see part 01

Part 03: Resolution Woes

I care a lot about the monitor I use; if I’m going to be staring at it for hours every day then I don’t want to put up with a mediocre one. There are a few things I care about in a monitor, including reflectivity, brightness, contrast, black level, colour gamut, and possibly refresh rate, but in this article I just want to talk about resolution. First off, I think I should explain exactly what we’re talking about here.

Introduction To Display Resolution

A computer screen is made of pixels, which are tiny dots too small to see individually that make up the image you see. I’m writing this on a very low resolution screen, and even this has 1024 pixels across and 768 pixels vertically. These days, the highest resolution screens go up to 2560x1600 pixels.

There are two different factors to think about here. One is the number of pixels in the screen; the other is the size of the screen. A bigger screen does not necessarily have more pixels — the big 60” TVs rich people have in their living rooms have no more pixels than even most 22” computer monitors; each pixel is simply larger. The iPhone 4 has a very small screen, and yet because its pixels are so fine it has almost as many as this monitor I’m using!

Here’s the thing though. If you increase the size of the screen but keep the pixel count the same, everything just gets bigger. But if you increase the number of pixels, something different happens.

It doesn’t actually have to be different, it just is, due to the way most software is designed. When I look to the lower-left of my screen I see the Start menu. When I look to the upper-right I see the Close button (a little “X”). These interface elements are rendered by the computer in a fixed number of pixels, and it’s the same number of pixels no matter what the screen resolution. The result of this is that a higher resolution screen keeps the Start menu and the Close button the same size but widens the space between them. If you imagine just stretching the screen bigger, the interface elements would stretch along with everything else. But if you increase the resolution at the same time (by adding more pixels), the buttons will stay the same size but be stretched farther apart.

In practice, a higher resolution screen gives you a larger workspace. Think about the tool palettes in Photoshop, for example, and imagine keeping them the same size but moving them further apart so that you can fit a bigger image in the middle. Or imagine extending the screen vertically so that you don’t have to scroll so much on web pages.

• 720p compared to 1600p. See how much extra room there is.

One final difference is that the higher resolution screens can display more detailed photos, movies and games. “High Definition” refers to a particular standardized resolution.

So to summarize: I want loads of room on-screen and I want movies to look really sharp. You can get by with less, of course, but getting by isn’t the point. I want better than that.

Terms To Be Going On With

I think perhaps some nomenclature is called for before we move on.

Resolution can be described in a couple of different ways. 1080p, for example, is shorthand for a screen of 1920 pixels across and 1080 pixels vertically; 1920x1080. 720p means 1280x720. 1440p means 2560x1440.

All of these screens have the same aspect ratio; their width-to-height ratio is 16:9. You can also get 16:10 screens, which are slightly taller, and they’ll be 1200p (1920x1200) or 1600p (2560x1600).

Where From Here?

All this explanation is just setting the scene for the continuing question of this series: why was I drawn to the iMac?

Part of my justification for the iMac’s high price was its very high resolution 1440p screen. I reasoned that you can’t get such a screen for much under €1000. This is true as far as it goes, but I’m no longer convinced that such a pixel monster is actually desirable.

Problems With Surpassing 1080p: Upscaling Films

You can’t magically add detail to a film. If the film was released in 1080p, then watching it on a 1440p screen holds no advantage. However, there might, just maybe, be a disadvantage.

A movie is ideally watched at its native resolution – that way each of the 1920x1080 pixels in the film can map neatly onto each of the 1920x1080 pixels on the screen. But stretching 1080p up to 1440p doesn’t work so well. It requires some deciphering on the part of the computer – the process is called “upscaling” - and if you think about it, it’s actually a slightly awkward thing to do. 1440/1080 is 4/3, so upscaling requires mashing three pixels into the space of four. This is never going to work perfectly.

Of course, it may work ok. I genuinely don’t know – I’ve found it difficult to get good information on this. But I’ve heard some hifi film people say that if you have two displays of equal size where one is 1080p and the other 1440p then, perverse as it sounds, a 1080p film will look better on the lower-resolution screen. Subjectively, it may even appear to be higher-resolution on the lower-resolution screen.

Games

Games present a different issue. Although the super-high resolution seems like a good idea at first glance, the problem is that you’d need one monster graphics card to drive that many pixels at any reasonable frame rate. The iMac, incidentally, does not have a monster graphics card. You can of course run the game at a lower resolution, but then there’s no advantage to the big, expensive screen.

Conclusion

1440p or 1600p screens are far more expensive than 1080p or 1200p screens. So much so, in fact, that it would make more sense to get two of the smaller ones. That would allow me to have one in landscape orientation and the other in portrait, which would be great for writing and web browsing. 

• This image is kind of rubbish and inaccurate I’m afraid, but it gives you some idea of the utility of two big monitors in portrait and landscape.

Yet another option I would consider were money no object is a twelve-inch Cintiq. Using it essentially as a €1000 mouse pad along with a 1200p screen would be a nice combination.

The high-res iMac screen doesn’t hold so much appeal for me any more.

see Part 01

Part 02: Thoughts On The All-In-One Design

I like the idea of an all-in-one computer. I really do. It’s neat and tidy and, in the case of the iMac, really really beautiful. The iMac is the sort of thing I would buy just to mount on a spike.

Beauty isn’t the only thing that’s important, though, and there are some practical issues that have started to gnaw away at me.

Redundancy Disparity

One of the concerns I’ve been most impressed with is the disparity between the advancements in computers and in displays. Any computer that you buy will be outdated in a few years, but the screen? Not so much. We’ve had 1080p screens for a long time now, though obviously they’ve come down in price, and the move to even greater resolutions is slow compared to advances in processors and what-have-you. 1440p or 1600p displays are not common, and there doesn’t seem to be any great rush to adopt them.

I’ve heard it summarised thusly:

“The problem with the iMac is that you’re buying a six-year computer attached to a twelve-year screen”.

Thoughts On Upgradeability

I’m not sure how I feel about upgradeability any more. I’ve written this paragraph several times now, each time changing my mind a little further in the “pro-” direction. My immediate, visceral tendency is to just buy something like the iMac and then replace it in five or seven years. I don’t want to think about upgrading and shit. But then I start thinking, “Well, I say that now, but what about in, say, three years, when my needs have changed a bit and I really need a better <insert component here>?” The problem boils down to a lack of certainty about my future, and I think that pushes me in the direction of keeping my options open.

A second issue crops up when buying a computer in the first place. With the iMac, I’d need all the money up front, which means either going without for a few months (at least) or getting a loan, neither of which appeals. If I could buy parts individually I could upgrade my system over the same period of time but get the main improvements sooner.

To Conclude This Part

None of this is really an issue for me any more. I don’t want the iMac because I don’t like glossy screens and because I need a better graphics card than they offer. I’m really just airing out some previous arguments of mine. Where previously the issue of upgradeability was largely irrelevant to me, it’s become more important since.

See Part 03: Resolution Woes

I wrote once before about the iMac and why I liked it, and for a while now I’ve been planning to write an update of sorts: my opinions about it have changed quite a bit, and I thought it’d make for an interesting article.

Well, time makes fools of us all. Nine months is going-on forty-three in computer years, and I’ve become hopelessly out of touch with what’s current in price and performance. The iMac has been updated, the world has turned two-hundred-and-something times, and I’m in no position to write a good, thorough article any more. Of course, the speed at which I’ve been overtaken says a lot about how much time one should spend considering one’s next computer: I’m sorely tempted to say “not as much as you’d think”.

But in any case, I have learned a few things. There are several issues that I now understand better. In fact, quite a few. To cover everything at once would make for an article thoroughly overestimating the average Internetist, so I’m going to break it down into a few separate pieces. In this one I’ll just list the topics I’m going to talk about in good old point form:

All-In-One Form Of iMac Is A Nice Idea But…

“A Six-Year Computer Attached To A Twelve-Year Display?”

“A Change Of Mind On Upgradeability”

Large 2560x1440 Displays Not All They’re Cracked Up To Be…

“Upscaling 1080p?”

“Games At Native Resolution?”

Glossy Screens: Oh Noes…!

“Concerning Reflections And Black Levels”

Why Bother With Mac Software At All…?

“Attractive Software”

“Triple Booting”

Hackintosh Alternative…

“Feasibility, Ease Of Use, And So On”

Gradual Upgrading…

“My Unusually Thrifty Plan”

…And many, many more! (maybe)

See Part 02: Thoughts On The All-In-One Design

See Part 03: Resolution Woes

I’ve since changed my mind somewhat — see this more recent post.

I want a 27” iMac. Specifically, the top model with the quad-core i7 processor and the 4850 card. These things run about €2057, according to http://store.apple.com/ie.

Two grand for a computer is a colossal amount of money, and the sort of thing that makes pc ideologues rub their hands with glee at the pasting they can give mac fanboys. After all, you could get an equivalent pc for what, half that? Less?

Actually, no. Many Apple products are overpriced, but the iMac is remarkably good value.

What’s not immediately obvious, if you’re used to pc spec-wars, is the quality of the iMac display. It’s not just a 27” screen, it’s also extremely high-resolution; not 1080p, but 1440p - 2560x1440.

More important though is the type of screen it is. You know how most cheap monitors and laptops only look good when you look at them from one specific angle? Beyond that the colours invert. Some screens are so bad that when you tilt the top of the screen so it looks good, the bottom is all washed-out. I cannot frickin’ believe that people don’t find this completely unacceptable.

Turns out that this is a quality of “TN” displays. The iMac uses the next step up, an “IPS” technology which has near-perfect viewing angles - you can look at it sideways from across the room and it’s still perfect.

If you wanted to buy a big 1080p IPS display, Dell have one for €664. If you want to go up to 1440p, you’re looking at at least €1000, and easily €1400.

And if I build a pc on Komplett.ie to equivalent specs as the iMac, it’s hard to get below €900, and I’m not even sure that includes shipping.

The price of an equivalent pc including the display is quite easily the same as the iMac, and even then you wouldn’t get the gorgeous, brilliant all-in-one form factor. Dell’s 24” all-in-one has blu-ray, which is nice, but otherwise has a slower cpu, half the ram and hd space, a relatively-slow-ass graphics card and costs the same.

You also wouldn’t get the Mac OS, or more importantly the ability to run any of the Big Three. Though having said that, I actually think it’s good enough value as hardware to justify buying it and just running Windows on it.

Now, you can argue that you don’t need a big screen, that you don’t need an IPS screen, and that you don’t need such high-resolution. Fine. But that’s not an argument against the iMac. For what it is, it’s good value.

Christ I want one.