gradient problems ...funny texture in screen

I just checked the status of my repair on apple.com, and it has been completed and is shipping back to the local Apple store. FedEx tracking says my Macbook is on a delivery truck now. The repair had initially been put on hold because the repair techs couldn't reproduce the problem, even though several geniuses at the Apple store agreed that my LCD looked terrible compared to the Macbooks they had in the store. I gave the repair techs more information on just exactly HOW it looked terrible, thoughtfully dropping in some of the language from the web articles about the lawsuit... So we'll see later today if my Macbook has a better image quality.

Bollocks! My Macbook came back from the repair center unrepaired. They said that there are different manufacturers of the 6-bit LCDs used in the Macbooks, which of course we know. However, they said that a given Macbook will work only with LCDs from the same manufacturer. So, even if they replaced my LCD, it would be with another from the same manufacturer and thus exhibit the same problem with the funny texture and gradients. (So they acknowledge that some manufacturers' LCDs look better than others and yet continue to happily make and sell Macbooks with the crappier displays at the same price?!)

So basically it means that in order to get a new LCD, I'd have to get a whole new system. The manager of the Apple store I went to was willing to do one exchange for me, but since the Macbooks with the good LCDs and the bad LCDs have the same part number, there's no way to know without opening the box which is which. And once open, he can't sell a unit as new, so he was only willing to let me open a single box and hope that it didn't have the bad display.

Until, that is, I mentioned that my Macbook is a refurb. Refurbs have different part numbers than new units, and the Apple store's system isn't setup to exchange an item for a new one with a different part number, he said. I'd have to call 800-MY-APPLE and ask for Customer Relations. I did that, and they were very gracious and offered to ship me a replacement Macbook that would be at the same or better spec.

But while I was on hold as they determined this, I happened to browse to Apple's refurb website again, to see that they had refurb Macbook Pros with the same CPU, hard drive, and memory as my Macbook (but with the dedicated graphics card and 15" screen of course) for only a few hundred dollars more than I paid for my Macbook. So I changed my exchange to a straight return. They mailed me a FedEx label to ship my Macbook back, and they'd credit my credit card. Then I turned around and ordered the Macbook Pro from the refurb page.

I just hope the Macbook Pro doesn't have the same problem with its LCD!

Thanks to Apple Customer Relations for "making it right" and the manager of the Apple store for offering to do an in-store exchange until he found that I had a refurb. Overall, the Apple people I dealt with today fixed me up. It just irks me a bit that Apple acknowledges that some Macbook displays are better than others and yet they continue to produce them and sell them side-by-side at the same price.