Apple 27 inch Thunderbolt Display

I've NEVER been a fan of matte displays and to be honest have found them offensive with their dull, mediocre, lifeless visual appearance and to be honest the matte surface seems to blur the sharpness of pixels, plus self illuminate/glow from both light thrown out from a displays backlighting combined with external environmental light hitting it from the front and although this maybe to such a fractional degree, it however has an impact on overall quality and contrast ratio which is severely hampered...

Therefore having the 27" Thunderbolt Cinema Display with it's LED backlighting for whiter whites (sounds like a washing powder advert) and the attractive glossy screen for superior contrast ratio - is a godsend and worth purchasing despite any niggles, admittedly some of which may be addressed in the near future with firmware & device driver updates!

Understandably the Thunderbolt Cinema Display won't please everyone because a). some users may have to reposition the display if 'strong' external light is reflecting from it and distracting. This is down to laws of Physics and no technology can fully overcome it without a trade off/compromise - personally I'd opt for the repositioning rather than absorbing and 'smearing' a hue/glow over the entire screen's surface, the subtle result from having a matte screen... and b). some users may not have printing equipment calibrated to match the screen or visa versa - in which case it would be worth getting a quality calibration device tool in order to set the Thunderbolt Display monitor so that printing equipment and monitor match, then job done! (although a calibration device should really be used on any monitor beforehand regardless of type for accurate results).

Back to the Thunderbolt Display and I could mention quite a lot about it even though I've not had it for very long yet (3 days). Therefore I'll try and keep it short by listing it's Good and Bad points instead:-

The Good Points

* The usual excellent Apple designing; looks stunning and very high build quality

* Beautiful big picture quality at 27 glorious inches

* That extra picture resolution of 2560x1440 lets you fit so much more information on the display, that you'll probably never want to go back to anything lower afterwards.

* Massive bonus; you're actually getting an additional Firewire 800 port, an additional Ethernet 10/100/1000 port and three extra USB 2 ports; all in addition to whatever ports your Mac is currently limited to - very handy indeed.

* It virtually turns your MacBook Pro/Air etc into an almost desktop equivalent in terms of having an envious big display as with desktops

* If you have a MacBook Pro/Air etc, then you'll appreciate there being slightly less impact on back-strain as you're not viewing a small screen that's too-low-down as with laptops; firstly the Thunderbolt's viewable LCD pixel-screen starts some 5 inches from the desk and then the whole screen is much higher due to its larger size.

* Future-Proofing & more flexible, i.e. If your considering this for a MacBook Pro/Air and are faced with the same question that most buyers will have; do I get the Thunderbolt Display or spend a little more and get a fully blown 27" iMac along with it's extra computing power and extra disk drive storage? Well the answer is simple... although a 27" iMac is equally impressive, the Thunderbolt Display won't go out of date nearly as quick as the iMac and it's internal computer and therefore the Thunderbolt Display could be used with and last as long as several computers. Also if a computer/iMac develops a fault then the integrated display is tied-in with it and can't be used separately if the computer has to be sent away for repairs... Do you see!

* This Display is actually 'several' things in one if you take all the above into account

The Bad Points

* Only in Bootcamp - the Apple Bluetooth keyboards 'brightness' control is not changing the brightness on the Thunderbolt Display when using a MacBook Pro in clamshell mode (works fine under OS X). This is no doubt a driver issue with the Apple Windows Support Software and will hopefully be resolved at some point.

* If running 3D applications/Games on the Thunderbolt's Display only with Macbook in clamshell mode to divert all GPU power to the Thunderbolt Display, then I notice a frame-rate drop EVEN when setting and matching the Thunderbolts Display resolution virtually identical, say 1920 x 1200/1080 pixels to that of the MacBook Pro for a comparison analysis. I don't know what the issue is here and only hope that this too will be addressed at some point soon with an update for wherever it is required in order to improve and remedy this.

* No Sleep functionality setting within Bootcamp/Windows; when using this with a MacBook Pro in 'clamshell' mode (& especially with the impressive Twelve South Book Arc Stand for notebooks), it is therefore imperative to use the Sleep modes in OS X and/or Bootcamp, thus eliminating the tedious need to have to keep lifting-up the MacBook unit from stand or lid and then pressing the Power Button... However in Bootcamp you can't put Windows 7 (64bit) to sleep in order to hit the bluetooth keyboard's space-bar to resume - Frustrating.

* I'm a fan of very bright powerful displays and although many will indeed find this more than adequately bright, I personally would have been much happier if the brightness could have gone up at least 'two' notches more for those often brightly-lit rooms and sunny days. Apple Research and Marketing, take note and maybe feed this back to Apple HQ in the hope that this can be addressed in a future firmware update to make the LED's burn brighter if so required by the user.

* Without a doubt this is expensive and I found it a painful and agonising choice, but you really are getting what you pay for here and thats both top quality and features.

Finally, this is a remarkable and excellent display which will become that much better when some niggles are properly addressed, but don't let that prevent you from considering purchasing one of these as I would do so again without a second thought.

I always change my computer every 2 years and was due to replace my iMac 27 inch recently but as I also have a Macbook Air thought I would get the Apple Thunderbolt Display instead and use the Macbook Air as my desktop as well. I also bought a Thunderbolt external drive so the whole setup connects via Thunderbolt. What a great combination. The Air just sits to one side in a stand connected to the monitor via the two cables (Thunderbolt and power) and it's just like being sat in front of the iMac. I actually find the Air faster than the iMac even though it only has half the RAM, probably due to the SSD storage, so now have a setup that is much faster than previously and when I come to upgrade, I just have one computer to renew and keep the desktop monitor.

Recently got once of these to plug into my Macbook pro 15 inch (early 2011) model! And my word, the resolution and colours are just breath taking! Awesome for playing games, video editing and sound editing etc! Decent 2.1 speakers but got some external 5.1s. Recently put 16gb of ram in my macbook also and BOOM! You can use the display to its full use! Well worth the money!

PROS:
Amazing resolution
Colours and contrast breath taking
Easy thunderbolt connecting

CONS:
Mic could do with been at the bottom of the monitor, I have to speak quite loudly on skype not no issue really
No audio out/in on the display