Today I went to the Apple Store (the only one in germany) to look at the ACD 24". The Store was -extremely- crouded and it was very hard to get my hand on the ACD. I could check it for about 5min. The thing is: It looks and feels absolutely amazing - I am sold =)
A swift test with Video, Brightness and Text revealed its Pros and Cons:
+ Amazing Exterior Quality.
+ Fast Video (avatar trailer) looked good and not very blurry with nice and very deep black levels. Blur was maybe a bit more than on an TN Panel (again: this was 5min test)
+ Text looked sharp, a lot sharper than on the 30" ACD next to it. I observed sharp text also on the IPS Panel in the 2209WA by DELL
+ Brightness was very good on maximum setting
- Color reproduction was not the best of its class, I would say the DELL 2209WA had more natural colors (this is not a lab test !)
- Colors were only near natural on 60% brightness, on 100% brightness the colors were off scale. Blue was way to blueish, I guess this effect reduces the visible color range a lot.
- Brightness less than 100% were to low because of the whole reflection thing going on. So the reflections did not disturb me directly, but they indirectly worsened contrast a lot.
To sum it up, I would say for general purpose use and movies this screen is very nice. Given the quality of the exterior the price is ok. Extending the warrenty to 3 years with Applecare would be a must-have. I read user reports of occasional defective ACD and lack of consistent quality control at Apple.
Let's get to the infamous BUT - if you need color accuracy and high contrast you have to head home and try to get the excellent haptics of the ACD out of your head with 2 bottles of whiskey. You got to stick to the ugly plastic Eizos. Your work's results will thank you later.