Bought new iMac 20" Faded Screen

I think the back lighting may have something to do with it as when I run an all black screen (DVD Player full screen no video playing) I can see some serious light bleeding on the bottom of the display. However, I have also noticed if I move my head level to the bottom of the screen, the brightness goes away and the bottom of the screen looks normal (but the top of the screen is even darker). I assume this is characteristic of a poor viewing angle for the display?

Anyhow, I also have a 2006 iMac and the display on that is gorgeous so I am taking the new one back and will wait to see if Apple bothers to do anything about the poor quality displays.

I just purchased 2 iMac 20" silvers... BOTH had faded displays darker on top, lighter on bottom. It almost seemed like the way the display was lit from below was causing the problem...

My artists could not work as the document looked like it had a 100% to 30% gradient applied to it... when it was a solid color...
I returned both machines but now need another workstation and am scared to buy one of these again. I had to go with a mini to replace the 2 returned units.

Calibration did not help this issue.

Get the 24-inch..... it does not have the issue. The real test is change the desktop
to solid blue. It should be the same blue at the top and bottom. I tired it on two
20-inch demo units at the Apple store and the both looked bad. It is not an issue
on the 24-Inch unit.

So I've decided to pack this 20" alum iMac this Friday and send it back to where I bought it.

I'm debating whether I should just wait another month or so when Leopard comes out, then buy the 20" again (this time from Apple.com), hopefully with fixed screens this time. My other option is to return this, and buy the 24". But there is still mixed feedback about it.

It's really disappointing that Apple is not saying anything about this. I'm still giving them a chance to do whatever they have to do to fix the problem...but I refuse to accept "Well, if you're going to be doing professional work, the iMac isn't for you" as an answer. back in college last year, I did my graphics on iMacs all the time, and never had issues.

In the meantime, I have to dig out my 3-year-old Hewlett Packard PC from outside to do whatever work I have to do. shudders

Get the 24-inch..... it does not have the issue. The real test is change the desktop to solid blue. It should be the same blue at the top and bottom.

With the 24", the "real test" is left-to-right, not top-to-bottom. If it looks better than the photos below, consider yourself lucky -- and please, please post a photo. Some of us would be enormously grateful for any shred of hope.

Looby

Background: Solid Aqua Blue, left:right luminance ratio = 2.5:1


Background: Solid Gray Medium, left:right luminance ratio = 2.5:1

Someone covered this on their website awhile back, by the way.

http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/09/another-apple-u.html#more

If we all digg the story, maybe we can get it picked up by the media and Apple will have to do something about it.

Regarding the 20" model, just out of curiosity, I looked for the same issues on my old PowerBook G4. Sure enough, everything I saw on the iMac -- everything in the YouTube video -- was there...washing out as you progress down the screen, gray turning to brown from the side, and white and blue rows seemingly "switching" colors as you increase your viewing angle from above. TN LCD I would guess.

Now, did I ever notice this in all these years of using this PowerBook? No. I suspect that the glossy screen on the iMac, and the greater color saturation and sharpness that comes with it, made the effects more noticeable. The PowerBook has a matte screen.

On the other hand, I didn't even notice those issues on the iMac in the Apple Store at first glance. I only saw them when I specifically looked for them after reading about them.

Just a little perspective perhaps? Or not!

Message was edited by: Rich248

Funny thing is, I didn't notice either until I launched Pixelmator and proceeded to try and draw with solid colors. I noticed the colors looked more like gradient colors than solid colors.

My only wish is that they put the low-quality displays in the 1199 iMacs and used the same display in the new 1499 iMacs as the old 1499 iMacs (with the glass to make it "glossy"). Instead it looks like both 20" iMacs are considered low-end and thus recieved the lesser quality displays.

Think I'm going to wait for the next generation iMacs. Whenever that may be.

This evening, I visited the local CompUSA and did a side-by-side comparison of the new 20" ALU iMac versus the previous generation 20" (MA589LL/A).

The differences were stunning. The old 20" display is beautiful -- with perfectly uniform color and brightness, and a vastly superior viewing angle. (Plus true 8 bit color depth.) IMO, the new 20" is a HUGE step backwards.

The only significant (potential) drawback to the old 20" was its noticeably lower maximum brightness. Not nearly as bright as the (excessively bright) ALU 20" -- but under store lighting conditions, I couldn't tell whether that would be a problem for home use. Excellent brightness adjustment range -- no need for screen-dimming utilities like "shades."

... new 20" ALU iMac -- 11% faster CPU, 1000% inferior LCD,

Looby

Are you sure about the 8-bit LCD? Only the Cinema Displays list "16.7 Million" colors which indicates 8-bit LCDs. Everything else (MacBook Pros, iMacs, etc.) list "Millions of Colors" which is usually a dead givewawy for 6-bit with dithering. I'd be surprised if the previous iMac was 8-bit. Do you have documentation to support this? Also, see my post above. Are you sure it's not the glossy screen that's making this more pronounced on the new iMac?

Are you sure about the 8-bit LCD?

Yep, that seems to be a fact. Here's a summary of info I've collected on iMac LCD panels -- based on reports from numerous sources. Google 'iMac' plus the various LCD manufacturers' part numbers for more details. Also, check out the LCD panel data base at http://www.tftcentral.co

Mid_2007 24" iMac: LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLB1, S-IPS, 8-bit

Late_2006 24" iMac: LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLA1, S-IPS, 8-bit

Mid_2007 20" iMac: LG.Philips LM201WE3-????, *TN Film, 6-bit*

Late_2006 20" iMac: Samsung LTM201M1-????, S-PVA, 8-bit

20" ACD & G5 iMac: LG.Philips LM201W01-SLA3, S-IPS, 8-bit

The last item is interesting because it shows that 20" G5 iMacs were using the same LCD panel as the 20" Cinema Display. That panel is also similar in quality to the Samsung panel used in the Late_2006 20" iMac -- they appear to be used interchangeably in the highly rated Dell 2007WFP

In contrast, the Mid_2007 20" iMac has the same bargain-basement TN panel used in down-market monitors such as LG's L204WT -- $239.99 at newegg.com.

..a HUGE step backwards,

Looby

This issue with the low-quality display would not be such a big deal to me if I had known that I was getting one with my 20 inch Imac. I feel duped. I feel like this computer was mis-represented in its marketing/advertising.

I did not return it for 2 reasons, I did not even find out this Imac was a tn display until I was out of my 14 day window, and second I could not afford anything more expensive (but reason one makes reason 2 mute anyway). I could tell right away that something was not right with the display. But, by the time I was able to exhaust all my options to research and fix the calibration, and all the other run-arounds put out there on the internet for us new Imac owners to try and get a better image in the display....14 days were up.

I actually feel that these 20 inch alum. Imacs were purposefully shipped with atrocious calibration, to put up a smokescreen, create distraction, and and gobble up time for the new owners of these machines.

(One other thing to try: look at the cheap little screen on your cell phone. Hold it above your eye-line–looks darker. Now hold it below your eye-line–looks "washed out" or lighter. the cheaper the screen on your phone, the more obvious this is.) TN displays are fine for small screens like an Iphone or an Ipod. They are not good for large displays.

If you move your eye-line to the top of your 20 inch Alum. Imac, the color is fine, not too dark. If you move your eye-line to the level of the bottom of your 20 inch display, it will not look washed out, it will look fine.

Following the logic of the above paragraph, I have found the optimal viewing angle for this 20 Inch Alum. Imac: eye-line exactly in the middle of the display, and seated 8-10 feet away! This may be difficult if you have the corded mouse and keyboard. (Maybe this is why they came out with the cordless stuff.)

I would also like to note that most of the most POPULAR APPLE DESKTOP PICTURES, and the ones that are almost always loaded up on the machines at the apple stores, ALL ARE SHADED DARKER ON THE BOTTOM. what a wonderful coincidence to hide the "washed out appearance" of the cheap tn display.

I would not mind if apple decided to allow a display-upgrade program to be implemented for this IMac. But, I am not sure if this is physically possible (pull out the tn, and put in one of similar quality to all the other Imacs of recent history), or if apple would ever decide to do it . (Unless they loss a CAL!)

One thing to keep in mind. The luminance gradient seen on the 20" iMacs is not a characteristic of TN displays. These displays are defective.

I returned the iMac this past Friday to where I originally bought it from (Exchange @ McGuire Air Force Base NJ). I'm typing this response on my old PC now.

The returns department representative was asking another employee that he thought Apple told them to not take defective units back themselves, and that the consumer should return the defective units directly to Apple. But they took it back anyway...

I calibrated my screen with SPYDER, and it doesn't help at all. I was scanning a bunch of artwork into Photoshop, and this is how I noticed the problem. Solid blacks on top, grayer more textured blacks on the bottom. I thought my scanner was broken. If you draw a blue dot on the top of the screen, it appears much more cyan on the bottom.

I use a spectrocolorimeter to calibrate the prints coming out of my printer in order to match what I'm seeing on screen. There is no such thing as an optimal positioning of a computer screen that has uneven illumination.

doug in albuquerque wrote:
This issue with the low-quality display would not be such a big deal to me if I had known that I was getting one with my 20 inch Imac. I feel duped. I feel like this computer was mis-represented in its marketing/advertising.

I think a lot of long time mac users that bought into the new platform feel this way- Over the years we've become accustomed to apple's improving products with new releases not taking major steps backwards- And yes historically, even an apple "consumer" machine was well suited to light production work and heads and shoulders above any PC. The new Ijunk aluminum is in every respect from design to build quality to overall performance inferior to the previous generation white Imac. Apple has no excuse whatsoever in representing these machines as suitable for professional work as they did during launch. They've decided to forgo the design and graphic DNA which built the apple brand and which they used to infuse into every apple, and turn out a bunch of cheap pc look alike hardware that happens to run OS X natively. We'll have to wait and see if they do a mea culpa similar to the iphone debacle and fix the new imacs with a new release with quality screens, a more stable chip set and the old apple quality.