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Backlight bleeding on new 5k iMac?

Just got a brand new 5k iMac today. When I first booted it up, during the period when the screen goes momentarily black, I noticed yellowish "lights" along the top and bottom edges of the screen. It was especially noticeable in the upper left. Once the computer booted up, this problem was completely unnoticeable so I shrugged it off. Then I watched a letterboxed Netflix movie with black bars along the top and bottom. The "lights" were again very noticeable and distracting.


I hunted around and found a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1o41_oHSAg)that shows nothing but a black screen and the problem becomes very obvious when viewing the video in full screen mode. Here's a photo of the video playing in full screen mode: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15366433/IMG_9101.JPG


Note that the photo exagerrates how bad the monitor actually looks, for whatever reason. For example, with the naked eye, the center of the screen does not have the yellowish green hues that you see in the photo. To the naked eye, the picture is black (though not as inky black as I would like).


But the photo clearly shows the brighter yellow areas in the top left corner, the top edge to the right of the center line, and three areas along the bottom. I should note that the problem is very noticeable even when the monitor is at half brightness and is even worse at full brightness.


I also noticed that if I gently squeezed along the top edge the monitor, pinching the back and front of the display between by thumb and fingers, the yellow areas appeared where I applied the pressure. This leads me to believe that the yellow areas that are visible when I'm not squeezing the monitor are under some kind of stress which is causing the backlight to shine through.


I know backlight bleeding is a problem with LED technology, especially cheaper monitors. But I am a bit alarmed to see this problem to such a large degree in this state-of-the-art display. Needless to say, I will be calling Apple in the morning and will ask for a replacement.


I'm hoping this is a fluke and I got a bum unit. So I'm very curious to know if others with a 5K iMac are seeing this backlight bleeding when watching the youtube video linked to above. Please let me know.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10), i7, 32GB, 1TB SSD

Posted on Nov 5, 2014 9:13 PM

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5 replies

Dec 20, 2014 7:11 AM in response to nysus

Apple Support was very responsive and shipped out a replacment to me. Unfortunatley, I'm sad to report that the new unit has the same problem. I can live with it. For everyday use, it's fine. You don't notice it. But when watching a darkly lit movie in full screen, it's pretty annoying. Professional video editors will also probably be upset.

Backlight bleeding on new 5k iMac?

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