I’ve been fortunate to have a terrific computing setup here for the past nine months: a quad-core Intel Mac Pro with 1.25TB disk, 4GB RAM, and *both* a 23″ and 30″ monitor. Sweet, indeed.
But from the very start I’ve had a problem, which turns out to be extremely common: The 30-inch display is plagued with green pixels that appear in image-context-sensitive areas. This wasn’t too bad when I was mostly doing audio and text work, but now that I’m working more with images in Photoshop and video in Final Cut Pro, it’s truly unacceptable. Here’s an example. I photographed this directly from my screen
Well, it turns out this is a problem shared by a very large number of users. Referred to as the “flickering/dancing pixel problem,” it has been the subject of an ongoing discussion for well over two years with more than 400 messages posted to the thread! As far as any of us can tell, Apple has never acknowledged this problem or offered a fix to anyone. The company continues to replace monitors under warranty, but the replacements always have the same problem. As others in the discussion point out, I’m amazed that Apple continues to sell a product with such a significant known defect. This isn’t a minor issue; these green pixels can be all over the screen.
I bought the Apple 30-inch monitor ($2,000) because it looks so nice on my desk. Dumb move. I should have saved a few hundred dollars and bought the Dell 30-inch monitor instead. Word on the street is that it doesn’t have this problem. If you’re considering such a large monitor, I urge you to avoid the temptation to buy the Apple product until the company deals with this problem. And if you work at Apple…hey, what are you guys doing there? Remember us, the customers?