Cant match imac screen :(

So i have a 2011 27" iMac , and im trying to get 2 external connected to it..

Now i tried 2 dell u2410 and its imposible to get the same color as my imac.. also tried 2 LG IPS monitors and same thing...

Is my only choice here going with an apple monitor? either the cinema or the thunderbolt?

 

you could grab a HP 27'' or dell 27'' they give you the same display as the ACD

 

but i keep hearing that those dell 27" need calibration so ill be back with the same problem i have with the 24

 

If you're really interested in color profiles and getting the monitors to match, you need to look into a Spyder hardware calibration unit.

 

even the cheap one $100 will work?

 

How do this things work? will the hardware scan my iMac and then set the settings on the other monitor??

 

Pretty much. Its a device that plugs into your computer through USB. You run specific software, follow the steps, and your display will be calibrated after it is all done. I think the software doesn't work in OS X though. I ended up calibrating my HDTV using my Mac with one of their units but I had to go through my Windows virtual machine as the software it came with didn't work with OS X. It was fairly easy and took about 90 minutes to go through everything. I highly recommend getting one if you don't want to manually adjust everything by sight.

I think I paid about $70 for my unit and it calibrates both monitors and HDTVs.

 

Pretty much all 27" IPS monitors on the market use the same LG panel.

 

one of 3 , the 6/8 bit one found in the ACD, and most 16.7 million color capable screens usually on the consumer side. the second is the 10 bit color depth panel (1.1 billion) capable panel from HP, Dell, Toshiba, NEC etc. the third is the high priced one found in some EIZO's and many medical imaging screens.

 

Depends on how close you want to get and whether you care more about a color match vs. other aspects of the screen (glass finish, gamma, luminance, viewing angles, etc.).

If you're primarily interested in matching color, I suggest a better calibration tool. The $100 Spyder Express only gives you a single color temp and gamma to work with. The iMac display is short on adjustments and reportedly doesn't calibrate that accurately, so you'd probably get the best results calibrating the iMac display as close as you can to a standard and then calibrating your other displays to match the iMac. That will be easier with Spyder Elite or alternative products which allow using a custom color temp and gamma. Spyder Pro and Elite also support multiple monitor calibration.

If you're more interested in matching other aspects, particularly the overall "look", an Apple Cinema or Thunderbolt display is probably the way to go. But it still doesn't guarantee you'll get a good match out of the box. If you Google the topic, there are articles and posts which compare & contrast the various Apple 27" displays and some articles and posts have highlighted noticeable differences. So you're still looking at needing calibration. Also, since Apple displays have fewer adjustments, calibration relies more heavily on color profiles, which don't apply to non-color managed apps.

The only way to get a really good match is to buy identical monitors. Buying different monitors with the same panel is not nearly enough since the panel is just one part of the display. There's also the backlight(s), light diffuser, the light filter/coating on the front of the panel, the surface (matte, glossy, or somewhere in between), and the firmware that drives it. All matter a lot.