Product Reviews

Apple launched a new range of displays at Macworld Expo New York to go with the updated Power Mac G4 range and the G4 Cube. The entry-level monitor is a 17in DiamondTron CRT in a redesigned, but not universally popular, case priced at a reasonable £349. At the seriously high end is the gorgeous 22in wide-screen TFT Cinema Display, with an equally high-end price tag of £2499. But sure to be the most popular monitor, particular among buyers of the G4 Cube, is the 15in TFT Apple Studio Display.

The design of the monitor is, quite simply, beautiful: essentially a miniaturised version of the Cinema Display. The 3cm wide bezel around the screen contains stylish Aqua-style horizontal stripes, and the whole system is enclosed in rugged, clear plastic, which extends at the bottom edge to form two legs. A third, hinged leg attaches to the back of the case to form a stand. The weighting of the display is perfectly correlated with the strength of the spring in the stand so that whether the display stands completely upright or is tilted back to an angle of up to about 30¡, it's completely sturdy on the desktop.

The screen's image clarity is excellent at its default resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. It can be switched to either 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 pixels, although scaling introduces antialiasing to make sure edges appear smooth. As a result, on-screen text and graphics can appear slightly blurred at lower resolutions. The screen has a very wide viewing angle in the horizontal plane, but, as with all TFT displays, colours change significantly if the screen is viewed from above or below rather than straight on. That said, the colour accuracy is the best we've seen in a TFT display, although it's still not quite good enough for professional graphics work. Still, TFT displays offer many advantages over their somewhat antiquated CRT cousins. The lack of a glass screen means

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there's no glare or reflection. And, of course, the Studio Display is tiny, only taking up about three inches of desk space.

All Apple's new monitors have only one cable to connect them to a Mac. The ADC (Apple Display Connector) cable is moulded into the back of the unit and carries the video signal, power and USB, significantly reducing the tangle of cables on the desk. A powered USB hub provides two ports on the back of the display for plugging in the keyboard or other peripherals.

However, the ADC is a proprietary connector found only in Apple's latest G4s and the Cube. Sure, the Studio Display is a perfect complement to these machines - it's hard to imagine anyone buying a Cube without one - but it excludes users of older Macs and, perhaps more significantly, the potentially huge PC market. How many times in the last few years have we seen stylish Apple monitors displaying Windows content on TV shows? This won't happen with the new Studio Display until an adaptor appears to enable connections to other computers. Apple has announced that third parties are working on just such a device, but no time scale has been mentioned. Incorporating an external power supply into a monitor lead won't be easy. 3dfx has stated its intention to include the ADC connector in its future Mac graphics cards and, given that the graphics cards in the new G4s are made by ATI, it's likely that future ATI products will also have ADC ports. But until these products exist, non-G4 owners will just have to look on in envy.

ADC does offer some advantages. The new Apple USB keyboard lacks a power key, but the Studio Display has a touch-sensitive panel which glows when a finger comes close to it, and touching it sends the Mac to sleep. It can also be used to wake up the Mac or turn it on when it's powered off. Another touch-sensitive panel, marked with a Brightness icon, brings up the Monitors control panel, where the colour depth, resolution and brightness can be adjusted, as well as calibrating the display's ColorSync profile.

The Apple Studio Display is unquestionably the most attractive and stylish 15in LCD monitor on the market and, given its excellent image quality, its price tag is more than reasonable. The one fundamental flaw with the Studio Display is the ADC. I love this monitor, and I would gladly part with £700 to have one on my desk. But now, and for the forseeable future, there's no way to plug it into my old Mac. It's just not fair.