23" Cinema display poor color consistency

Hello,

Here's an update of my 23" experience. Short version that is...
After my local Apple dealer sent the two 23" displays back to Apple the second time for repair (pink and green bands, dim/yellow left and right sides) I went to pick them up and they told me to not even bother looking at them. They still are waiting for Apple to call these issues a "defect". So, I decided to go with two 20s and look again a year or so down the road to see what's available.

Well here I stand on the brink of insanity, torn between opening the brand new 23" hd cinema display with serial starting 2A502....., or selling it as factory sealed on ebay at a loss... What a sad day this is, when a consumer has the fear of opening a brandnew item, instead of the joy and excitement that should come with it. Well, I think I am going to sit on this one for a while... I am sorry , and I know all of you are very interested, as I believe mine is the newest documented serial # for these 23" hd displays that I have read about, but again I am torn between opening it or not. How about some moral support!!! Lemme know how many of you are with me on this so I know I am not alone on my journey. A simple "here" or "present" will do fine, along with any other votes of confidence. I will check on here later and see how many people are interested in the outcome... Good Luck To All!!!

Hi there,

I am VERY interested and would open it. Since I believe people on eBay would not bid higher if the package was sealed, I'd give it a try. I would never buy something off eBay new & sealed because I could get it that way from every dealer.
We are in the same boat. Mine went back the day after I bought it (pinkt left, ghosting, backlight, the horror!). They ordered a new one from Apple. Came 2 days later, was crap, went back, too. Today the 3rd one arrived but I'll not find out before Monday what it's like. I'll post it in these forums then!

Don't want to talk you into it, but I'd open it.
I decided to go till the 4th or 5th if it takes that long because I did not pay for mine right now. If the newer ones aren't better, I will reject the 23" and wait a few months for
a) new ones
b) Apple do something about it
c) a miracle?

I've subscribed to all relevant threads here (All quiet on... / Poor Color Cons... / etc.) and check by often. Please let me know about yours should you open it!

Thanks
Björn

I'm interested, and I would say: Open it.

I've decided to keep this 23" and not drop down to the 20". The size outweighs the color issues, for now. I need the size, I can't take the smaller screen, there's no guarantee that any other LCD is going to be better than this, it's all a lottery at this point, I think. (That is, if you want a widescreen display and don't want to spend $2800 or so on something like the Eizo CG21, which is amazing and perfect and extremely expensive, and 4:3 shaped, unfortunately enough).

I will take up the color issues with Apple through AppleCare at some point in the future. In the meantime, I'm extremely well equipped to custom calibrate it myself and I can do certain things to reduce the problems, even though they won't go completely away.

But I'm extremely interested to hear what a 2A50 looks like!!!!

It is a sad day indeed... I took the plunge and opened the 23" replacement only to discover it too had a washed out left edge, although I didnt notice any pink. I took it back and opened another 23" at the store with a slightly later serial, and it too was washed out on the edge worse than the other two. What a shame. I then opened a twenty which was a little washed but nowhere near the color loss of the 23"'s. So I walked away with 2 20"'s after paying the difference and buying the dvi to vga adapter. I am noticing one 20 is a little more bright and particularly the one with the vga adapter is more dull and dingy looking. What a shame... I am not satisfied 100%, because I wanted the 23" and one to follow later, but what can the little guy do?

After reading these threads, I am concerned. I just ordered a 23" Apple display yesterday. Should I cancel before it's shipped? Should I get the 20"or wait for the updated 23"? I currently have a 17" studio display with no problems

We are all concerned. I tried out three 23's, 2 of which had serials 2A5021... all had washed colors on the edge (meaning the colors were no longer consistant and the brightness would white wash it), and the older one serial starting 2A34... had a pink cast over the entire thing... I walked away very disapointed but with two 20" displays, which were unfortunately, more consistant than the 23" HD. I used to own a 23" hd display ( the clear plastic model) and it's colors were consistant across the entire screen. I had it covered by Apple Care along with my Powermac G5, and I sold it on good faith I would get another just as good but to match my G5. I could have never been more wrong.

Bob,
If I were you I would cancel it, and buy a 20" and save the other $800 towards the 23" hd display after they get the color consistancy problems sorted out. I still want a 23" HD but it looks like crap and is not consistant at all.

(You mean, the DVI to ADC adapter, I think)

Very sorry to hear that even the -latest- serial # 23"s still have the left edge problem. Same thing I saw on the 2A44: no tinting, but too much darkening at the left edge.

Getting the two displays to match can be tricky, but it's possible. They may have different native white points (so that their color is slightly different), and their brightnesses may not match, either. The only way you can get them to match closely is to use 3rd party display calibration software and a sensor, and so there will be a price to do this if you need it. The software has to support calibration of dual displays; it has to let you specify the luminance of the displays when you calibrate, too. The advantage of getting this kind of software is that you can periodically recalibrate both displays to keep them both "right" and "in tune" with each other.

In other words: calibrate display #1 to a certain color temperature (say, D65), and specify a certain luminance (say, 120 cd/m2). Then use the same parameters to calibrate display #2; and they should match very closely.

Very difficult, if not impossible, to do this without a sensor. Apple's built-in visual calibrator utility isn't really capable of doing this properly.

The pink cast over the whole thing is solved with 3rd party calibration software and a sensor; otherwise there would have been no way for me to rid this 23" of the overall cast I see when I select the "standard" Cinema HD Display profile.

You get this cast because the native color temperature of the monitor isn't what it should be (close to D65).

If the cast is -consistent-, then calibrating it out would give you a perfet display. But in practice, the color consistency of the backlight and LCD aren't there and even after calibrating, some tinting remains. It's a question of how much, where, and how noticeable it is.

As an experiment, I tried "solving" the cast a different way: the free Apple software/visual calibration technique in the Displays pref pane. It didn't work. This technique assumes the native color temperature of the display is as expected; if it's not, you end up with pretty much the same results as the "default" profile if you try to "calibrate" this way to D65. The only way to properly compensate and get the -right- color temperature is to use 3rd party software and a -sensor- to take measurements.

I just got off the phone with Apple Support. It's too late to cancel my order on the 23" display. It has shipped. I have to either accept it and then request an RMA or open it and risk a 10% restock fee for what seems like a risky proposition from what I have read here.
Any suggestions. By the way, they were rather cold and indifferent, didn't care that I was a repeat customer and have spent over $25-30,000 on their products in the last 10 years. I am a little surprised. Is this a product of their recent success?

I wonder if you refuse shipment and have it returned unopened. (and then they would have to credit you without a restock fee; since it hasn't been opened, they get back exactly what they sent you and they don't have to examine it or turn it into a factory reconditioned refurb; it is still new).

Bob,

If you ordered your cinema display from Apple you have 10 days to decide whether it is satisfactory.

There is NO restocking fee or return shipping fee if you do not like the product. They will email you FedEx tags for free.

Do not refuse delivery. That will cost you. Read their refund policy.

Give it a shot, you might luck out.

If its old it might be PINK. If its recent it could be WASHED OUT and YELLOW on the edges.

The comment about using pro calibration is not completely true. It will only reveal the inconsistencies more accurately.

Regarding the use of pro calibration, trust me, I know a great deal about this. I've -written- display calibration software and have used it, and a number of different sensors, to calibrate a number of different displays.

If you don't have a sensor, you can't adjust for "pink" because there is no way to tell that what should be a certain color temperature for white is, in fact, not what it's expected to be. That's why using Apple's software calibration utility doesn't help. It assumes the native white of the uncalibrated monitor is around 6500K (D65) and there is no way to adjust for this.

Apple's own default Cinema HD Display profile is the same on every computer they ship. It also assumes a certain native white for the display. If you use a utility application that shows you the curves in the video card (these are what actually adjust the colors on the screen), the endpoints of the curves at the top right (255, 255, 255, aka white) are all pinned into the top corner, meaning that there are no adjustments being made to white at all. What you get is the native white of the monitor. If it's "off" (as it is in this 23" of mine) then the only way to fix it is using calibration software that adjusts white by shifting the endpoints of the video card curves. There is NO OTHER WAY to adjust this. Apple's software calibrator does not appear to do this, but "real" 3rd party calibration software will.

I'm not going to make any recommendations about what software I think is best to use; that's not the topic of discussion here, but you can search the web and see what's available. All I can say is, the 23" that I have right now would be totally unuseable without custom calibration through software and a sensor.

What's being described as "pro" calibration will do this for you: it will adjust the color temperature of the screen, overall, by adjusting the curves in the video card. You will get the chosen color temperature -at the area on the screen where you are taking measurements- (and this is a small area, typically the center of the screen). If the screen is inconsistent, there's no way to do anything about that. Depending on what color temperature you choose, things can look better or worse (some adjustments smooth out the overall look a bit, others make the bad things even more obvious). But without this kind of calibration, you wouldn't be able to eliminate an overall pink cast, or an overall yellow cast, either.

Hey all,

Was in John Lewis in Watford earlier this afternoon. Noticed the store had a 23 inch cinema display on the shop-floor. Having followed this thread (and ones like it) for over 2months, I decided to ask the assistant to show me what the screen looked like when an 'All White' background was set.

May I stress that this isn't exactly fair (I'm red-green colourblind) but I couldn't notice ANY yellowish sides nor a band of pink on this screen. It had been on all day - and the brightness was set to medium. After I set it to full brightness the screen simply amazed me. Must admit, should have taken down the serial number for reference - but it kinda makes me hope that my 23' (was due to ship on the 27th January) will be as good. If it ain't - Apple are going to know about it!

One quick question - I ordered my Power Mac and Display over the phone with the UK education people. If it indeed comes 'pink' or 'yellowish' would I be able to exchange it at the London Apple Store within the 14-day period? Driving an hour to the store is worth it if I have to wait 4-5days for a replacement!

Thanks all,

Firas