Review: Apple : 20″ Cinema Display Widescreen LCD Monitor

We thought that kicking off our reviews of high-tech displays and monitors would be best served by beginning with a desktop-oriented display first, and then compare/contrast in later reviews of TV or multimedia displays.

Apple has always been an innovator and leader when it comes to hardware. Their computer designers are able to pack amazing features into tight packages, and have construction details that are rarely seen in the PC marketplace. But we’re not here to talk about the cool G5 towers, the widescreen TiBook, or the iPod. No, we’re here to shed some ‘light’ on Apple’s great work in designing beautiful LCD displays.

While Apple was known originally for their computers, they have always had monitors in the lineup. The Apple II, embedded displays in the Apple III, the Lisa, and eventually the first Macs. Eventually, the line shifted back to independent monitors, in many cases Trinitron-based, and as the Mac grew in age Apple re-introduced the ‘merged computer’ line with the birth of the iMac – today’s iMac has evolved into an incredibly designed LCD display mated with a computer small enough it seems like the monitor ’stand’.

Apple’s early moves into the LCD panel market were 15″ and 17″ flat panels, with great quality but not necessarily the breadth of features we’ve come to expect from the company’s product. Then, they floored the industry with the incredible 22″ Apple Cinema Display – an enormous widescreen display, before anyone else in the market had really considered the concept. Of course, there was some sticker shock, but beauty is never cheap!

Not ready to sit back, Apple added technical improvements and released the 20″ Cinema Display (yeah, yeah, the whole POINT of this article!) and the 23″ Cinema HD Display (which quickly replaced the 22″ in the lineup). The 20″ panel has been so successful that Apple finally added it as an optional model of the LCD iMac line, and the 17″ has been brought in line with the other two.