Q: MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?

I looked at a Retina MBP in Bali, and it was an LG screen. Saw the ghosting. It was REALLY noticeable. Not since I was a kid and we had those ugly VGA monitors was a problem this obvious. And yet the reseller said they can't tell me if the unboxed rMBP I wanted to buy would be and LG or Samsung screen and have this problem. This is because Apple have refused to do a product recall. They just keep selling a faulty product knowingly. Yet Apple have $100 billion in the bank due to loyal customers like me. And they repay my 5 years of loyalty with these lies? Wow thanks a lot Apple. NOT.

"No wonder these laptops are like crap."

I'm no fanboy (OK, maybe a little) but even though my new rMBP has IR, there's no way I can characterize the overall system as "crap". I've used mobile computers since before the original IBM PC, and this system is clearly the most incredible example of superior technology advancements of anything in the industry.

I agree that this IR issue is very frustrating, and I don't want to have to return my brand new system to Apple for a replacement, although I will. But other than that, and even though I'm very used to using a Macbook Air, this system still blows me away every time I use it.

What I find most frustrating is that more apps aren't Retina ready. I don't see how Firefox, for example, could NOT support the Retina display, even this far after launch. Their plan is to support it in V18 in January. That's ridiculous. But I REALLY don't see understand how Apple could drop the ball like this, and didn't make sure the application vendors were more fully prepared to support Retina in a timely manner. That has nothing to do with technology. And THAT is frustrating.

So, the point is that the Retina technology is still new, and there will be issues with it which Apple and we users will trip over. The character of the company will be determined by how well they address these issues, and so far, Apple hasn't done a stellar job of that with the IR problems, unfortunately. But saying "these laptops are like crap" is, well... just your opinion. And not mine.

DomdiDom wrote:

 

So funny, so apple/Foxconn asks for better "quality control" and 3000-4000 people go on strike yesterday.

 

No wonder these laptops are like crap. I know the story refers to Iphone 5 but obviously it holds true for all of Apple's products made there.

 

How bad are things going to have to get before Apple wakes up I wonder.

 

...and what kind of company doesn't "train" their employees. If a monkey can't do it, you should be trained and if a monkey can do it, then we shouldn't be paying up to $4500 for it.

 

Unless you are actually working at the Foxconn plant I don't think you would be qualified to state what exactly is going on.  We've already had in this past year supposed first-hand news reports of abuses and such that turned out to be falsified just so the guy got more attention in the press.

Although I'll give you that "like crap" is a little unfair at this point,  without a fix for IR and the other problems I'm reading about here and on other forums concerning the rmbp's, it will be nothing more than crap without a fix soon. If it were simply about power then any tech company could do it. Apple made a promise and must deliver on it sooner rather than later.

I've always heard of burn in or IR and as far back as about 1990, using various computers (none by apple) I've never actually seen it. That tells me that IR isn't a "feature" but rather a step backwards.

What is "crap" is Apples response to this point with respect to IR issues at least. Not worthy of a company making the billions it does off the same people that is now disrespecting.

Well until there's an alternative to the "news" I'll go with that rather than pretend like nothing is going or should we all hop on a plane and go see for ourselves?

clrokr wrote:

 

Well that's it. I've had it with Apple. Just saying, the 15-inch Zenbook is coming and it's the only thing that comes close to the Retina.

Let's see if Asus also going to send you 4+ replacements if it turns out Asus also use LG AH-IPS screens.....;)

The issue with rMBP and Facebook is not a Firefox issue as far as I know. It has to do with how much of a website is rendered by the CPU and how much is done by the GPU. Facebook has images which are larger than what is displayed on the screen, so when you open them they immediately expand to the larger size. This is done by the CPU. That is then managed by the GPU to get the retina display to show the image in the effective resolution you have in your settings.

The issue is that the GPU can handle the calculations but the CPU cannot. It gets caught slightly and that slows down the rendering, making the screen jerk slightly. It means that the whole thing was pushed forward before it was 100% ready. Like the New iPad that is aapparently getting a new update soon to deal with the overheating of the CPU. The idea of a retina display is awesome. The reality is that Apple pushed it through, and now they are having some issues.

What is "crap" as someone else said, is that they pretend that everything is perfect when it is not. I remember Steve Jobs admitting that the iPhone 4 had an issue with the antenna. Apple then offered the free bumper covers and fixed the iPhone 4S. But now Apple are just pretending that there is no problem and lying to customers. Really sad times.

If you've been reading then you know part of the disgusting part of all this is you have no way of know if Apple will send you 4 replacements or even 1 replacements. Depending on you speak to from apple they'll either tell you they'll replace it or as we've read, this is normal and there's nothing we can do for you.

Sound Evolution wrote:

 

Let's see if Asus also going to send you 4+ replacements if it turns out Asus also use LG AH-IPS screens.....;)

Side question - is there some way to persist my login at these forums? I hate that I can exit safari, then three minutes later follow a link in my email to the thread, and have to go to top, log in, and then get redirected to the main page, rather than where I was when I clicked "log in"... Then I have to go back a few times to get back to the page.  Irritating, only site that acts like this...

Anyway, I'm rather impressed with my local store.  After the debacle at the useless Racine, Wisconsin "authorized repair center" who were just totally unacceptable, Apple verified my problem Wednesday afternoon, Thursday around noon they called me that the part was in, I ran the laptop up there, and they called me Friday that it was ready for pickup.  Just got it now since I was out of town yesterday (why I picked that day for them to have it).  Very happy with the turnaround, 24 hours or less for the order as well as for the repair.

Anyway, I just ran the terminal command, and I have a Samsung.  I immediately switched to an all white background so I could start looking for this yellowish tint that people are talking about in some - and so far, fortunately, I don't seem to have any.  I did what I found to be the best way to get the IR to show up - go to the main apple support page with the pictures of the various products above the top, let it sit there for a few minutes, then open one of my programs that has a dull blue screen - on the LG display I could CLEARLY see the visual "echo" of all those graphics - so clearly that i could actually see the mouse under "other products".  Looked like perfect little silhouettes.  With the Samsung screen, I have no retention at all so far.

All told, to me it looks as good as my LG did.  Hard to gauge brightness now since I'm in a well lit room but I don't notice anything at this point that leads me to believe my Samsung is less bright than the LG was. 

For those just checking into this who have no problems with their LG, I had mine since release, and didn't experience the IR problem until this week, and my laptop is on 24/7, me actively on it anywhere from 12 to 18 hours a day.  I don't use screensavers.  My display is set to turn off after an hour, not just after a few minutes, because i often have it sitting next to me at home monitoring things.  So I have a lot of time spent on single views of something for long periods of time.  And with all that, I still didn't see anything for over three and a half months.

Thought I'd share my experience with the MBP Retina so far. I bought my mbp in July 2012, and only noticed the screen burn in issues lately. As soon as a I noticed it, I took it to the Apple store and there was no issue/problem with them agreeing to replace the screen under warranty. My burn in was pretty significant though - it would be evident after just 2 minutes of use.

I had my mbp repaired in a couple of days (they had to order the new screen) and it was replaced with a Samsung panel. I have been testing it for the past few days with no issues so far. I'll let you guys know if anything goes wrong with it.

I was doing some comparison between my Samsung retina MBP and a Mid 2010 glossy 15" MBP in a room lit with daylight.  The quality in the screen is amazingly better and I am not referring to the resolution improvement.

Both are using the standard color display profile, 10.8.2, and Safari 6. (rMBP = retina version below)

white saturation test: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/white.php

rMBP: only 254 is not disinguishable from nearly every angle.

MBP: you can only distinguish up to 248 with 0 degree viewing angle.  Only when you start looking 60+ degrees off center can you distinguish up to 251 but then you have severe color distortion.

Black level test: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

rMBP: Easily pick out down to 8.  If I look hard enough I can distinguish down to 5. In dark room can barely make out down to 3.

MBP: Easily down to 7 and down to 5 if you change viewing angle. 

Contrast: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php

rMPB: see equal steps in brightness across entire range

MBP: past 24 the bars look fairly uniform and not easy to distinguish steps, last 2 bars are saturated

Viewing angle: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php

rMPB: red text on entire screen at 0 degree viewing angle with little to no change of text at different viewing angles

MBP: Looking at 0 degree viewing angle the text appears all different shades of red depending on what part of the window you look at.  Look like black striped text at top of window and the correct "red" at bottom when viewing angle centered in middle of screen.

Great to hear another happy ending without yellowish tint.

As I'm "married" to a macbook due to my job, I'll just have to keep replacing the screen until Apple gets it right.

I just got back from the Apple Store in NYC and I had to argue with multiple people for quite a while to get them to do anything about the persistence on my LG rMBP. I told them that I couldn't work on the machine and that while I'd rather have a working machine, that I'd take a refund over keeping my machine in its current state. The guy left to talk to his boss about a return and came back finally agreeing to send it off to repair. He said that if it comes back and the repair center doesn't repair it there's nothing else they can do. We'll see what happens.

I have entered the lottery. I will have it on Wednesday and will let you know. This is truely week 40 production.

Chipmunk International BV

Model introduced: 2012

Serial number: C0*H4*U*****

Production year: 2012

Production week: 40 (October)

Group1: MacBook

Group2: Pro

Generation:

Machine Model: MacBookPro10,1

CPU speed: 2.6GHz/2.7GHz

Family name: Become a pro user to see this information. (sorry)

Screen size: 15 inch

Screen resolution: 2880x1800 pixels

Colour: Aluminium

Capacity: 16GB

Side question - is there some way to persist my login at these forums? I hate that I can exit safari, then three minutes later follow a link in my email to the thread, and have to go to top, log in, and then get redirected to the main page, rather than where I was when I clicked "log in"... Then I have to go back a few times to get back to the page.  Irritating, only site that acts like this...

This is indeed quite annoying. Switch to Chrome if you can, it preserves your session.

The even more annoying thing about Safari is that you don't even have to exit to lose the session. Just close the last tab and that's it. Now you have to log back in.

Should note that Chrome has some caching issue (but could be just me) with Apple Discussions that happens from time to time. It prevents pages from loading but it's so rare that I much prefer using it to keep my session logged in.