Q: MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?

My second replacement is on the way. I called tech support and they told me I had LG.

So I ordered another one immediately and plan on to return this replacement once I get it.

Id say teturn it. You shouldnt live with that when u paid so much for the laptop. Get ur money back.

How do they know which display type you have before it even arrives?

The only way is asking Apple.

UPDATE: Oops I thought you said how do you know before it arrives. They may have some database for this details and find them by serial numbers.

Thanks. Is there a way to determine the serial number before it arrives? My replacement rMBP shipped last night. I remember seeing some web site where you could punch in the serial number and get a bunch of info about it. I forget the web URL for that, and I can't find the serial number of the replacement anywhere. Thanks.

UPDATE: Never mind about the serial, I found that on the invoice.

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php and the serial it's in the E-invoice pdf they will send it when they charge you.

Thanks. Too bad these are still shipping with Lion. I was hoping it would have 10.8 preinstalled by now. I appreciate the help.

I ordered another computer yesterday and I saw taht ilife and mountain lion comes with it.

I don't know how you did it, but I called Apple Support twice and they claimed that they have absolutely no possibility to check whether my MBPR is being shipped with Samsung or LG screen...
Also most people on this forum would have checked it a long time ago, instead of waiting for ages untill the actual unit is delivered...

I think running the screen on max brightness with no changes to what is displayed on the screen for more than 1 hour is a fairly unreasonable test since there are VERY few legitmate real-world use-cases that would involve that type of usage. Yes, it may result in some after-image with the Samsung display, but that's nothing even remotely similar to the types of problems people have seen with the LG display.

Almost any monitor can have after-image symptoms when the same image is displayed for an extended time, and it shouldn't be completely surprising if the Retinal displays are a bit more susceptble to this condition, so I can't agree with the idea that there's a huge fundamental flaw with the rMBP simply because it is possible (however unrealistic the test conditions may be) to generate an after-image. If anyone is really going to be that picky with their screen, I'd say you should return your rMBP and buy something else so you can stop wasting your (and Apple's) time and money.

My problem (and that reported by the majority of people in this thread with the LG screen) is that I get an after image within 5 minutes, which is well under the typical timeframe before a screensafter/dimmer kicks in. I'll have two windows on the screen (emaily on the left and browser on the right), and after browsing the web for 5 or 10 minutes I'll minimize both windows only to find the mail window is leaving a very obvoius afterimage on the screen...sometimes clear enought that I can still read the subject lines from the emails that were shown.

I think it's a good idea to run the "static window on dark gray background for 10 minute" test to see if your screen has the problem. And since it seems like the problem may not occur immediately but sometimes gets worse over time, maybe repeat the test in a week or two. But f this doesn't reveal a problem then I'd suggest you move on and just enjoy your new computer.

If anyone is really going to be that picky with their screen, I'd say you should return your rMBP and buy something else so you can stop wasting your (and Apple's) time and money.

OK wait a second, when something is not right is not right! It's really simple whether you want to be picky about it or not.

The problem here is not that what you and others should do (return, replace, or hanging there). Is that a product with that price shouldn't be like that.

Again, whether it's for 5 minutes or 1 hour. You with 5 minutes are the same as a guy with 1 hour in my opinion. Because you both paid the same price and both deserve to be happy of what you have.

Lets not bring what people should do here because we all here to tell Apple what they should do. People do whatever they want.

I agree with Maziyar in response to :

[If anyone is really going to be that picky with their screen, I'd say you should return your rMBP and buy something else so you can stop wasting your (and Apple's) time and money.]

As I said earlier, if this was a typical dell laptop (under £400)  or even a high end one of £700, I can expect that quality may not always be perfect and live with those imperfections.

When I bought my MBPr, I was buying a high end, top quality product, and the 16GB, 2.6GHz, 500 GB SSD cost over £2400, three times the cost of a similarly powerful Inspiron I have.

I bought it for the screen, portability and the fact that it is a beautiful bit of kit and engineering that works well with my iPad and iPhone, and gives me access to OSX apps.

However, for that price, I expect it to work as advertised with no flaws (otherwise I would buy a Dell), and to be honest, neither my Dell or my Alienware M17x suffer from image retention, so it is not normal for an LCD display unless the Retina has an inherent weakness they are failing to disclose.

There are almost always tradeoffs when you get near the boundaries of cutting edge technology. More power = shorter battery life, bigger batteries = heavier laptops, faster CPUs = higher temps (and shorter battery life), dedicated GPUs and smaller cases = hotter laptops and noisier fans. SSDs = fast, but with speed degradtion when filled near capacity. If you think that at a certain price point you can avoid having any tradeoffs, I just don't think that is realistic. Look at many "high-end" products like sports cars, and they all have similar tradeoffs (or as some people here choose to call them, "flaws").

It is very clear that there are differences between the LG and the Samsung retina displays, wrt image retention, so I don't think there is anything wrong with people wanting to get the best screen available for the laptop they purchased. Having obvious differences in performance based on who sourced the components, and having the peformance of what you get based on luck rather than what you ordered is not acceptable in my opinion.

However, is it possible that the retinal display on the rMBP (even with the Samsung screen) has some differences with image retention compared to non retina displays? Well, it's quite possible there are some tradeoffs at this time, though the evidence of this being a problem with the Samsung screens is pretty minimal at this point. If there is a difference, based on everythign I've read it is a very minimal difference that only appears under very unrealistic use cases.

My point was that if you want cutting edge of technology but are going to be intolerant of anything that doesn't meet your idea of perfection even if it doesn't have any impact on your actual usage of the product, then I think you are being unreasonable and aren't the type of customer any company really wants to do business with.

Doesn't anyone's actual usage of their Dell or Alienware M17x involve setting their background screen to dark gray, turning it to max brightness and leaving the same static image the screen for several hours? I highly doubt it. I also highly doubt that anyone has even run this type of image retention test on any other computer besides the rMBP, so I don't think that we have any sort of fair comparison at this point to indicate what is normal.

Obviously, if it does affect your usage of the product, then you should report it. Image retention while using the coputer? Report it. Stuck pixels or bright spots? Report it. My main point it is a waste of everyone's time to complain about things that don't actually have an impact on you during real-world usage of the product.

Of course everyone is free to behave in the manner they think is appropriate.

We are talking about a consumer product here, a Computer for normal people not something built by IBM to play and win Jeopardy.

Yes I agree there are trade-offs on high end equipment, and I have been dealing with SSD limitations for over a year now, but for 3D rendering, the speed is worth the limitations.

With the display, you have highlighted the issue quite well. If all displays were the same on the MBRr, and customers were aware of the limitations, then it's their choice.

A lottery on quality is not, especially when it appears it is a particular suppliers component, but apple seem to be continuing to use them but not improve quality control to remove the bad ones. That consistent quality, and a product that meets the claims, is what the price premium is for :)

As to testing other high end hardware, that was the point I made, I have tested an Alienware M17x i7 and a Dell Inspiron with the same background as the MBPr to see if it was just something I hadn't noticed before.

Result, MBPr after 5 minutes has afterimage that's lasts over 30 seconds before fade. And the longer you leave it the longer the fading takes.

Alienware and inspiron, after 40 minutes with same background and image, no retention whatsoever.