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Last year, Steve Jobs uncharacteristically hinted at things to come when he publicly disclosed in an open letter (published in Apple's website), that the company plans to eliminate mercury in its LCD technology and arsenic in its glass casing by shifting from TFT-LCD (illuminated by fluorescent) to LED-LCD (illuminated by light-emitting diodes).

Fast forward to today: With the recent introduction of the new 13-inch MacBook, the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and the new 24-inch LED Cinema Display, among other things, Apple has certainly followed through with its intent as described in that open letter, and in almost perfect timing. And now of course, we've seen it in its full form, shape and size, and there's probably more that we'd be seeing in the next few months leading up to Macworld 2009.

Taking the environmental issues aside for a minute, one of the hot topics that came up, perhaps mostly from digital visual artists, was the matter of glossy screen for the new 15-inch MBP. It would seem that many, probably particularly those who take color management and color calibration more seriously than the usual, have been put off by the lack of a matte screen option for the new 15-inch MBP line.

In my own case, for instance, when I got the new 15-inch MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago, my two initial hesitations were both reserved for the monitor display: the smaller screen real estate (I want the technology available with the unibody), and the glossy screen (having preferred the matte screen from the start).

To my surprise however, the smaller size and the glossy finish of the monitor actually proved to be both a non-issue for me. Perhaps because of the much brighter display, I didn't notice that I'm using a slightly smaller screen. And as for the reflection of the glass-glossy surface screen, in almost all circumstances, it wasn't as bothersome as I thought it would be. What actually happened, instead of being disappointed, is that I fell in love with the vibrancy and brightness of my photographs as they appear in the new LED-backlit 15-inch monitor.

Using Aperture on the new 15-inch MacBook Pro the past two weeks, the new glossy LED-backlit display indeed shows images to be brighter and more stunning when compared to viewing them on the matte-finish TFT-LCD displays of previous generation MacBook Pros and PowerBooks that I've used. Putting both old and new machines side by side, I cannot help but instinctively favor the brightness and brilliance of the images I see on the new 15-inch MacBook Pro than on my previous generation laptops. (This is probably an unfair comparison since the monitors of my previous generation laptops could have already significantly dimmed with use.)

Once I've gone over the smaller size and the glossy finish of the screen, I turned my attention to something more important: monitor color calibration.

I found some answers from the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG) website. We can all agree that "Computer monitors must be calibrated and profiled before they can be part of a professional workflow."

Adding to what I already know, I learned that TFT-LCD technology uses a white flourescent backlight (that has mercury in it). LEDs (light-emitting diodes), on the other hand, can produce white backlight by combining red, green and blue LEDs or, in the case of Apple's new LED-backlit LCD monitors, uses only white LED light (arguably, to keep the design and form factor as compact as possible).

So, what are the advantages of LED-backlit monitors over those lit with CCFLs (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) technology?

• LEDs are solid-state light sources that light up very quickly, so there's no waiting for your display to warm up and get up to par in brightness. Users experience full-screen brightness almost instantly. We can get to work right away without having to wait about 30 or more minutes for the monitor to come to optimal brightness.
• LED backlight creates the same amount of brightness in less space. This means, the structure that houses a white LED display can be much thinner and lighter. (It is probably a different story with the 3-color RGB LEDs).
• LCD displays with LED back-lighting show a very wide gamut that closely matches the Adobe RGB color space. We see more colors and and experience smoother gradation and tonality. This means we can edit images with so much more refinement than what was previously possible.
• Through DCC (direct digital communication), it allows adjustment of the display's brightness, contrast, white point, and gamma, through the profiling device and software. This saves time and improve precision when calibrating and profiling monitors.
• And, of course, the much-touted environmental advantage of LED-LCDs over TFT-LCDs.

Let me just mention that the new 15-inch MacBook Pro has 2 graphic/motion cards. First is NVIDIA GeForce 9400M that offers "quality performance for graphics-intensive applications such as Aperture." Apple claims that selecting this card while on-the-go can provide up to five hours of battery life. Second is the NVIDIA 9600M GT graphics processor that, according to Apple, offers the "fastest, smoothest, clearest graphics."

Is the 15-inch monitor of the MacBook Pro not enough? You can hook it up (as well as the MacBooks) to the large 24-inch LED Cinema Display. And compared to the previous cinema displays, it's not that expensive.

In just a few short years, photographers and visual artists who use digital tools, and who largely rely on the accuracy of color monitors, have gone through the manufacturer-induced monitor innovations from CRT to TFT-LCD, and from TFT-LCD to LED-LCD.

Some users will, of course, debate the pros and cons between TFT-LCD and LED-LCD monitors. And also when compared to professional-grade CRTs (production of which has been reported to have ceased). One point of contention, largely because of its inherent brightness, the new LED-LCD would be unable to present as nearly as accurate soft proof of images when reproducing the same for media that will display it in media that has inherently lower quality. This, and a few other points, we can quibble about.

Let the quibbling begin.