ronny.haryan.to

I just visited a local AppleCentre shop here in Sydney at Broadway today with my friend Jul because he wanted to buy an iPod Mini. I was trying my best not to drool over the keyboards and the displays, but it was really tough, you know. They have (almost) all of the usual suspects in the shop: Powerbook G4, iBook G4, iMac G5, eMac, iSight, PowerMac G5, yada yada yada, and–always–a cute Asian girl behind the counter. The first thing I noticed when entering the store, however, was a QuickTime movie in a window (not fullscreen) projected on a huge canvas screen as a second display to a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD display connected to a half-transparent-cased dual-CPU PowerMac G5. And the cute girl, of course.

I immediately played around with the G5 and the 30″ display. It was running Mac OS X Tiger, so I got a chance to play around with that and Dashboard, too. I wanted to try the iSight camera sitting on top of the 30-inch display but I don’t know which application to open other than iChat, and I couldn’t find anything in the menu that can show the video from the camera.

Now I know what I want for my Christmas present. A 30-inch Apple Cinema Display. This baby’s optimum resolution is 2560×1600 pixels and it probably takes almost the same space as my bulky 19-inch CRT monitor, just perfect for my desk, although I might have to sit a bit farther back. The display was bright and crisp like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. Just the 30-inch size alone was enough to amaze anyone.

The AU $4,899 price tag, however, is way too high for my wallet at the moment, but I reckon I’ll be getting one of these in the future. Maybe there are better models out by the time I can afford this, but you know what they say about there being no good day to buy any computer or techie gadgets because there’s always a better, less expensive model waiting in the corner the following day, so maybe I could be getting something better then, we’ll see. I should probably buy a Powerbook G4 or a PowerMac G5 first, though.

Here’s the full tech specs for the Apple Cinema displays.

Oh, and my friend didn’t get his iPod Mini because it was out of stock, and the shop staff didn’t know when the next shipment is coming, it could be anytime between next week and next year. What the…?? My friend was a bit pissed off about it I think because it took him so long to think about buying, but when he actually decided to buy it, it’s not available. Looks like he’s buying it from eBay.