Is there any 5K iMac without backlight bleed?

Bleedlight · Jan 9, 2015

Hi! I have had backlight bleed since the first time I powered on my 5K iMac. Stupid of me I thought it was a cool effect to make the screen look cooler. But then I noticed it when playing dark games like silent hill or watching a dark movie.

I live in sweden so therefore I can exchange it within a two or three year period if I have problems which appear to be caused because of the hardware (great laws). So I don't have to rush this for an exchange.

What I'm wondering is if there are people who don't have any bleed problems on a completely dark screen and if I should exchange mine or not. Do I have a bad case?

I've never had these problems with any other computer and my 2011 imac has a perfect screen without bleed.

Here is my screen when zoomed into a solid black picture, hence the cursor in the bottom right:

And here is a picture of the screen while in game on a dark game:

Although the camera exaggerates the colours a bit all the backlight bleed seen is there. In all corbels, a bit on the middle on the top and that big shape on the bottom center of the screen is also bleed.

So do you think I should replace it? And are there any without any bleed when exposed to solid black covering the screen? Thanks.

andy9l · Jan 9, 2015

Not sure why my iPhone camera picked up so much blue, but this is mine...

I'm returning it, but not for backlight bleed. It's not blue, either. It looked black when I took it.

robgendreau · Jan 9, 2015

None on mine.

redheeler · Jan 9, 2015

andy9l said:
Not sure why my iPhone camera picked up so much blue, but this is mine...

I'm returning it, but not for backlight bleed. It's not blue, either. It looked black when I took it.

[url=http://i.imgur.com/CihmRFp.jpg]Image[/url]

Wow, that must be the best one I've seen yet. Why on earth would you return it?

Yes, mine does have backlight bleed. Not quite as bad as the OP's but still noticeable.

WilliamG · Jan 9, 2015

Bleedlight said:
Hi! I have had backlight bleed since the first time I powered on my 5K iMac. Stupid of me I thought it was a cool effect to make the screen look cooler. But then I noticed it when playing dark games like silent hill or watching a dark movie.

I live in sweden so therefore I can exchange it within a two or three year period if I have problems which appear to be caused because of the hardware (great laws). So I don't have to rush this for an exchange.

What I'm wondering is if there are people who don't have any bleed problems on a completely dark screen and if I should exchange mine or not. Do I have a bad case?

I've never had these problems with any other computer and my 2011 imac has a perfect screen without bleed.

Here is my screen when zoomed into a solid black picture, hence the cursor in the bottom right:
Image

And here is a picture of the screen while in game on a dark game:
Image

Although the camera exaggerates the colours a bit all the backlight bleed seen is there. In all corbels, a bit on the middle on the top and that big shape on the bottom center of the screen is also bleed.

So do you think I should replace it? And are there any without any bleed when exposed to solid black covering the screen? Thanks.

Every sing one has backlight bleed. Whether it photographs well or not - EVERYONE has backlight bleed on the 2014 5K iMacs. I can easily take a photo of my 5K iMac where it looks amazing on black, and other photos where it looks absolutely awful.

It generally doesn't bother me since I spend most of my time with light backgrounds, but with dark content like movies/games etc, it can certainly be a bit annoying.

There are variances between panels, and some are worse than others, but I'm happy to bet that there's no 5K panel out there without light bleed at this time. Yours looks like one of the least good ones, but even the one above this post - I can see the light bleed, and also can tell it wasn't exposed like your original photo was. Either the brightness wasn't up, or it wasn't exposing enough to show the issue more clearly.

See? Here's the same image with a little more exposure and black adjustments.

redheeler · Jan 9, 2015

WilliamG said:
Every sing one has backlight bleed. Whether it photographs well or not - EVERYONE has backlight bleed on the 2014 5K iMacs. I can easily take a photo of my 5K iMac where it looks amazing on black, and other photos where it looks absolutely awful.

It generally doesn't bother me since I spend most of my time with light backgrounds, but with dark content like movies/games etc, it can certainly be a bit annoying.

There are variances between panels, and some are worse than others, but I'm happy to bet that there's no 5K panel out there without light bleed at this time. Yours looks like one of the least good ones, but even the one above this post - I can see the light bleed, and also can tell it wasn't exposed like your original photo was. Either the brightness wasn't up, or it wasn't exposing enough to show the issue more clearly.

See? Here's the same image with a little more exposure and black adjustments.

Of course no LCD display is 100% free of backlight bleed, but that one still looks like the best one I've seen so far.

WilliamG · Jan 9, 2015

redheeler said:
Of course no LCD display is 100% free of backlight bleed, but that one still looks like the best one I've seen so far.

No, it looks the best under those exposure/brightness settings. That's all I'm saying. I upped the exposure etc in my above picture - doesn't look so great now, right? Without similar exposures, we only have what people "see" to go by. The pictures really aren't 100% helpful.

andy9l · Jan 9, 2015

Is there any 5K iMac without backlight bleed?

redheeler said:
Wow, that must be the best one I've seen yet. Why on earth would you return it?

It's an i7 / M295X build. Apple told me 105C is not safe for the GPU, or "anything". It's going back, and I'll reconsider later. I also don't appreciate seeing the 2013 iMac outperforming mine. Bit bummed out about it.

Remember, mine is only one of the best you've seen amongst threads of people concerned about backlight issues. That's a very small minority of users! I'm sure a large number of units are similar to mine.

WilliamG said:
No, it looks the best under those exposure/brightness settings. That's all I'm saying. I upped the exposure etc in my above picture - doesn't look so great now, right? Without similar exposures, we only have what people "see" to go by. The pictures really aren't 100% helpful.

WilliamG, you know I'm not one to defend these machines, but I do have to say that my screen had *almost* no visible backlight bleed at the time of this photo. You can change the exposure on my photo, but that's not what it looked like. I will take another photo tomorrow and try to capture it better. Maybe a video.

I have absolutely no reason to lie. This iMac is being picked up by UPS on Monday and going back to Apple. It's a potentially flawed product, but not with regards to the LCD.

WilliamG · Jan 9, 2015

andy9l said:
It's an i7 / M295X build. Apple told me 105C is not safe for the GPU, or "anything". It's going back, and I'll reconsider later. I also don't appreciate seeing the 2013 iMac outperforming mine. Bit bummed out about it.

Remember, mine is only one of the best you've seen amongst threads of people concerned about backlight issues. That's a very small minority of users! I'm sure a large number of units are similar to mine.

WilliamG, you know I'm not one to defend these machines, but I do have to say that my screen had *almost* no visible backlight bleed at the time of this photo. You can change the exposure on my photo, but that's not what it looked like. I will take another photo tomorrow and try to capture it better. Maybe a video.

I have absolutely no reason to lie. This iMac is being picked up by UPS on Monday and going back to Apple. It's a potentially flawed product, but not with regards to the LCD.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't doubt you, but it's certainly possible to see backlight bleed. I'm not saying it's as bad as my re-exposed picture, but it's certainly there. And yes, yours is one of the better ones. Sorry you didn't have a good experience with your iMac.

Kjos · Jan 9, 2015

I had NO idea this was a thing or a problem. I'm going to turn off the lights in my room and test the backlight on my non-retina iMac and see what it looks like. This worries me for 5k owners.

retinaimac · Jan 9, 2015

mine is so minimal that i couldnt see it until i viewed it through my phones camera. Damn if im takin it back.

redheeler · Jan 9, 2015

Thought I would finally upload a picture of mine I took last November. Would guess based on the examples I've seen that mine has an average amount of bleed for the Retina iMacs.

The backlight bleed is visible during normal use on dark or black screens, and most visible at higher brightness settings.

Note: This picture is at full brightness and may be slightly over-exposed, so please feel free to download it and turn down the brightness/exposure if you wish to do so.

WilliamG · Jan 9, 2015

redheeler said:
Thought I would finally upload a picture of mine I took last November. Would guess based on the examples I've seen that mine has an average amount of bleed for the Retina iMacs.

The backlight bleed is visible during normal use on dark or black screens, and most visible at higher brightness settings.

Image

Note: This picture is at full brightness and may be slightly over-exposed, so please feel free to download it and turn down the brightness/exposure if you wish to do so.

Thanks for the upload. That looks similar to my November-build riMac. At this point, nobody should be surprised if his system shows up like this. If one doesn't want to ACCEPT it like this - that's fine, - but don't expect a replacement to be much better. It could easily be worse. It's just the nature of the beast.

redheeler · Jan 9, 2015

WilliamG said:
Thanks for the upload. That looks similar to my November-build riMac. At this point, nobody should be surprised if his system shows up like this. If one doesn't want to ACCEPT it like this - that's fine, - but don't expect a replacement to be much better. It could easily be worse. It's just the nature of the beast.

Mine is an early-on October build.

I do agree that a replacement could be better or worse. Same goes for the color temperature differences I have noticed on the display.

Out of curiosity, have you noticed any color temp differences on yours?

mgb1120 · Jan 9, 2015

Have a week 48 build December, low light bleed, cooler temp screen, also a week 51 December lots of light bleed and warmer screen, all luck of draw.

WilliamG · Jan 9, 2015

redheeler said:
Mine is an early-on October build.

I do agree that a replacement could be better or worse. Same goes for the color temperature differences I have noticed on the display.

Out of curiosity, have you noticed any color temp differences on yours?

Color temp - very slight. I find my outer left edge of my screen to be a little... dingier than the center and right. I leave my brightness very low - often just two notches from the lowest. If I crank the brightness higher, it tends to become much more uniform. I've also color-calibrated mine with my i1 Display Pro, which helped a great deal with the pretty awful factory calibration.

You're always going to get some tinge to these panels. Some of it is viewing angles and some of is just plain panel non-uniformity. Happens every iMac release.

andy9l · Jan 10, 2015

WilliamG said:
Please don't get me wrong. I don't doubt you, but it's certainly possible to see backlight bleed. I'm not saying it's as bad as my re-exposed picture, but it's certainly there. And yes, yours is one of the better ones. Sorry you didn't have a good experience with your iMac.

Here we go, a better photo that does show some. I couldn't take a close-up photo as my iPhone just turns the image blue. Really weird - I have blue curtains and walls in this room though, which may be causing it. Also, I'm definitely not a photographer.

Anyway, here's mine showing a black screen at full brightness.

Mac32 · Jan 11, 2015

There is some backlight bleed on nearly all IPS screens, it's (unfortunately) part of the technology. Unless it's over the top, just keep it. Otherwise, you'll just end up spending a lot of time and energy messing about for nothing.

dyn · Jan 11, 2015

If you need a camera with certain settings and/or photo editing afterwards to see it then that pretty much says it all. How much of a problem is it if the only time you are going to notice is via camera/photo editing?

andy9l · Jan 11, 2015

dyn said:
If you need a camera with certain settings and/or photo editing afterwards to see it then that pretty much says it all. How much of a problem is it if the only time you are going to notice is via camera/photo editing?

As far as I'm aware, no-one has relied on certain camera settings or photo editing. I took one poor photo and someone enhanced it for me before I posted another.

phpmaven · Jan 11, 2015

None on mine

GatorGhost · Jan 11, 2015

I tested all solid colors on screen and not a speck of bleed in...zero. My system is a base iMac retina with 16 gig of memory.

mgb1120 · Jan 11, 2015

GatorGhost said:
I tested all solid colors on screen and not a speck of bleed in...zero. My system is a base iMac retina with 16 gig of memory.

Does not show on solid colors

GatorGhost · Jan 11, 2015

mgb1120 said:
Does not show on solid colors

I never use a blank screen for any reason? From here it works. How do i get to a screen that may have a bleed in? When I reboot and other set up screens as for restore or disk utility...I have never seen any visual distortion.

dyn · Jan 14, 2015

andy9l said:
As far as I'm aware, no-one has relied on certain camera settings or photo editing. I took one poor photo and someone enhanced it for me before I posted another.

That doesn't matter at all, it was purely meant to make you think. I'd worry when I see it without needing a camera/photo editing. If I don't see it with normal use, what's the use in worrying?

Is there any 5K iMac without backlight bleed?

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