Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Great monitor --BUT REPAIRS? WOW!!!!!, November 4, 2006
By
C. Tibbs (Blue Ridge Mountains of VA)
I did a dumb thing. I broke my 23" Cinema View monitor. Bought it a year ago and it was GREAT!!! and worth the money.
Last week I was taking it to a meeting in the back seat of the car -- you guessed it, I broke it. Contacted Apple Care and a less than friendly person gave me a local authorized repair facility -- you know the rest, had to finally call several facilities myself until I reached an independent facility called MacPros, Richmond, VA. They were great!!! I have purchased from them in the past.
"Bring it in and we ship it to California for repairs." I asked for an estimate -- he asked me to hold and he would call the repair facility.
He then reported to me -- "Sir, I can't believe it myself -- the repair cost is $3,000!!!"
MacMall and MacConnection has them new -- the 23" Cinema View for $944.
Off to Best Buy I go just to buy anything to get me going again -- 19"LG for $250. Not bad, not sure I can justify paying Cinema View prices again. (Best Buy - YUK!!! that's a whole
new story)
Now looking elsewhere.
Fantastic display, but unbelievable repair cost, July 26, 2005
By
Torsten LangI own the 23" Cinema HD display for over a one and a half years now and must say that it's one the best displays I've ever seen. The absolutely uniform backlight and the great viewing angle are really fine...
A drawback is the limited compatibility with typical Windows PC GFX boards as the DVI capabilities (Apples ADC is primary a DVI connector with power supply and USB added) are driven to the limits of a single link connector - a sign that DVI has been designed without looking for tomorrow's displays. Not many card's BIOSes know how to setup correct timings for these huge babies. So there are only a handful of boards that are able to display the POST screen. Windows and Linux drivers are typically more compatible but especially under Linux when the board doesn't display the POST screen you also won't see any text consoles as they're configured through the board's BIOS.
A real shock have been the repair costs. The back light of my display failed a few weeks ago - wouldn't have it been covered by my AppleCare the ASP would have charged over 1700EUR (over $2000 (!)) for the repair. When I asked my ASP if there are no other repairing options they told me that always the whole display would be exchanged. But: The current models are around 1200EUR and so they are cheaper than a repair of the old one!
So I'm really thinking to change to some PC display as long as my display is working and is covered by AppleCare as there are now also 23" displays of the same quality available where surely servicing is priced somewhat more realistic. What a pity...
That's also the reason why I rate this display with only three stars - looking only at the picture quality it surely would be worth 5.
too expensive, but undeniably good, April 23, 2005
By
Waffle Lover (Washington, DC)
I got one of these and you get what you pay for with this screen. The problem is you pay a lot.
Its a very nice screen. Nothing more I can say. Never seen a nicer LCD anywhere. Only reason I dind't give it 5 stars is the price (which is astronomical).
I use it to watch movies, do work, everything. I don't even have a TV.
By the way if anyone knows if a DVD player that I can hook right up to the DVI input of this I would love to find one. DVD player makers are retarded, I havn't found a good DVD player yet that is made to work with DVI (for computers, not DVI for HDTV which apparenltly for some stupid reason is not compatibly).
If you get the 30" model you don't need a TV or HDTV. Its much better than all that crap anyway. HDTVs can come in bigger sizes but the quality is so much worse you are better off not getting one.
Excellent monitor, June 18, 2004
By
Anthony Leong (Flushing, New York United States)
The screen itself is excellent. Especially since you can get a (...) rebate if u buy it together with an Apple G5 Powermac. Buy one you won't be disappointed. Also, Apple will release a 30" display in the Apple WWDC (...)
Phenomenal product - my best purchase in 2003, June 1, 2004
By
Mark E. Moessinger (Houston, TX USA)
I bought this monitor from Amazon almost a year ago. I am still amazed at how big it is - and I mean big in terms of usable screen space. I have it hooked up to my Intel based PC using a DVI video card. It is aesthetically beautiful as well which was a nice change of pace from my previous large screen monitors which were not much to look at. Everything looks good on this screen. High res digital photos, computer games, the 2+ full size Internet browsers that I can place side to side and still have room left on the screen. In short I am really glad I spent the money on it.
