Q: MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?

It's totally random.  There is no way they can do that, they have a massive supply chain with hundreds of thousands of orders each day.  You got lucky, hope that the screen works out for you.

How many have recieved a bad unit (IR in ~5min) in the past week?

Just curious...

Also, has anyone experienced this on the Thunderbolt Display?

ONE Retina was here. Received last week Saturday directly from Amazon UK. Image retention issue, laptop returned today. Great MacBook but faulty  - The terminal reading about the panel showed: LPxxxxxxxxx    Which stands for LG screen (Goldstar previously!)

It has been manufactured before July 25th, because it arrived with LION 10.7 Operating Systems. Anyway, I need 5 good macbboks for my employees but now will have to wait some weeks/months and see if Apple will fix this issue for all and ensure top quality again. Until then.....all orders are on hold.  

My third rMBP (read: second replacement) just arrived about 10 minutes ago. A quick check shows that it has a Samsung panel this time, week 34. Took three tries and a month of exchanging but I finally got a rMBP without an IR problem.

Hi guys,

my first mac , a rMBP, just arrived, ordered on 4th August.It's the base model and runs OS X 10.8. I was checking the display it is an LG display but everything SEEMS good. I am now performing a test for IR seen in another site:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1422669

Is this test enough for testing  IR? What else should i do?

Thanks in advance..

PS: After 30min left with the chessbox image, zoomed on full screen, and display light at maximum, no IR...

raadaris wrote:

 

 

Is this test enough for testing  IR? What else should i do?

 

My only recommendation is to try the test again in 2 - 3 weeks.  There is some suggestion that it may take some time for the screen to start to show this problem; but it's not clear if this is really the case or not (I personally tried reproducing the image retention problem a week after getting my rMBP but could not, but then a month later could - BUT, my first attempt was done back when there was less certainty on what situation caused it, and I tested only with a light color grey background, and we now know that dark grey is required).

Anyway, if after 2 - 3 weeks you still can't reproduce image retention and there are no other problems, I would say that you should be happy with your laptop.

Just got a replacement this morning and.. I'm not satisfied again.

First rMBP was with LG screen, don't remember which week. It had very low IR after ~5 min, but it was hardly to notice. It also had a strong yellow tint and macbook itself had a sort of different creaks.

Second rMBP have also LG sreen but no IR at all for 10 min. (week 34) But still it has a yellowish screen. Assemblage seems to be fine. I think to return it again

thanks for your answer, i'll let you know if any prblm appears.

Catch'ya

n0vniel wrote:

 

Second rMBP have also LG sreen but no IR at all for 10 min. (week 34) But still it has a yellowish screen. Assemblage seems to be fine. I think to return it again

Do you have any objective evidence that the yellowish screen was abnormally yellow?  It's hard to tell if the yellow complaint is about personal preference or a real problem with the displays.  I don't know how we'll ever know unless someone with the equipment to do a real evaluation of the screen can do so.

Also, did you go through the Apple supplied calibration dialogs to see if you could get the display to have a white point more to your liking?

For what it's worth, I wrote to Anand Lal Shimpi at Anandtech asking if he had any plans to investigate this issue and post an article on his site about it.  I think Anand is in a unique position to objectively evaluate this problem and I hope he intends to do so.

bjiibj

The thing is, LED backlight displays with local dimming still have only a "few" rows of LEDs, it's not like there is one LED per pixel, and since the image retention is clearly on a pixel-by-pixel basis (those of us who have image retention rMBP know this all too well), I don't think it's possible that it's due to the backlight LEDs having different light outputs due to some kind of memory.  If that were the case, whole regions of the screen would show the effect, not highly detailed images (you can see in photos that demonstrate the problem, lettering left over from a previously displayed browser window is still visible in image retention; LED backlights cannot cause this as there is not one LED per pixel - from what I've read, it's more like hundreds of LEDs at the most, when of course the number of pixels on an rMBP is in the millions, and the LED "resolution" required to show text would have to be much higher than is actually present).

Not sure why the other party was adament with the back light, but your statement is very accurate. Thanks.

bjiibj

For what it's worth, I wrote to Anand Lal Shimpi at Anandtech asking if he had any plans to investigate this issue and post an article on his site about it.  I think Anand is in a unique position to objectively evaluate this problem and I hope he intends to do so.

It would be nice if there was some follow up on this topic from other well respected tech sites, probably would benefit many readers.

I'm back from the Apple Store in Munich and what I saw there made me very uneasy. They had seven Retinas on display. Since the store was packed I only had the chance to test four. All four had LG screens, all four clearly showed signs of image persistence after a mere two minutes. (I just displayed a Safari window and set the desktop background to dark grey. Then I googled for the right Terminal command to determine the display maker, entered it and hid the Safari window when I was done with that. That was always enough for the problem to show up.) The image persistence seemed very uniform to me, i.e. all machines seemed to be affected in the same way,

Just to make sure I wasn't seeing ghosts I grabbed an Apple employee and asked him whether this was normal. He was able to confirm the issue and just said that it's always possible that machines are defect. I really didn't want to pressure the poor guy any further, he seemed in over his head after this exchange.

Next up was my appointment. The only possibility for me, they said, is to let them repair it (I eventually decided to do that) or to send it in. Both people I talked to, some guy and his manager, were aware of the issue (not through Apple but through colleagues), the guy I talked to first even exclaimed "Holy crap!" as soon as he saw me screen (and, seemingly excitedly, asked around among his colleagues whether they had already seen that problem or were aware of it). There was never any doubt that they would repair it (i.e. they didn't try for one second to talk down the issue). But no replacement, only repair.

It helped that I was very prepared, I guess. During the ten minute wait I opened the laptop and a Safari window, so I was able to immediately show off the issue. I also showed him photographs I made earlier of the problem.

I will see what happens next. The manager told me that they repair devices to fix the issue and that they will certainly test for persistence. I will also be able to check everything in person with a technician before I get the machine back. But it seemed to me that they are basically limited to ordering the spare part (a replacement screen - the whole display assembly including the shell - costs 553 Euro, by the way, the works costs 29 Euro, but I obviously don't have to pay for it) and hoping that it is good.

At least this once I will let them repair, but my patience is very limited. According to German law I have the right to withdraw from the contract of purchase if the seller is unable to fix a defect (i.e. I give the machine back and get the money back). I would pain me to do that (the Retina is an awesome machine except for this issue) but I don't have the time and nerves to deal with this crap.

johns1 and bjiibj,

Both seem to suffer from a crisis of double standard. When you say that the array is not pixel by pixel (something pretty obvious) and because of this arangement it would be impossible for this system to be responsible for the IR you are also affirming that the WRONG idea sold here by johns1 cannot be resposible for this phenomenon either, since it also works by AREAS and not pixel by pixel. So lets copy and paste again the document that johns1 has used to justify his idea:

"Generally (Twisted Nematic- TN type) LCDs have a parallel electrical field, so all of the display area can be symmetrically controlled. By comparison, IPS LCDs have asymmetrical electrical fields in SOME SMALL AREAS, the image persistence phenomenon  will occur at the asymmetrical electric fields. The image will dissipate DURING POWER OFF OR BY AN IMAGE CHANGE in a short amount of time. This phenomenon is a natural characteristic of an IPS LCD."

So, if the Backlit is not responsible and johns1 idea about the problem cannot be responsible as well based on your argument bjiibj, so what is?? Can't you see how clearly you are getting into confusion, because you simply don't know how this works.

johns1, since you are just taking advantage that I haven't replied till now to assume you can claim out of nowhere that you are correct, can you please explain to me what you haven't till now, how can the pixels stay ACTIVE in according to your explanation based on the document that you quoted eventhough the computer is turned off, images are being changed all the time and the monitor is being refreshed? Please enlighten me....

Now, about the Backlit, the only source of lighting for the pixels in a LED backlit LCD is the BACKLIT!! So how can a pixel be lit without the backlit?

The array that you document is talking about when you keep walking in circles is the array of the backlit  dynamic LEDs in located in the display's borders.

This is how it works, the areas are lit based on two line sources of energy that excite the phosphor, the amount is variable and is based on the refresh frequency of the display as much as the PWM. If in one cycle the group of LEDs is lit it is possible that in the other cycle it won't, this is also due to temporal dithering, it is a way of achieving the 256 shades of gray. So, some pixels in this group may not decay in time for the next cycle, remaining active, leaving a few pixels active and keeping them form refreshing and this may cause the ghosting.

johns1, you don't understand why I was talking about the backlit because you don't understand the subject well anyway.

Why don't you tell me how the LED and the pixels according to your.... ""theory"" are lit and kept active, what exactly engnites them??

I've been through two LG displays and finally received a Samsung panel today. I have no scientific way to "prove" this, but I believe my Samsung display is significantly less yellow than the LG panels I previous used. White actually looks white to me. FWIW.