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

Got mine December 2011.
Loved it until the other day a thin vertical line appeared out of nowhere the other day.
it is at apple now and according to them it could either be the Board or the display which is around $130 vs $850 and i'm still waiting to find out.
but if it the display i will be very angry as this monitor never moved from the the same spot in my edit room. i would expect a $1000 monitor to work for more then 2 years

I have enjoyed my display for just over a year now. I have a home office and have all equipment connected to a power surge protecter. As a rule, everyhting is shut down at night. Two nights ago, we had a lightening storm that shut the power out for about 30 seconds, when the power came back on, all appliances were normal.
The next morning, the display was dead. So, all the coputers, printers and older monitors were fine, the display however waas not. I followed all the rules to protect equipment, but now I know that is monitor needs to be either unplugged if storms are in the area.
Expensive replacement.

This display is very deceptive. It's beautiful if you're a consumer. If you're a designer/photog/film/illustrator, this display is useless. Gloss/reflections really gets in the way. Color consistency is good, but colors are over-saturated. Color-accurate work is impossible. For professionals, this display is like a candy apple...looks shiny and delicious, but it's not good for you. Apple seems to care less about pros these days, with some of the decisions and products they're making.

I own a web business and am in front of a screen for 16+ hours/day. I decided to go "all in" on Apple and am using a MBA 11" with the T-bolt 27" display, in addition to the iMac, 2 MBP's and Time Capsule, AppleTV, Airplay, iPad, etc. Hardware works together flawlessly which is why you buy Apple. It never occurred to me I'd have problems...

Although I LOVE the plug & play with the MBA 11, crisp image, sound, etc., I HATE the fact it makes 11 pt. font look like 6 pt. font. And the headaches have become unbearable. I've tried apps (flux, sunvisor), font smoothing, brightness, etc. It is too much to take and I'm thinking about dumping it. I don't have reflection problems that I notice - i can see the screen fine and don't focus on seeing myself or background. But the pain is brutal.

What am I missing? Am I the only one? Is it possibly the MBA causing these problems on the Tbolt 27? Apple store guys are clueless.

I'm a motion designer, work with two of these monitors side by side 8-10 hours a day. After all the eye pain and headache, I now switched back to the old Apple display (matte) as my main monitor, and put the new glossy ones on the side as my secondary monitors.
I think it's ok to use it in a dark room, but I have a window office and it's pretty bad even I have all the shades down.

I'm giving two stars for its sharp image quality as a secondary monitor for web browsing and tool bars, you just can't use them for work.

I've tried this display, loved it for its features and tried to think of every excuse imaginable to keep it.

However, I didn't.

I'll keep it short, as many users/reviewers have already pointed this out.

This screen is way, and I mean WAY too reflective. I'm a graphic designer and to make this display useful, I would have to change my whole lighting plan, move the windows and….in essence...create a dark room to have this screen operating at its full potential.

Any light from behind me, any dark color, any movement behind me, will DISTRACT my focus from the screen, and FOCUS it on the REFLECTION.

This is where Apple's "we are trendsetters, and we are right 99% of the time" becomes their Achilles heel.

In design there’s a principle. Form Follows Function.

The FUNCTION of a display is to be able to SEE things (in the highest detail possible) on THAT screen.
ANY OTHER ARGUMENTS AND ADDITIONS like "glass is easier to clean, the colors are deeper, it has a webcam and USB!" are SECONDARY. AND NOTHING MORE.

If there's a petition going, set up by people who get headaches, eye-strain, back pain (because they subconsciously adjust their posture to get rid of the reflections'), it’s a SIGN.

If its signed by thousands….it’s a bigger SIGN.

It’s a statement that doesn't say: APPLE you’re Wrong. Its says: APPLE, we love your products so much, and we’d love to buy them, but PLEASE listen to us.

It’s not 'complaining', it’s almost begging Apple to make something that will easily cost them a thousand dollars, that’s a bit more useful.

Please Apple, take note.

Good design, should make a product useful. - Dieter Rams

I made a special trip out to State College to see one of these monitors and decide for myself about the impact of the shiny surface and find I have to agree with other negative comments about the shine. In any dark area all I could see was my reflection of the reflection of stuff behind me. For me, it would be next to useless for video editing given the windows in my workspace.

I am rather near-sighted and also wear bifocals and it didn't take long for me to feel the eyestrain build up refocusing between reflections and image. For older eyes, this is not going to be a comfortable display to use. I'll probably go with an NEC product that offers a matte surface.

The lack of a power button and an LED to indicate the monitor has power has become problematic in our work environment.

As a systems administrator for a medium sized visual effects f/x house I find these new monitors annoying to say the least. When trying to trouble shoot problems.

The generation before this with an aluminum bezel was preferable because i

1) it had an LED to indicate the power was coming to the unit
2) had an on and off button
3) had a hardware brightness button. Sorry the software solution doesn't cut it sometimes.

The obsession to eliminate all buttons has left us frustrated at times. We have over 50 of them at our work. Not including the old generation as well.

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.

Apple has finally fixed the color gamut issue with their glossy displays with this 27" screen. The resolution is really superb, but the gloss face is a killer. The amount of eye strain you endure isnt worth spending money on. Inevitably what you'll end up doing is tilting the monitor way up, down or to the side throughout the day. So essentially you're always looking at this display from a bad angle. You can attemp to put a hood on it, close the blinds, wear black...doesn't matter. If color is important to you this is definitely not the screen for you. I disconnect mine and use the matte screen on my MBP during certain hours of the day. It's a world of difference. Apple, we want a matte screen!