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LouisLeLou

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 22, 2010
36
0
Prague, Czech Republic
Hello chaps,

I'm looking at getting a more or less top-spec (3.4GHz i7 + 680MX, I'll upgrade the RAM myself) 27" iMac this summer/autumn.
Now seeing as I'm still in the process of saving, I've basically been spending my free time looking at pictures of it and drooling, and searching for any issues with the machine.

Because of the nature of the internet, it's often very misleading when you come across negative user experiences, because you tend to look at it as being a huge global issue, when in reality it's maybe 15 people reporting it, as the people who don't have the problem dont post about it, and there are... well probably lots of late 2012 iMac owners.
For a vaguely similar and humorous example, try to find Louis C.K's bit about people who write Amazon reviews.

This leads me to the point of this post:
I came across quite a few people experiencing image retention on the new iMacs, and this scared the curry paste out of me. The threads are spread around everywhere, and there are people saying it doesn't affect them at all... people saying it will affect everyone no matter what, and Apple officially saying it's "normal" – I must say I lost a huge amount of respect for Apple when I saw that support page, and it actually made me think about looking at other options.

I think it would not only benefit me, but everyone if we could get a clear picture (Ha. Ha.) of how many people are experiencing image retention vs. how many aren't on the new iMacs (I think 27" specifically as I don't seem to recall the 21.5" being affected?).
And, if this is a global issue, what are your opinions on whether the situation with the displays will be rectified?

So, go ahead iMac owners, help me out!
 

B...

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2013
1,949
2
how many people are experiencing image retention vs. how many aren't on the new iMacs (I think 27" specifically as I don't seem to recall the 21.5" being affected?).
And, if this is a global issue, what are your opinions on whether the situation with the displays will be rectified?

I am pretty sure the MacRumors users do not represent the global population of iMac buyers, in that a normal user is not going to do a checkerboard test to see if they have IR. If they notice it in normal use, they bring it to Apple, Apple does the test, and they replace the screen. I have seen this with the rMBPs. Some people do the checkerboard test, see IR, and get panicked. I know that if my computer had IR, but doing a checkerboard test was needed to show it, I would be fine with that. But that is the rMBP. I am not so sure about the new iMac.
 

crovian

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2010
142
0
I don't get the point of these threads.

First, there are number of previous threads exploring this very same issue (you mentioned the apple support page yourself). You will have more luck finding out about this issue there than on MR. Less than 0.1% of iMac users are even registered on MR and it is in people's nature to criticize the bad more than praise the good. You will see more people complaining but does that mean majority of people have IR problems?

And what really constitutes an "IR problem?" Are there different levels of acceptable to unacceptable? Because I'm sure some people will be able to live with minute level of IR if it happens very rarely. How will you be able to factor in such a decision for your purchase?

But let's assume that 50 ppl respond to your post and say they have IR on the iMac. Would that stop you from buying one? What if it is 500? 500 out of how many people? And what criteria must be met for it to be a global issue?

I have yet to experience IR on my 1month+ 27" iMac but who knows? I first noticed IR on my 2007 MacBook couple years later
 

LouisLeLou

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 22, 2010
36
0
Prague, Czech Republic
Yes I'm aware of the existence of other threads on this subject, but they were simply people saying that they have the problem, I'm just trying to get an overview of the amount of people experiencing it versus the amount of people not experiencing it. And crovian, in your first paragraph you've essentially pointed out the same point I made in my post: people focus on the negative online of course and mainly post things to complain or point out issues, which is why I'm not trying to explore the issue itself, just looking for "yes" or "no" from people.

For me, any amount of image persistence is unacceptable, this is an expensive machine and I do not expect it to have an issue that, no matter how small, supposedly ignorable or apparently "normal" it is, is still a serious issue to me. My 2008 Macbook Pro has 0 image retention, and if I'd have noticed any I would have been extremely bothered by it and replaced it.

I'm just asking a simple question. There are horror stories where people have had to take back 5 or 6 iMacs for replacement due to image retention. There is no physical Apple store (only the official web store) here in the Czech Republic, only a handful of premium resellers stocking a handful of items, so popping downtown or even driving across the country to another city to take the machine in for repair or replacement is not really possible, thus making returning your iMac however many times you need to until you get lucky and get one that has no problems is not so easy.
If I know that the iMac I intend to purchase IS going to suffer from image retention, even subtly, because the majority of people that I was hoping would respond to this thread say they do experience it, I would not get it. Simple. This is a lot of money for me and an important investment, and I don't expect the machine to suffer from something that my 7 year old €80 no-name display doesn't.

I'll take your advice and try to get more information from the Apple support pages as well.
 

crovian

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2010
142
0
ya but I'm simply pointing out that it's futile and statistically insignificant to ask MR for 'yes or no' before making such an investment as you have stated.

If 95% people who respond to this thread says they have experienced IR (which seems to be the case on these IR threads), it doesn't mean anything because of such small sample and bias. That's like saying if you flip a coin twice and get two heads in a row, it means that you have a 100% chance of landing head on each flip. Now, if you had the tools to take in couple thousands or even hundreds data point and normalize it, maybe you can determine if it is a global issue or not, complete with mean and std deviation.

Since you are not in a convenient location to get Apple products fixed easily, I would look for alternative computers if I was worried as you
 
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LouisLeLou

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 22, 2010
36
0
Prague, Czech Republic
I'm just trying to get an idea of the amount of people it affects, not carry out any complicated statistical analysis. It may or may not be futile. If the majority of people even out of a handful of iMac owners experience this issue (taking into account there must be a fair amount of iMac owners on here who haven't only just recently signed up specifically to post about IR), then it will genuinely help me decide whether to seriously reconsider the iMac. If it turns out to be a more isolated problem that I've blown out of proportion in my mind because of a dozen unhappy forum threads by extremely unlucky people, then so be it, I'll still get it.
 
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