Late-2012 27" iMac backlight bleeding

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

Copied from a post I made in another thread. I think I have one significant instance of backlight bleed on my iMac screen, which is pretty distracting only in certain situations. I'm wary of returning for the risk of getting an even worse panel.

here's my imac's screen at half brightness, though it looks pretty similar at full brightness.. the light bleed from the corners is pretty acceptable to my eyes.. and i think that might actually not be backlight bleeding bc it goes away at certain angles. what really bothers me is the bleed at the left side of the bottom edge, which diffuses up a light cloud about 4-5 inches upwards. The next pic is around half brightness.

this creates some ugliness in dark scenes.. mainly for movies and gaming.. in normal "desktop" use, i rarely notice it.. again, in the next picture, ignore the corner brightness, i don't find that to be an issue at most angles.. This pic I believe is at full brightness.

Most of the time I'm satisfied with the screen. I don't do too much gaming on my iMac.. and I don't watch any movies other than YouTube on it... so.. to me this bothers me more because I paid so much for this computer.

I feel like I've also seen much worse examples of bleed on this forum and don't want to make too big an issue out of it.. thoughts on my panel?

Gelite55 · Jan 1, 2013

It's normal for some backlight bleed. But that seems excessive. I'd get it exchanged.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

Gelite55 said:
It's normal for some backlight bleed. But that seems excessive. I'd get it exchanged.

which area seems excessive? it's really the left side of the bottom edge that bothers me most.. do the corners look worse than should be expected?

it's all a bit less noticeable at half brightness..

tom vilsack · Jan 1, 2013

Why are you even considering debating this mess of a screen? That bottom left (2-3 inches in) is horrid! Did you not pay $$$$ for this...expect darn near perfection.

Go call apple asap and get a new one shipping now.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

tom vilsack said:
Why are you even considering debating this mess of a screen? That bottom left (2-3 inches in) is horrid! Did you not pay $$$$ for this...expect darn near perfection.

Go call apple asap and get a new one shipping now.

Here it is at half-brightness.. the bottom left is still noticeable but less so... not my idea of perfection though..

Do other owners of the 27" have better panels than this? It's hard to tell, since most people only post with issues rather than when they have good panels. Sigh..

----------

Okay, this pic is probably more representative of the screen at half-brightness.. again, it's not catastrophically bad but you can still see the glow at the bottom left.. :T

bobright · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Copied from a post I made in another thread. I think I have one significant instance of backlight bleed on my iMac screen, which is pretty distracting only in certain situations. I'm wary of returning for the risk of getting an even worse panel.

here's my imac's screen at half brightness, though it looks pretty similar at full brightness.. the light bleed from the corners is pretty acceptable to my eyes.. and i think that might actually not be backlight bleeding bc it goes away at certain angles. what really bothers me is the bleed at the left side of the bottom edge, which diffuses up a light cloud about 4-5 inches upwards. The next pic is around half brightness.

Image

this creates some ugliness in dark scenes.. mainly for movies and gaming.. in normal "desktop" use, i rarely notice it.. again, in the next picture, ignore the corner brightness, i don't find that to be an issue at most angles.. This pic I believe is at full brightness.

Image

Most of the time I'm satisfied with the screen. I don't do too much gaming on my iMac.. and I don't watch any movies other than YouTube on it... so.. to me this bothers me more because I paid so much for this computer.

I feel like I've also seen much worse examples of bleed on this forum and don't want to make too big an issue out of it.. thoughts on my panel?

That's pretty bad man, especially given this was taken with lights on. There should really be no visible lightbleed during the day.

crows · Jan 1, 2013

When I get my iMac if it has that much backlight bleed I will return it thats just too much...

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

bobright said:
That's pretty bad man, especially given this was taken with lights on. There should really be no visible lightbleed during the day.

*feelsbadman* bobright I know you've said you got a good panel. I'm guessing yours performs a lot better?

I guess I'll be giving apple a call. Thank goodness for the extended return period as I took delivery of my machine on the 17th.

bobright · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Here it is at half-brightness.. the bottom left is still noticeable but less so... not my idea of perfection though..

Image

Do other owners of the 27" have better panels than this? It's hard to tell, since most people only post with issues rather than when they have good panels. Sigh..

----------

Okay, this pic is probably more representative of the screen at half-brightness.. again, it's not catastrophically bad but you can still see the glow at the bottom left.. :T

Image

I have a launch 27" got mine with the first wave of people it is pretty much flawless. Deep rich blacks and no bleed at all. I was scared as hell mine might have it like most people as I've dealt with it on previous iPads thankfully its fine. I would take it back of I were you.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

bobright said:
I have a launch 27" got mine with the first wave of people it is pretty much flawless. Deep rich blacks and no bleed at all. I was scared as hell mine might have it like most people as I've dealt with it on previous iPads thankfully its fine. I would take it back of I were you.

Thanks. Good to know. I haven't seen too many threads on backlight bleeding here so maybe I just got a lemon... I was really trying to ignore it but it seems out of the norm. Will ring apple. Thanks for the help everyone.

bobright · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Thanks. Good to know. I haven't seen too many threads on backlight bleeding here so maybe I just got a lemon... I was really trying to ignore it but it seems out of the norm. Will ring apple. Thanks for the help everyone.

Yup, displays have overall been good you see the random thread here and there about bad ones but most have had flawless machines. Good luck kid, I know how awful it is to get a bad screen and have to return and return hopefully your next is mint so you don't have to deal with that crap.

macman05 · Jan 1, 2013

You paid good money for your 2012 iMac and it should be perfect in every way. Return it.

WilliamG · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Thanks. Good to know. I haven't seen too many threads on backlight bleeding here so maybe I just got a lemon... I was really trying to ignore it but it seems out of the norm. Will ring apple. Thanks for the help everyone.

People have different tolerances. Personally, I don't believe there's any such thing as deep, rich blacks on these new iMacs, or any iMacs. IPS panels simply don't have deep, rich blacks. They have deep, rich colors (black/grey excluded), but that's about it.

torana355 · Jan 1, 2013

This is mines in a dark room on the third notch of brightness. This shows how it actually looks at 50% brightness as the camera exaggerates it. Even this picture exaggerates the worse parts of the bleed.

This is the same conditions with the brightness actually turned up to 50%, as you can see i can makes it look much worse just by changing the brightness. The screen NEVER looks anywhere near this bad even at 100%.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

WilliamG said:
People have different tolerances. Personally, I don't believe there's any such thing as deep, rich blacks on these new iMacs, or any iMacs. IPS panels simply don't have deep, rich blacks. They have deep, rich colors (black/grey excluded), but that's about it.

Yes, I agree - and to your post on my other thread. The corner bleeding definitely improves if you're right in front of it or standing further back. I don't have much of an issue with the corners. It's the left-side of the bottom edge that really draws the eye. That seems like true backlight bleeding which adds a distracting sheen to the lower-left quarter of the screen on dark scenes.

torana355 said:
This is mines in a dark room on the third notch of brightness. This shows how it actually looks at 50% brightness as the camera exaggerates it. Even this picture exaggerates the worse parts of the bleed.

View attachment 387365

This is the same conditions with the brightness actually turned up to 50%, as you can see i can makes it look much worse just by changing the brightness. The screen NEVER looks anywhere near this bad even at 100%.

View attachment 387368

Yeah, here is mine at 3pts of brightness, which does seem pretty representative of what it looks like at 50%. And it gets worse at 100%. I think your panel looks significantly better than mine, would you agree?

Edit: And here's mine at 50% brightness in a dark room... ahem.. pretty bad huh?

Edit2: I should clarify that I'm taking these photos with an iPhone 5 rear camera at about 5ft in a dark room. The camera definitely exaggerates the issue, but torana355's benchmark seemed pretty revealing to me.

torana355 · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Yes, I agree - and to your post on my other thread. The corner bleeding definitely improves if you're right in front of it or standing further back. I don't have much of an issue with the corners. It's the left-side of the bottom edge that really draws the eye. That seems like true backlight bleeding which adds a distracting sheen to the lower-left quarter of the screen on dark scenes.

Yeah, here is mine at 3pts of brightness, which does seem pretty representative of what it looks like at 50%. And it gets worse at 100%. I think your panel looks significantly better than mine, would you agree?

Image

Edit: And here's mine at 50% brightness in a dark room... ahem.. pretty bad huh?
Image

Edit2: I should clarify that I'm taking these photos with an iPhone 5 rear camera at about 5ft in a dark room. The camera definitely exaggerates the issue, but torana355's benchmark seemed pretty revealing to me.

Wow yours is much worse then mine, i would think about getting it exchanged if its that bad, i took my photos with an iphone 4 btw.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

torana355 said:
Wow yours is much worse then mine, i would think about getting it exchanged if its that bad, i took my photos with an iphone 4 btw.

i just used my wife's iphone 4 and it handles the dark scene quite differently.. here's 3pts brightness:

and 50% brightness:

Although I would say that the 50% brightness pic is pretty accurate to what it actually looks like at 50%, if even understating the issue a little bit. Based on what you've described, torana355, I'm pretty sure my panel is off. My panel never looks that way on 3pts of brightness unless it's actually turned down that low, which isn't too usable. At 100% it's a blotchy mess, especially on the left-side.

torana355 · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
i just used my wife's iphone 4 and it handles the dark scene quite differently.. here's 3pts brightness:
Image

and 50% brightness:
Image

Although I would say that the 50% brightness pic is pretty accurate to what it actually looks like at 50%, if even understating the issue a little bit. Based on what you've described, torana355, I'm pretty sure my panel is off. My panel never looks that way on 3pts of brightness unless it's actually turned down that low, which isn't too usable. At 100% it's a blotchy mess, especially on the left-side.

That's weird because those pictures look almost exactly the same as mine, your 3pt pics looks very dark though.. Like i said the 3pt brightness pic i took is actually Representative of what it looks like at 50% for me. If your 50% pic actually looks like that at 50% then i would exchange it. Mines does not look that bad even at 100%, not even close.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

torana355 said:
That's weird because those pictures look almost exactly the same as mine, your 3pt pics looks very dark though.. Like i said the 3pt brightness pic i took is actually Representative of what it looks like at 50% for me. If your 50% pic actually looks like that at 50% then i would exchange it. Mines does not look that bad even at 100%, not even close.

Thanks bud. That's really helpful. In a lit room, it's all a bit less noticeable, but it just goes to pieces in a dark room. So just to be sure we're apples to apples, even at 100% in a dark room, yours looks that good?

If so, that both bums me out about my panel while giving me hope I'll get a good one next time around.

torana355 · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
Thanks bud. That's really helpful. In a lit room, it's all a bit less noticeable, but it just goes to pieces in a dark room. So just to be sure we're apples to apples, even at 100% in a dark room, yours looks that good?

If so, that both bums me out about my panel while giving me hope I'll get a good one next time around.

At 100% in a dark room mine does not look as bad as your 50% pic. Don't get me wrong though, mine does have backlight bleed and it is noticeable.

thekev · Jan 1, 2013

kidwei said:
If so, that both bums me out about my panel while giving me hope I'll get a good one next time around.

If I noticed that upon delivery, I'd reject it in favor of a replacement. It probably passed their QA, but I wouldn't really want this. I'd take my chances on another once or twice. If I really couldn't get a good one, I'd wait out the generation.

kidwei · Jan 1, 2013

torana355 said:
At 100% in a dark room mine does not look as bad as your 50% pic. Don't get me wrong though, mine does have backlight bleed and it is noticeable.

Which 50% pic? The first 50% pic I took with my iphone 5 is pretty exaggerated and it never looks that bad. I'd say it looks closer to the second 50% pic I took with the iPhone 4 at 100%.. just slightly worse.

edit:
So in real life, 100% never looks as bad as this one:

But it does look worse than this one:

torana355, is yours even better than my second pic at 100% in the dark? You can ignore the top left and top right corners, as those tend not to show in real life. I'm mostly concerned about the bleeding at the bottom edge, which made a 5" vertical cloud above it..

torana355 · Jan 2, 2013

kidwei said:
Which 50% pic? The first 50% pic I took with my iphone 5 is pretty exaggerated and it never looks that bad. I'd say it looks closer to the second 50% pic I took with the iPhone 4 at 100%.. just slightly worse.

edit:
So in real life, 100% never looks as bad as this one:
Image

But it does look worse than this one:
Image

torana355, is yours even better than my second pic at 100% in the dark? You can ignore the top left and top right corners, as those tend not to show in real life. I'm mostly concerned about the bleeding at the bottom edge, which made a 5" vertical cloud above it..

Yes mine is better then your second 50% pic when i have mine at 100%, much better. My bleed is more spread out and its more of a clouding effect with less contrast between the darkest and lightest parts, mine is also in all corners, yours looks like its concentrated in that one area with alot of contrast.

kidwei · Jan 2, 2013

torana355 said:
Yes mine is better then your second 50% pic when i have mine at 100%, much better. My bleed is more spread out and its more of a clouding effect with less contrast between the darkest and lightest parts, mine is also in all corners, yours looks like its concentrated in that one area with alot of contrast.

indeed.. the bottom left quadrant of my screen is pretty bad.. the bottom line is that if i watch any letterboxed videos or dark videos, that bottom left edge glows pretty obviously in any lighting condition when i'm at 50% brightness or more..

i'm pretty convinced that I need to get a replacement... you might be able to tell i've been hesitant to go through the trouble.. but thanks for your help - it seems it'll be worth trying to get a better specimen..

edry.hilario · Jan 2, 2013

kidwei said:
indeed.. the bottom left quadrant of my screen is pretty bad.. the bottom line is that if i watch any letterboxed videos or dark videos, that bottom left edge glows pretty obviously in any lighting condition when i'm at 50% brightness or more..

i'm pretty convinced that I need to get a replacement... you might be able to tell i've been hesitant to go through the trouble.. but thanks for your help - it seems it'll be worth trying to get a better specimen..

your panel looks a lot better than mine.. hah thats not saying much.. i wish apple would fix this issue. i hate it

Late-2012 27" iMac backlight bleeding

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