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Level 1

93 points

2012 11 inch MacBook Air has a yellow tinted screen

I have an 11 month old 13 inch MacBook Air, which I love. Loved it so much I got an 11 inch for certain trips. Long story short, got the 11 inch and sat it down next to my 13 inch to transfer over my data and the screen colors were shockingly different. The 13 inch has a beautiful color display.. very cool. The 11 inch has a warn yellowish look to it. Opened photos and thats when you can see a big difference. Looking at photos from my last trip to Italy, I could see so much more colors on the 13 inch than the 11 inch. So I called Apple Care, and of course they took care of me...walked me through a few steps and then declared my MBA DOA and the replacement is on the way. I should have it in a few days, and will post an update.

MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 19, 2012 8:13 AM

40 replies

itsamacthing Author

Level 1

93 points

Sep 6, 2012 6:50 PM in response to drakaircred46

We are both on the same path... They sent us an AUO, and now LGs. Have you seen whats going on over in the Retina MBP support thread? A good majority of the LG displays have Image Retention. Every LG display I have found on display at the stores, I tested has it. That killed it for me.. I was going to buy 2 (one for my staff).

The one upside to all of this is that if you get a thunderbolt cable, and put the outgoing MBA into Target Disk Mode, you can use the migration assistant to move your data to the newer one in about 15 minutes (120GB of data)

BTW.. is your MBA a custom build or stock model? I'm BTO.. wondering if the BTO are being sent out with AUO and LG and stock are Samsung.

Sep 6, 2012 8:04 PM in response to itsamacthing

These were the 3 builds that I ordered, in the order they were purchased:

1) 2012, 11" i5, 8Gigs Ram, 256Gig SSD (From Apple) -- AUO screen

2) 2011, 11" i5, 4Gigs Ram, 128Gig SSD (From Amazon) -- LG screen. (Thought I might save a couple bucks on a new, last years model.)

3) 2012, 11" i5, 8Gigs Ram, 256Gig SSD (From Apple) -- LG screen.

The 2012 models were ordered with a VGA and Gigabit ethernet dongles.

I'm not sure if there is a higher percentage chance of getting Samsung with a stock model or not. Looking through a thread on mac rumors, it seems people get LG or Samsung with stock, and LG or Samsung or AUO with custom builds.
This is a very big topic of conversation over there. 650 posts in the thread on this topic.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1389918&page=27

Oct 2, 2012 8:23 PM in response to drakaircred46

Did number 5 work out okay?

itsamacthing Author

Level 1

93 points

Oct 2, 2012 8:43 PM in response to drakaircred46

Hi 😀

So this version of the 11 inch 2012 MBA also has an LG display. The display is better than the previous LG, at one viewing angle. But the rest of the angels are just as bad. The colors are washed out and the sharpness is the difference between the screen on a iPhone and iPhone 4S.

I'm still waiting for executive relations to get back to me with a solution. At the same time, I have friends buying them in mass to find me a samsung.

The whole situation is killing me.

I need a new Mac but...

The Mac Pro is 3 years old tech, no thunderbolt, no USB3 or Sata III

The iMac is 2 year old tech, doesnt even have USB3 or Sata III

The Retina MBP has major image retention problem lottery

And the Air has washed out displays lottery!

Is Apple trying to tell us they are a phone company now?

Oct 3, 2012 6:08 AM in response to itsamacthing

Maybe try a Spyder to calibrate. I think it's the standard calibration "one size fits all" that they ship with that may be the problem. I've read that LG's can be calibrated to look as good as the Samsungs.

itsamacthing Author

Level 1

93 points

Oct 3, 2012 10:18 AM in response to utahusker

Hi Utahusker,

Thank you for taking the time to read my thread and respond. You know, I went down that path and tried so many calibration profiles. Probably 10 of them. They all gave you a little more of one thing and took away too much of the other. In the end, none of them really resolve the issue.

IMHO...who is going to buy a 200$ Spyder just to get an LCD to look right at one viewing angle when Apple ships a samsung based MBA with a screen that looks perfect right out of the box. The LG has poor viewing angles, has washed out colors, lower sharpness, and is less bright. The two screens are like comparing BMW and Honda (Lots of love to Honda fans, I love my CRV 😉 )

But that's just my opinion

Oct 3, 2012 11:47 AM in response to itsamacthing

That was my experience also. The color profile tool could adjust the color, but not fix the fuzzines. And for me. Looking at the LG screen, even with the adjusted color, still made my eyes ache.

Xmotox

Level 1

0 points

Dec 25, 2012 8:59 AM in response to itsamacthing

Did you ever figure anything out, OP?

I don't understand, if Apple is willing to work with you on this (or so they say), they don't just open Mac's until they find you one that works. It's not like they don't repackage hundreds of returns a day.

I am having the same issue as you. I have owned multiple Macs and I'm used to a certain level of quality. Let me start by saying I own a 15" rMBP. I don't think you can go wrong with this computer, though I did receive a Samsung in this one. I wouldn't take my chances on the 13" version.

I originally bought a 13" Air from Amazon, and immediately noticed the washed out appearance. I knew something wasn't right. So I Google'd and of course I found that Apple stupidly ships these with two completely different panels (three now that I read this thread). Needless to say, I sent it back. Now, I am not ignorant enough to think the Air's screen will ever look as good as a rMBP screen. PIxel density viewing angles are one thing, but colors and contrast are completely different.

I ended up realizing that I needed the 11" instead - reasoning that even if the next Air comes with an LG, I can at least justify the 11 moreso than the 13. Received it, LG. Also, it didn't even sit flush on my desk. Replaced thru Amazon. New one is LG as well although it doesn't suffer from the uneven buttom surface.

Apple needs to take care of these little problems fast or they are going to lose business to people who care about the details. Apple is supposedly a company that focuses on the details, so it surprises me to see things like this slip through.

Not sure whether I am going to keep this 11" Air or not now... Not if there is a way to somehow get a Samsung display.

itsamacthing Author

Level 1

93 points

Jan 1, 2013 6:35 PM in response to Xmotox

Hi Xmotox,

Sorry for the delay, I'm on a New Years holiday.

Unfortunately I am stuck right now with an LG screen based 11 inch MBA because after 5 returns Apple said they could not do anything more for me. With my travel schedule, there was no way I could do anything till after the new year.

The whole situation is pathetic, that Apple is asking its customers to accept a bad screen while others get a crisp one. My screen has horrible viewing angles, washed out colors and text, and angers me every time I look at it.

While on my vacation, a friend and I were talking and one thing led to another and wee were talking about Apple. I said things seem to be going in the wrong direction there. Lots of censorship on their forums, inability to update the Mac Pro, LCD issues, poor customer support, engineers refusing to admit issues and he was like "I knew my screen looked different than the one on display". He's going to be returning his MBA when he gets back to NYC next week.

How can I recommend Apple anymore? They are not the same company they used to be in regards to QC, QC being one of the main buying points for me.

Good example of being asleep behind the wheel is the new iMac, so beautiful and awesome for photographers...but did you see where they put the SD memory card slot? Thoughtless design.

The LG and AUO based displays in the MBA are NOT acceptable and if you get one, return it immediately. It will only bother more and more over time and I don't think the hazzy LG is good for your vision. I'm going to see an optometrist about the eye strain it's causing me.

Beware consumers! Wake up Apple, your loosing your base.

Jan 25, 2014 6:21 PM in response to itsamacthing

I got the same issue. I have a 13 inch MBA purchased in May 2012 with the screen made by LG which has beautiful colours that I have taken for granted. Last December I bought another MBA and was very surprised how different the colours were (yellowish compared to grey/white on the old one). I tried to play with the colour profile - didn't help much, then installed the same profile on both machines - colours were still different, then exchanged it for another MBA - the issue remained. I looked at the MBAs on the store display and could clearly see that all of them had the same issue. And screens on Mac Book Pros with or without Retina display were much did not.

So I returned my MBA as I didn't believe this could be fixed and didn't want to live with the screen which I don't like - after all, the reason I bought Apple product was its amazing quality. Would be much happier if I could keep my MBA - the battery life was amazing and everything else couldn't be better.

Now I decided to wait for a new MBA to come out in a hope that it would have Retina display. I'd rather pay more and have an outstanding product.

2012 11 inch MacBook Air has a yellow tinted screen