Round 2: Display
Which would you rather stare at for hours a day?
Though both contenders' screens measure 15.4 inches diagonally, the MacBook Pro's display has a 1,440x900
native resolution, while the Acer TravelMate 8200's native resolution is a finer 1,680x1,050. The sharper resolution means you'll have more screen real estate on the TravelMate 8200, but what about image quality? Using a modified version of
CNET Labs' monitor testing methodology, we measured the screens' maximum brightness and analyzed the quality of text and color on each display.
Brightness
A brighter laptop display gives you greater flexibility for working in a variety of lighting conditions. We measured each laptop's maximum brightness using a Minolta LS-100 Luminance Meter on a blank document, with the screen brightness set to its maximum. The TravelMate 8200 scored a respectable 186 candelas per square meter (cd/m²), but the MacBook Pro was far brighter, measuring 269 cd/m². Advantage: Apple.
Text
We examined a text document (WordPad on the PC, TextEdit on the Mac) that included samples of various text styles and sizes, searching for letters that bled together or looked blurry. Text on the TravelMate 8200's screen was crisper and easier to read than on the MacBook Pro's, and we found that most letters on the MacBook Pro looked blurry, especially at lower font sizes. Advantage: Acer.
Color
We watched scenes 8, 15, and 16 of Kill Bill, Volume 1, analyzing the sharpness, the detail, and the color quality of DVD playback and looking for instances of ghosting or blurring. The MacBook Pro displayed amazing color saturation with sharp contrast and no bleeding or streaking. Details on fabrics and in the landscape were cleanly rendered. The TravelMate 8200, by contrast, exhibited merely average color saturation with some blurring during action scenes, and some detail was lost. Advantage: Apple.
Winner: The bright, beautiful MacBook Pro display takes this round, though its text rendering is not a knockout.
On to round 3
