.
Most of the specifications of 24-inch Collins America display are quite close to those of Apple’s 24-inch LED Cinema Display. The Collins unit has a slightly lower resolution and does not use LED backlighting like the Apple product. It’s also unclear whether the displays use lower-quality TN panels than the Apple device. It is possible that part of the lower cost is coming from decreased specs.
The Collins America displays are attractive. Each one comes in a die-cast “UniFrame” aluminum enclosure and base stand that’s been designed to coordinate nicely with Apple’s latest generation of Macs, and which ape the look of Apple’s recently released 24-inch LED Cinema Display. Similarly, the rear of the displays are matte black like the backs of the aluminum iMacs and include a powered three-port USB hub, a push-button on/off switch, and a single 3.5mm stereo audio jack.
In terms of connectivity, the Collins CinemaView displays have a 1.2 meter cable, the end of which splits out into three separate connectors. One of these plugs directly into the Mini Displayport jack on any current Mac, a second plugs into a USB jack, and the third plugs into the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. These are the first third-party displays to use the Mini Displayport for a connection.
It would appear that the specs are a bit lower on these new Collins displays than on the Apple originals. Still, with prices over 40 percent lower, these displays will rate at least a look by Mac users. It will be interesting to see the inevitable side-by-side tests that will be done when the displays are released, and to see how much lesser a display Apple consumers are willing to accept for lower prices offered by Collins America.
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April 17th, 2009
Begs the question…why would you go for an ACD for a standalone Mac, anyway? Apple PROBABLY use IPS, or at least PVA panels, but how would you know?
The DELL 2209WA has just come out. e-IPS panel. 16.7 million colours, (true 8-bit, not dithered 6-bit). And around US$400.
I use a DELL 2007FP, (now no longer in production, from what I can gather), for prepress work. Bosses would never pay for an ACD, just a fact of life. Have the DELL calibrated, and it does a more than adequate job.