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MacBook Pro First Look: Colors (3/4)
Vincent Alzieu
October 24, 2008 2:39 pm
October 24, 2008 2:39 pm
Following last month's announcements, we've just got our hands on a MacBook Pro. Given the amount of controversy that has been kicked up by the glossy screen, we've decided to take a look at it in detail before we publish our full test.
We've broken this first look at the MBP's new glossy screen up into four sections:
Part 3: Color Fidelity
Before we look at the results of the MacBook Pro's color fidelity scores from our labs, it's important to remember that laptop screens are rarely very good.
Whether on a PC or a Mac, monitors in portable computers trail behind those that you find on desktops.
Here are the results--on the left, the screen's color space, and on the right, the average gaps between the ideal colors and those shown by the monitor:
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We've broken this first look at the MBP's new glossy screen up into four sections:
- Part 3: Color Fidelity
Part 3: Color Fidelity
Before we look at the results of the MacBook Pro's color fidelity scores from our labs, it's important to remember that laptop screens are rarely very good.
Whether on a PC or a Mac, monitors in portable computers trail behind those that you find on desktops.
Here are the results--on the left, the screen's color space, and on the right, the average gaps between the ideal colors and those shown by the monitor:
Color Space
The color space that the MBP can show by default is bounded by the black triangle, which is smaller than the usual sRGB color space (orange).
In particular, the shortfall is pronounced with reds and blues, usual hallmarks of a laptop screen.
In short, it's perfectly unsurprising, but it's a little much for Apple to claim their screens give a 'spectacular experience'--they're not able to show all of the colors captured by a simple digital compact camera, and are a long way away from displaying everything that you'd capture using a top-end digital SLR (the red triangle).
Color Gaps
The higher the bar is for a particular color, the more distant a particular shade is from the 'ideal' signal sent by the graphics card.
This score, known as DeltaE, is on average 4.9 for the MBP, and we've certainly seen a lot worse than that on laptops in the past.
In particular, Apple have done well with white (6644 K), neutral gray (6471 K) and black (6332 K), getting very close to the 'perfect' score of 6500 K for all three.
The gamma curve averages out between 1.77 and 2.14, and Apple could have worked a little harder to iron that out.
As a comparison, a good desktop performance would keep DeltaE below 2, color temperature at 6500 K and a gamma of 2.2.
Plenty of other laptops don't get as close to these color scores as the MBP does, though.
The color space that the MBP can show by default is bounded by the black triangle, which is smaller than the usual sRGB color space (orange).
In particular, the shortfall is pronounced with reds and blues, usual hallmarks of a laptop screen.
In short, it's perfectly unsurprising, but it's a little much for Apple to claim their screens give a 'spectacular experience'--they're not able to show all of the colors captured by a simple digital compact camera, and are a long way away from displaying everything that you'd capture using a top-end digital SLR (the red triangle).
Color Gaps
The higher the bar is for a particular color, the more distant a particular shade is from the 'ideal' signal sent by the graphics card.
This score, known as DeltaE, is on average 4.9 for the MBP, and we've certainly seen a lot worse than that on laptops in the past.
In particular, Apple have done well with white (6644 K), neutral gray (6471 K) and black (6332 K), getting very close to the 'perfect' score of 6500 K for all three.
The gamma curve averages out between 1.77 and 2.14, and Apple could have worked a little harder to iron that out.
As a comparison, a good desktop performance would keep DeltaE below 2, color temperature at 6500 K and a gamma of 2.2.
Plenty of other laptops don't get as close to these color scores as the MBP does, though.
Previous story / Next story :
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- Current story -MacBook Pro First Look: Colors (3/4)
- 24/10MacBook Pro First Look: Brightness, Contrast Measured (2/4)
- 24/10MacBook Pro First Look: Glossy or Matte? (1/4)
- 23/10New Test: Archos 5
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