Significant light leakage, few light botches on sides/corners - defective?
Actually I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, but thought I'd share my experience here. Very disappointing, but certainly completely usable until I can exchange.
Hoping it's one of those strange manufacturing things where it "needs to settle," but I doubt it.
Note that I have an iPad 1 also, and it definitely doesn't have this problem.
That's crazy... sorry to hear that. Why isn't apple halting the production at China plant? I think this is a serious problem and they ought to halt production and go back to the drawing board. Don't ya think? Why is Apple so quiet about this. Are they shy or something? 🙂
Good question. As I mentioned, there was another guy with the same issue @ the genius bar. When this happens, they usually "capture" a certain # of units for the engineers, figure it out and make changes @ the plants in China.
My best guess: They went with thinner glass & they're using glue VS iPad1's thicker glass and they used clips...
Why they keep shipping them? Maybe most people don't even notice the problem.
*Reminds me of the iPhone 4 Proximity sensor problem (on my 4th one, all had it, still has it). People assume they're dropping call, but it's the Prox sensor "Cheek dialing". But that's a WHOLE 'nother thread! 🙂
this isn't just the iPad. my 27" iMac has some bleed but not as bad as the first one i bought and returned. screen bleed is pretty common, like dead pixels. it may seem like a HUUUUGE number of iPads have horrible bleed but there's a ton of them out there, and obviously, the people who nitpick (myself included) will hop online and make it look more widespread.
that being said, i can live with minor backlight bleed as long as it isn't distracting. when i got my iPad home it's one of the first things i checked for and i noticed slight bleed on the left side.
NOW, it appears to be getting WORSE.
this is going to sound strange but seeing as bleed is a manufacturing defect and typically won't get worse, could it be....the smart covers making it worse? i don't see how it would be possible but how crazy would that be?
I was hoping that my light leak would go away...like the iPhone 4 glue drying issue...but it's been there for over two weeks. Getting a replacement tomorrow.
"this isn't just the iPad. my 27" iMac has some bleed but not as bad as the first one I bought and returned. screen bleed is pretty common, like dead pixels."
I agree with everything you are saying, and yes screen problems seem pretty common, it seems with Apple, however in 10 years of owning computers etc (not Apple) none of my other LCD screens have ever had anything less than a perfect screen. Am I lucky, or does this say something about Apple, I’ll let you be the judge.
"that being said, I can live with minor backlight bleed as long as it isn't distracting. when I got my iPad home it's one of the first things I checked for and I noticed slight bleed on the left side."
That’s good you can live with manufacturing defects, and I agree no product is perfect, however when I buy Apple I expect the best, we are not talking about cheap copy cat product you bought in a grocery store and paid half of what the iPad 2 costs and can justify the lesser build quality because you saved 50%, this is a premium product. When I buy a new Bentley I don’t want to "have to live" with a imperfection in the paint or scratches you can see in a certain light. If I bought a Ford Focus then maybe... Why should I make excuses and turn a blind eye for the massive money making company whose main business aim is maximising profits for shareholders whilst claiming to make the best products in their industry?
LCD manufacturing is nothing new, in fact it’s pretty old school now, the industry generally sorted out the problems like this years ago. Don't get me wrong, minor bleed is normal if it is uniform, not yellow in colour, and subtle, all the way around the edges, and does not distract on this device which is essentially a big screen. What I have seen from the iPad 2s in my hands is shockingly bad. I noticed it in 2 seconds from turning on the device, stage lights, yellow patches, streaks of light coming from near the home button... granted this is a minority and it’s wrong to extrapolate this out and claim all iPad 2s are faulty, but I always prefer to base my decisions primarily on my own firsthand experience, and so far, that’s not good!
Flame me if you want for being a consumer who expects the best when spending his hard earned money, but these are just my own opinions and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Don’t get me wrong either, the iPad 2 is a great device and I would buy another in a heartbeat if I could be sure it was going to be defect free. I do not own any other Apple products and was looking into buying an iMac or Macbook pro, but unfortunately this, my first experience, has put me off a bit.
Well whoever started the rumor that this was going to be fixed when the batch of ipad 2's ordered in march start shipping were wrong. After purchasing 4 of them locally and finding they were all defective at launch in the USA, I ordered one online on march 18th. It was scheduled to ship on the 21st. It didn't...it shipped on the 11th and I got it yesterday. It has significant light leaks all along EVERY corner and this is the worst one out of all the ones I had bought previously. I thought that was the reason for the 1 month shipping delay, that they were going to fix this problem? Maybe I got shipped a refurb??
Actually we have been thinking that this may have something to do with the magnets holding on the smart covers. In portrait view with the home button on the bottom we have 4 smaller blotches on the left side and 2 larger blotches on the right side. The blotches do not seem to be randomly placed, but offset from one another on a horizontal plane.
Like many others we didn't notice this as a significant problem until brightness was at max on a black background. Will probably bring ours back after this issue has been fixed. If it has anything to do with the magnets, it may take a while.
Other than light bleed, our iPad 2 is working fine with no wifi problems.
Oftentimes there are fanboys that propagate there are no problems and that posts are not read or that the problem is small problem and isolated. Whatever.
On upgrades, new products, etc. glitches and problems seem to be the norm vs the exception and early adopters have been beta testers for a while now. Just look at the number of firmware and software updates - these occur based on complaints. Has been this way for a while as competition and holding or gaining market share forces products out. For instance, PC has essentially missed the boat on tablets.
Anyways we'd rather use and enjoy and return later, rather than not have at all...
Just imagine the number of people that don't even know there is this problem because they've never tested their device. It seems that in a lot of cases it's just better to deal with the squeaky wheel than make things public.
This will probably be my last post as I am so fed up right now. I'm trying to return my latest ipad2 for a refurn (that I ordered online on March 18th and received April 14th.) and I am getting serious "roadblocks" from Apple sales support and their AppleCare support team. Both people I talked to after calling sales support number say there have been no reported problems with the screen...It's unreal. I said to the tech (who was very nice) -- If you can promise me you can get me a device that doesn't have a defective screen, I will go for a swap...he said he could not promise me that so I said I respect you being honest with me and I want a return...transferred me back to the lady who then wouldn't accept it and tried to transfer me back to Apple care. This is ridiculous...I am done with the iPad 2 and I just want my money back...what a waste of time...over 1 month wasted trying to get a unit that isn't defective.
Oh and here's the latest (5th one) I've got -- pic comparison to iPad 1st gen:
The ONLY thing that would ever make me wanna purchase an ipad 2 ever again in the future is if Apple publically aknowledges there is a problem and it's been dealt with. I was really hoping that the reason for the 1 month shipping delay was that they were figuring out what was causing the defect and had fixed it...but I guess I was wrong. I have lost all faith in Apple as a company and in terms of quality.
What I don't understand is why they did not manufacture the screens the way they did with the iPhone 4. I think about of the light leak problems would be solved if the front glass element was glued to the LCD panel (this would also eliminate any chance of dust getting in between the front glass element and the LCD). Sure the iPhone 4 had some blotching issues but that was an issue that disappeared for most people after the glue had a chance to set properly.
Yours is what appear to be blotches of yellow light bleeding from the sides. Isn't that a glue issue? But yeah it looks pretty bad. Am I seeing the blotch of white light near the center of the screen in the pic? That's something new.
The bottom half of your png is exactly the same as ours - and the top half pretty darn close, on ours the top half looks quite similar to the bottom half (2 clearly smaller on the left and 1 bigger on the right in the same locations as yours).
Normally one would have a good idea what was causing the problem with this many returns. Glue, magnets, whatever, they know - and at some point after production runs are through, one would think this would be corrected.
A few heads should roll over this, with this much consumer discontent and loss of goodwill.
The white blotch is glare from the plastic screen cover that I did not peel off since I'm returning this for a refund (or trying to).
There have been many, many, MANY speculations as to the cause of the screen problems. Here's the thing -- we can speculate all we want about what's causing it -- glue, magnets, pressure, whatever -- but until Apple actually says something or we get a professional organization like iFixit to do an investigation, all it IS is speculation...and at this point does it really matter what's causing it? It's pretty obvious they're not going to fix it. I've lost all hope to be honest...It's been over a month since launch and the ones in stores and the ones that are shipping still are not fixed. I don't think they're ever going to be fixed. Why? Because if they were to ever fix this, then they would have to (Even internally) aknowledge that a problem exists. As far as apple is concerned, there is no problem, and this is how the screen should look and if you don't like it then buy elsewhere...That's the message I'm getting from their phone and support people, and their executive support and media relations have not responded to a single request from me, cultofmac, engadget, TUAW, etc.
