Q: MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?

I Thought I would chip my experience...for what it is worth. I decided to buy the retina macbook pro, this was my first big apple purchase and possibly my last.  So on Sept 1st I handed over 2000k+ of my cash for what I considered the best laptop on the market today. 10 days later I found the image retention issue(LG pannel)(Unfortunately I did not discover this post until I experienced the image retention issue and googled it...), so off to the apple store I went. To be honest I cannot fault apple on customer service, I walked away from the apple store a happy man with a brand new replacement macbook retina. Got home and was sad when the replacement showed image retention straight out of the box(LG Pannel). So off to apple I went again. This time the staff treated my problem differently. It appears there is now an internal apple test for image retention. This is a checkbox image that is left on the screen for 3 minutes then replaced with the grey background. My macbook passed the test, so the apple guy said it was within specification. I introduced the apple guy to my real world test of loading any old web page and leaving it there for 10 minutes. He was a bit shocked to see the image retention last for over 3 minutes after this. After some discussion, apple agreed to give me my money back and so my story ends.

IPS (Image Persistant Screens) maybe

Guys. Mad-Mac_Man unraffled the mysterie here!

He is right. If the 5th part of the serial nummer is a LETTER it is an LG. if the 5th part is a NUMBER it is an Samsung. I just verified this by myself. My first rMBP was a Samsung 5th part of the serial number was a NUMBER. My current rMBA is LG 5th part of the serial number is a LETTER.

Now we can see with a closed box already which screen to get

Same issue with mine..took it in yesterday and they actually have a test to check it with. Everyone there I talked to seem aware of the problem. Was lucky enough to have a screen there so I'll have it back today! Hopefully the new one isnt problematic, but honestly I'm a bit skeptical. We shall see!

This is not the case. Several people have reported having a letter in the fifth position and getting an LG display, and others have reported having a number in the fifth position and getting a Samsung display.

oh. then i was a bit to fast with my conclusion. darn..

but that is my theory, letter on 5th position is LG number on 5th position is Samsung.

Sound Evolution wrote:

 

but that is my theory, letter on 5th position is LG number on 5th position is Samsung.

It won't be long now til people come home happy that they went through all the boxes in the Apple Store looking for a number in the fifth position, got it, and are then dissapointed to find they have an LG

For what it's worth, I have an LG display and my fifth character is the number 9.

5th character is a number and I have a LG panel.

TheBigStefano wrote:

 

5th slot is a number and LG panel.

There has been at least one person on this thread with a Samsung display and a number in the 5th position.

Where did this idea come from anyway?

I have a "7" 5th position Samsung Panel here.

skinemup2012 wrote:

 

I have a "7" 5th position Samsung Panel here.

Thanks for letting us know. Now we can avoid any serial number-related hysteria.

I also have a "7" in the 5th position and mines burning in...LG or Samsung...its not happy

Maybe it's the other way around. My point was that every model that had a number as the 5th digit of the serial number was working fine. The ones I've had to return all had letters as the 5th character. Naturally, that's hardly scientific and may simply be a co-incidence and the reason I made a big deal about it was the fact that I found this thread and there seemed to be a pattern.

I HOPE that I'm wrong in my assertion that I may have another dud coming my way and that I will have to go through this again and again. Alternatively, I can just get my money back and keep my 2.3GHz with 8GB of RAM.

I do know one thing: I love the Retina MBP. I'm just hoping for a little more consistence.

Well, even if the 5th character/number thing doesn't seem to tell anything, there could potentially be a way to discover if it's a Samsung or LG display just by reading the serial number, still. This is probably the case since in the apple stores they have their internal system that tells them which panel is used on what machine, and that information could be hidden somewhere in the serial number of the product and just read by the program. Now, it would be awesome if we could share the serial numbers of RMBPs with both displays to actually try to find differences in them, so that we could determine if there's any way to tell beforehand which panel is used.

On my first rMBP the 5th character was a number and I had LG display with IR.

Tomorrow I'll get a 5th-letter-rMBP. We'll see what lady luck has in store for me . . .