Significant light leakage, few light botches on sides/corners - defective?

The iPad I just received UPS is my 4th unit. It was shipped on 4/24 fron China. It has more light leakage than any unit I have had before. What a f**king joke.

Wow. Sorry, man. That's insane. Screw calling tech support, call online customer care: 1-800-676-2275.

I can't find the old, "regular" Customer Care, but give this a shot. ****, at this point, shoot an email to <Edited by Host>. Keep us posted. *We have no way of knowing if this issue is bad displays coming *from Japan *to China, or if it's the glueing job @ the factory. I was told it was a known issue "on some but not most" and was fixed...

It's the bonding/glueing that is causng the LCD blooming along the edges and corners. It's not a light leak because it's not actually leaking any light, it's just what happens when you place direct pressure on a LCD panel. The issues people are having also has nothing to do with the bonding agent not being allowed to fully dry on the iPhone 4 when the iPhone 4s first came out.

If you want to test this out, get a black sample image full screen on the iPad 2 and then press down on the center of the screen. The outer glass element is very flexible and you will see that at the point the outer glass element starts placing pressure directly on the LCD panel, that area will exhibit a yellowish glow. That's basically what is going on along the edges and corners of some units. The machine that the factory is using to assemble the outer glass element to the LCD panel is placing too much pressure (and uneven pressure as well) on the glass element when bonding.

My first two had both yellow "blooming" in upper right corner and actual light leaks (much like micro flashlights) along the other (3) bezels.

dookster wrote:

It's the bonding/glueing that is causng the LCD blooming along the edges and corners. It's not a light leak because it's not actually leaking any light, it's just what happens when you place direct pressure on a LCD panel. The issues people are having also has nothing to do with the bonding agent not being allowed to fully dry on the iPhone 4 when the iPhone 4s first came out.

If you want to test this out, get a black sample image full screen on the iPad 2 and then press down on the center of the screen. The outer glass element is very flexible and you will see that at the point the outer glass element starts placing pressure directly on the LCD panel, that area will exhibit a yellowish glow. That's basically what is going on along the edges and corners of some units. The machine that the factory is using to assemble the outer glass element to the LCD panel is placing too much pressure (and uneven pressure as well) on the glass element when bonding.

What about people reporting white glow in the display? What are them caused by then? Sounds like you are just guessing, like everyone else. How can bonding or glueing causes excessive pressure on the LCD??.. the excessive pressure would be maintained if you put hundreds of lbs object placed on top of the display. Any Apple engineers or chinese factory supervisors out there?

How can it create excessive pressure on the LCD? Easy, that piece of glass is glued directly along the edges of the LCD panel. That causes the yellow LCD blooming. When it's just slight pressure, you get little spots along the affected areas that appears to be like little spotlights shining through. The key to seeing if this is indeed a light leak or the blooming caused by pressure to the LCD panel is by looking at what the colour of the lighter areas are. A light leak would be light leaking out that is of pure white colour. Blooming would be off white (when the issue is moderate) to a very obvious yellow (when the issue is pretty significant). Now when you have very moderate issues, the yellow tint is hard to distinguish and it actually does look like it's light leaking in but again, if you examine it carefully, you will notice that it's an actual discoloration of the LCD panel and not lighting. In other words, it's the blotching/blooming associated with pressure being placed on the LCD panel.

Now, the bonding/glueing process is pretty straight forward. The glass element actually has adhesive all along the backside of the border. This glass panel is then placed right on top of the LCD panel and then the machine applies pressure to the glass element which adheres it to the LCD. Now if the tolerances of the machine is not calibrated properly it could apply too much pressure as well as uneven pressure when bonding the glass element to the LCD. This is one scenario. Another scenario could possibly be that the actual adhesive coating on the underside of the glass panel had been applied unevenly in which again, you will now have adhesion that is not uniform all around the perimeter of the LCD. The people who are guessing at what could be the cause are the folks who in the beginning started pointing fingers going "oh, it's the glue not drying fully just like with the iPhone 4." The stupidity of that and immediate sign of lack of understanding from those folks is the simple fact that they have failed to understand that the iPhone 4 screen and the iPad screen are manufactured in completely different ways. The iPhone 4 screen and glass element (with the digitizer) are actually bonded to the entire surface of the LCD permanently. There is no gap between the LCD panel and the outer glass panel + digitizer. The iPad's screen and glass element are not assembled in such a way, The iPad screen is of the more standard type of manufacture in which the outer glass element is adhered around the perimeter of the LCD panel. If you actually bothered to go on ifixit and study the teardown for the iPad 2 you will understand what I am talking about.

Additionally, the LCD panel used on the iPad 2 appears to be a LED BACKLIT panel rather than a LED EDGE LIT panel thus the arrangement of the LED light elements are not arranged along the edges of the panel. In other words, it doesn't leak light in the fashion which is exhibited on these blotchy edges of fauly iPad 2s.

And that my friends is probably the best explanation we will get!! Apple sure as he'll won't be commenting publicly on it.

Thank you for a well reasoned comment, dookster.

I returned the iPad 2 to the Apple store. This was the 4th bad one. They had given me a gift card before I ordered this last one online. Today they refunded the $599 for the gift card, even though I didn't even buy the iPad 2 from an Apple store. They really have a problem. I shipped from China 4/23.

Had a hilarious guy at currys tell me that there is a 2 week wait to be put on a waiting list then a 20 week wait to get an actual ipad 2 (not from currys but from the apple store itself)

What a weird thing to say, seeing as i just asked a specialist from the apple store just minutes before and was told that they get them in daily, i could get one within 2 weeks of ordering online as well. Shame just like the last one i ordered it will have light bleeding most likely.

Here's a new one! Just returned my 4th one to the Apple Store and the guy refused to say 'defective' He said, and I quote' All iPad's are having this issue so it's not a defect so I can NOT offer you a replacement!' I did not buy it at the Apple Store so I couldn't get a refund, sold it on Craigslist and ****the iPad 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew. My reply would've been: "Let me speak to the manager... now".

You got hosed. I bought my first one at Walmart. Took it back to the Apple store. Tried two replacements. They were all bad. They gave me an Apple gift card so I could order one online. It shipped from China. It was bad also. They refunded in cash my $599. That was after I returned the unit I bought at Walmart, got replacements and a gift card to order another. Their policy says they don't refund gift cards either. The manager that refunded my money said that he was told all the replacements shipped from the factory lately would be defect free. That's why he apologized and refunded my money. I have a "Power Mac" store just a couple of miles from my house. They said they will let me "fire" one up before I even pay for it to check it out. So I'll probably give that a shot a few times before I completely give up.

So so so...I am still having issues with my iPad 2. The apple store I went to to exchange my iPad at for the 5th time (any of you that know my story know that I have had several issues with the light leak like, scratched and dirty LCD panels, dead pixels, blotchy coloring...etc)

I can't just exchange it since I am a student for one and I'm developing an app for my class.

Anyway, I ended up having to pay an extra hundred dollars for the next size up since they didn't have any of mine to exchange and they were reluctant to do so anyway.

I called and told apple about all of this and the senior advisor for apple corporate said that this is the first time that he has heard of the problem!!!! I was just about to cr@p myself!!!!

Anyway, he said that he would be the one to help me from now on out. He gave me a black smart cover for free and said that he is ensuring that I will be shipped an iPad from an entirely new stock. Here's to hoping!

Is anyone having any luck lately!? Apple employees either play dumb or they get pretty hostel about the situation saying that this is just a feature of this iPad, they are all defective. Decide between this one or this one. That is all we can do for you!!!!

good to hear.

I have not had the same luck as you mate. I am currently on my 7th Ipad 2. I had my most recent exchange today. I tried out both white and black models and all appear to have this issue. The regents street store has provided me with 3 ipads with the screen issue and the rest have come from the covent garden store.

I called apple support and they told me to try a much smaller store and therefore booked me an appointment tommorrow with the brent cross store.

this is getting more and more frustrating.

I just got out of my local apple store. This was e third model they gave me including the original, and this one had light leak and dead pixels. The genius/rep took it and said she couldn't see either of the three dead pixels in the dark (I see one if them right now in bright light on a white background) and she told me they are no longer replacing for light leaks, as the company feels that there are more pressing matters. She offered to replace it one more time but not take it back for screen issues (light leak or dead pixels) or I can get a refund. I chose the refund,so now apple is going to ship me a box to send in the iPad and i can get a refund. However, I do want to keep the product, I just want one free of defects. Anyone else get a similar response?