Q: MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in?

My call with the Apple executive was just a joke. They basically said I should not trust what his said on the internet, that their products are of excellent quality and the return rate is insignificant. That I was kind of a liar or unlucky and that they could refund the computer as I am under my 14 days ... A joke.

This basically what I've been getting except in my case long useless repairs only.  They will not even acknowlege the screen issue so far.

M5Marco wrote:

 

I also wonder if you believe hardware is also a factor in all this? Too much backlight coming through on these displays? If you remember my comparison, the late 2011 MBP (with solid black background, brightness at 100%) had a flat black color to it. Yes with brightness cranked up the screen became more bright, but it was an even flat black color (if you know what I'm trying to say). The late 2013 rMBP with same background and brightness has a (as I can try describe it) a YELLOWISH BLACK, due to the backlight on these panels coming through? Is it just the nature of these panels when Apple switched to retina displays?

 

I think one of the major factors is how thin the new display is. The backlight needs to travel to the center of the display, and they give it a lot less space to travel in, as a result, they have to crank up the LEDs way high. I noticed that the Dell screen is a little thicker, and the old MBP screens were much thicker.

I think Apple is now targeting consumers rather then professionals with their MBP line. This is idiotic, however, as an average consumer does not need 16gb of ram or a top of the line graphics card in their computer. Gamers might need that much horsepower, but gamers are hardly the type of people who would go for an Apple computer. Windows is still the king, when it comes to gaming.

However, I do believe that Apple is well aware of the problem. I returned 5 laptops in a span of 2 days. The experience I had returning the laptops was very strange. As soon as I would mention “screen problem” the Apple clerk would ask me what laptop I had, and then 30 seconds later someone would appear next to us, shoving a new, sealed box, in my hands. This is compared to me returning an iPhone with a dead pixel, where the clerk tried to tell me, and I quote: “The iPhone 5 has millions and millions of pixels, we can’t possibly guarantee that all of them will work.” The point is, no one at all even tried to verify that my returned laptops even had a problems.

I do believe that Apple knows there is a serious problem with the rMBP and iPad panels. I further think that they are counting on consumers no noticing, and are trying their hardest to not acknowledge the problem, until they have a fix.

Incidentally, before anyone here runs out and buys a DELL XPS, that laptop has a fatal flaw, the intake vent for the cooling fans is on the bottom of the laptop. So, if you were to place it on your lap, so you can use it as a LAPtop, the vent would get covered up by your legs. After a few minutes you will here the laptop’s fan screaming, as it tries to suck some air in.

It’s an idiotic design, I have no idea who approves these designs.

Yeah.

1. I think the tinting (on the Samsung A01 displays) is probably software related: because the color is fairly neutral initially, and then shifts yellow/green after the spinner, this would indicate that without a color profile the display is neutral but once OS X loads its profile the color is shifted to be yellow overall. This would be easliy fixed by Apple updating the built-in Color LCD profile to handle this display better. This really isn't anything different than using the Spyder4 but their profile would probably be much more accurate, as a default.

2. The color cast issue may be due to the panel default color being non-standard. I can't imagine why else their color profile would be so far off neutral.

3. I think the brightness issue is probably to do with what x0054 said, in that the LED lighting has its own unique brightness curve. I think this could also be fixed in software by adjusting the brightness control so that it doesn't stay dim for so long and then go very bright in the last few stops.

4. The "burn in" issue is obviously hardware related.

So both panels (Samsung and LG) seem to have issues but it seems like the color issues with the Samsung could be fixed with a software update (I was hoping to find it in 10.9.1 but no such luck). I suppose they might be waiting until things settle down with the hardware supply...

Of course they know, the guy I had on the phone kept saying "I can't confirm what you are saying" but I can tell he knew very well.

JoshD: You and I both! When I saw the OS X 10.9.1 update available in the App Store last night my eyes grew wide and I read like a mad man all the details of what the update contained. I was hoping to see "screen performance improvements" or something along those lines.... No such luck.

BTW I am new to Apple computers (this being my first one). For those of you with a long history of Apple products, displays more specifically (separate and laptop), has Apple had screen problems before? More interesting to find out, has Apple ever released a software update to improve "screen performance" on any of its prodcuts?

Ever since apple switched to retina, they have been having issues. Before this they had the usual issues with dead pixels and such, but never had the problems been so common. The yellow / red tint and IR issue effects both iPads, iPhones, and RMBPs.

However, Apple has no excuse, good retina level screens are available on other laptops.

Hi Mark,

how did you find out this info:

"LP154WT1-SJE1"

I tried the ususal

ioreg -lw0 | grep \"EDID\" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

on my roomate's Late 2013 15" and it did not work.

Is there a new terminal command string out ?

Hi x0054,

unfortunately I have to disagree. I had a 2008 and a Late 2011 MBP with screen issues. The late 2011 had yellow tint and backlight bleeding. Went through 3 MBPs back then.

This year (beginning of the year) I went through several late 2012 27" iMacs with display problems - 1st one had serious IR issues - 2nd one had slight backlight bleeding - 3rd had half yellow tint which I could not correct because it was only half the screen. I always kept one iMac while "new" one was coming so I always

had 2 iMacs at the same time. So I kept the 2nd one because it was the one with the least issues (until now). And I knew that I would buy an Eizo 276 with a self-calibrator.

Would have liked a mac mini "on steroids" instead of an iMac (so there would be no screen problems) but this a whole other issue. MacPro is too expensive.

So it is not a exlusive "Retina" problem.

I had a 2009 15" MBP, 2010 Air, iPad 2, and iPhone 3GS. All had perfect screens. My iPad 3 I had to swap 5 times to get a good screen. iPhone 5 took 3 attempts. And the 2013 rMBP took 5 attempts and I just gave up. Maybe the quality was better before 2010? Maybe I was just really lucky on those systems. In either case, Apple's market for these high end systems is pros who care about color. They really need to step up their game because they might start loosing customers.

x0054 wrote:

 

My iPad 3 I had to swap 5 times to get a good screen. iPhone 5 took 3 attempts. And the 2013 rMBP took 5 attempts and I just gave up.

When you get these units replaced do you ask for an exhange or do you do a full return and buy it again? If it's an exchange, does it reset the 14-day return period?

I believe the return period resets if you exchange. But check at the store to be sure. I always just exchanged. 

X0054: You mentioned you returned five MBP's in a span of two days. Was/is number six free of screen issues?

Sadly No :(, but I just gave up and returned the laptop. I instead purchased a 2012 rMBP on CL. It is the high end model with all the things I wanted and AppleCare till mid 2015. I got it for basically half price, if you include the tax.

The one I got from CL has yellow tint, it’s the Samsung screen, so it’s not perfect either. But, at 1/2 price, I can live with the imperfections for now. Tomorrow I am getting the Spider4 Pro in the mail. I am going to try to calibrate out the yellow tint.

The color profile JoshD posted earlier did a really good job getting the darker grays and the reds to pop. However, the light blue colors and the light grays both look rather green. Since he was calibrating a 2013 Samsung, I am hoping that Spider4 can do magic on my 2012.

If Apple ever actually fixes this issue, I am going to get them to exchange this screen under warranty. For now, however, it’s useless. The 5 laptops I went through were from different batches, different stores, and had equal mix of LG and Samsung screens. ALL were defective. That’s a small sample size, but at the moment, apple has a 100% defect rate, at least in my case.