Apple has removed the 20″ Cinema Display from its online store and notified resellers that the product has reached its end of life.
I’m sure it won’t happen but I really hope that Apple comes to their senses and starts selling a reasonably priced 20″ Cinema Display. I don’t want to spend $500+ just for a monitor, I would be very willing to pay $300 or so but not much more.
I’d love to get a second monitor to hook up to my 20″ iMac but I am torn between getting a monitor that doesn’t match the iMac or waiting until Apple eventually releases a reasonably priced monitor (and lets hope I don’t have to wait too much longer).
I have already been in contact with at least one company that plans to solve the Macbook to HDTV issue. MonoPrice.com, a wholesale distributor of computer cables and accessories based in California, has informed me that Apple fans are on their radar and a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI video adapter is on the way. “Yes, we will carry this item soon. However, it won’t be available until end of January 2009 or so,” a company representative said via email.
MonoPrice.com makes some awesome stuff. There cables and adapters are just as good as everyone else but unbelievably cheap when it comes to pricing.
So Apple had some pretty good announcements yesterday and overall I’m very satisfied with what was announced. Rather than do a full run down of what was announced I’m going to instead do a quick list of the announcements (I’m sure many of you have already heard about them thus the shorter post).
Apple has managed to develop a way to carve a large portion of the new notebooks out of a block of aluminum which not only makes the notebook sturdier and thinner but also cuts down on the overall materials used to make it.
All of the notebooks (with the exception of the 17″ MacBook Pro and the old 13″ plastic MacBook) will be getting the new Geforce 9400M integrated graphics (The MacBook Air will be running it at a lower clock speed do to thermal constraints).
The MacBook Pro will also have a discrete graphics (Geforce 9600M GT 256MB/512MB) card allowing the user to switch from integrated to discrete when you either want more battery life or more graphics performance.
MacBook Pro gets an easy access panel to replace the battery or hard drive. But, will be losing FireWire 400.
All new notebooks get a mini DisplayPort.
MacBook Pro and MacBook get a buttonless glass trackpad (the entire pad is a button) along with a battery indicator on the side of the notebook.
New MacBook Pros start at $1999.
All notebooks now have options for solid state drives.
Brand new 24″ Cinema Display with glass front, MagSafe power adapter to power your laptop, 3-port USB hub, and DisplayPort. 1900×1200, Built in iSight camera & mic, built-in stereo speakers, LED backlit.
Old plastic MacBook gets a price drop to $999.
New MacBook will see almost all of the benefits that the MacBook Pro did except for the discrete graphics and will start at $1299.
Earth Trek recently released the world’s smallest projector, the 90-805R mini projector. The projector features a card slot (SD/T-flash card), built in lithium battery for 1-2 hours of use, built in speaker, MP4 player, and is capable of a 22″ diagonal projection.
The actual device itself measures 105x58x25mm and only weighs 160g.
This is a great little deice that would be really handy for presentations or watching a movie in a small room. There doesn’t seem to be any word on pricing yet but I’m sure it can’t cost too much.
The multitouch screen uses a rear mounted camera to interact with the hands “shadow,” it also shows blue points on the screen where your hand touches the screen.
The device can also show two pointers on the screen, one for each hand that keeps the orientation of the hand and follows its movement.
Yes, I know, I know, This happened last week and you might already know about it, but I’m sure some of you haven’t heard about it and there are a few stories left over from last week in my inbox that I’m going to be writing about in the next day or so, this is one of them.
Pioneer announced a 9mm thick, 50″ Plasma at CES last week. We won’t be seeing these this year but this is just a peak into the future of flat-panel displays.
This is only a prototype but the display is said to be released in the second half of 2008. The curvature of the display mimics peripheral vision and from what I’ve read, looks gorgeous.
Official specs report less than .02-millisecond response time. Engadget said they noticed three faint vertical dividing lines which seem to indicate that the display are made out of four sub-panels. The display is about the same size as two 24″ displays.
Here is a video showing off the display:
The display looks pretty cool but, I don’t really see much of a point in having more than 20″ or so of screen real estate, I do just fine with the 13″ display on my MacBook. The display is using rear projection technology but it’s still pretty cool.
Dell has been showing off this beautiful monitor as a concept design for about 7 months now and now you can officially purchase one.
The monitor is supposed to ship within the next few days. The specs don’t make it a high end monitor exactly but its design is just gorgeous.
The widescreen 22″ monitor has a resolution of 1680×1050 with a response time of 2ms and a 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The monitor comes with 4 built in speakers with an output for an outboard subwoofer. There is also a mounted webcam at the top of the monitor. There are inputs for DVI and HDCP compliant HDMI (no mention of DisplayPort).
The monitor will cost you $1199 which is much more expensive than Dell’s other 22″ monitors (which go for around $300).
It seems that Dell (with this monitor at least) is making some type of attempt to make good looking products, let’s hope this continues in the future (I’ve never been a fan of Dell’s designs).
Two days ago I posted about Troll Touch offering touch screen Macs, well if you were curious as to how well they worked here is a great video demonstrating the touch screen iMacs capabilities.
If you like what you see and would like to pick one up check them out here.
Troll touch is now offering touch screen iMacs, touch screen Apple Cinema Displays, and touch screen MacBooks.
You can also send in your own computer and they will add the display for a significantly cheaper price than if you purchased the whole system from them.
The touch screens aren’t multi-touch but hey, if you really want to start getting your fingers off the keyboard and on to the display this is a great option.
Samsung is going to be showing off a bunch of new displays in Japan at the end of the week. Among those displays is this unbelievable display.
The 40″ TFT LCD is 1cm thick. That isn’t the only small measurement on this display, it also sports a 14.6mm bezel around the actual display. It uses LED backlighting to help reduce power consumption to about 90 Watts.
This display really is amazing and it also shows off the fact that we soon may be able to have displays on all of our walls without the need for pesky projectors.
