Reviews for Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)

I am an animator in the ad / commercial industry. I have two of these in a dual configuration. The colors are vibrant and consistent, the contrast is beautiful, but the glare is unmanageable. Whenever a composition contains blacks or dark colors, I am met with the reflection of either my face or whatever is happening behind me. As excited as I would be to purchase one of these for personal use, paired with my anti-glare macbook pro, I will have to refrain until an anti-glare model is available.

Ignore the so called "professionals" that complain about a glass screen. These are the same people who had to be dragged kicking and screaming from CRTs to LCD screens. And guess what CRTs were made of: Glass.

A matte finish adds a texture to a display that dulls colors and makes images less sharp. It's like frosting a window. Plain glass allows you to see the actual image. It's perfect for color correction. Does it reflect? Not much since the backlight is so strong. Matte screens turn completely grey when hit by direct light, which is worse than a reflection.

And, besides, if you are doing important, professional color correction you're not doing it outdoors or in a room full of powerful lights and windows. Close the shades.

I've owned many monitors over the years, including 3 high-end color calibrated monitors (just recycled a 20" CRT LaCie). This Apple monitor is far and away the best I've ever used. The clarity is super sharp and the color is spot on. Additionally, I love that it turns itself on/off.

Everyone seems to complain about the glare. As a designer I've always worked in low lit rooms and I've always customized hoods and blinders for any lights anyway, so I don't personally have any glare problems. If I were working with my back to a window -- that could be an annoyance.

This is a high quality screen with great picture quality, good contrast, brightness and color balance. However, all of that becomes irrelevant in most work places, as the reflections will distract and make it impossible to do any kind of critical graphics work.
To overpower the reflections, the screen has to be viewed at high brightness settings settings, causing fatigue and headaches.

Still, in some environments, such as bright office spaces with uncovered windows and sun light, it may be impossible to use the screen without third party glare reducing screen covers. This is is not acceptable for a high end workstation display, and will generally not give as good a result as if the screen itself had the correct finish. Therefore, I cannot recommend this product.

I just received the monitor and I am very happy with it. I know there is a discussion between a glossy or a matt version. I fortunately work in a rather dark environment so the glare problem is a non-issue for me. I work a lot with Photoshop and the colors look vibrant and sharp! You have to calibrate the display for accurate colors which it does very well. The display is beautiful build, but has too few USB ports.
For me the glossy finish gives a lot more depth than a matt version...

I just bought one and hooked it up. It's stunningly beautiful, and although I could use double the number of USB ports on the back, overall it's got everything I need (more video inputs would be nice).

However, I only give it three stars because the glossy screen has far too much glare. I'm going to have to spend a small fortune (in addition to what I already spent on the display) to re-do the lighting in my office. Blah.

The cinema displays you produced two years ago are much easier on the eyes for designers. You seem to have forgotten the positive attributes and gone for the glitz.
I bought two of your non-glare monitors before they were discontinued. They run perfecto, great color balance. Great resolution.

This is great display that I would not trade with any other display in the market. The picture is sharp and natural.

I love this display so much, with all its bells and whistles, but there is one annoying problem, the backlighting.

For some reason, the display screen would flicker in low-brightness settings. (Google it)

It isn't a big deal to me, but I just thought that others should know before buying. Also, the intermitting audio problem has been fixed with an update.

I upgraded from a Windows laptop connected to an external HP 24" display to a late 2010 MacBook Air with an Apple 27" Cinema Display. The MacBook Air and 27" Cinema Display make a beautiful, elegant, practical, and fast pair. The Apple 27" Cinema Display is more expensive than other monitors on the market, however, it is of superlative quality. This monitor itself is gorgeous and the image quality is stunning! My eyes are ecstatic! Some reviewers have lamented about the monitor's reflective glass, however that didn't bother me. Overall this is a great monitor that I highly recommend. If you like high quality products, you will not be disappointed.