After sending back 4 units (from the refurb store, don't worry, no big loss for Apple) the fifth finally sports a 9c85 panel.
Finally, I see what the fuss was all about ! and I can confirm what the poster of this thread found out.
Here are some comparison photos, taken with the same calibration settings on both units (gamma 2.2 and D65 white point using the Colorsync utility). I didn't use the same profile, just the same settings.
The orange wallpaper is particularly breathtaking (I stacked the laptops to avoid viewing angle differences). The 9c85 is simply more saturated and is closer to the true red/orange displayed by my CRT, even if the colors are still incredibly dull (it's my first glossy screen and it's really deceiving).
The white screens were taken at maximum brightness on both machines. The 9c84 being (much?) brighter than the 9c85 is a myth, apparently. I metered each screen from up close with my EOS 5D markII and the exposure readout was strictly the same, proof that they're not even 1/3 EV apart (you couldn't tell the difference).
I also wouldn't call the 9c85 "piss yellow". It's simply less cold than the 9c84 and it's closer to the proper white.
I didn't shoot a comparison of the black level side by side with a black screen but they were quite close, except of course the 9c84 had a blue-ish black whereas the 9c85 was normal. There was no noticeable bleeding on the 9c85 either.
But sadly... this 5th 9c85 unit is going back to Apple : its trackpad is sticking out on one side, it has slanted F keys, an unpleasant "spongy" right arrow key and most of all, when booting it up for the first time, I noticed colored flickering groups of pixels on the language selection screen at the beginning of the OS X installation. Freaky. I couldn't see those again during normal use but it certainly wasn't a pleasant thought. And then, upon comparing the black level on fully black screens, the colored packs of pixels appearing randomly, were back on the 9c85 screen, while the 9c84 just beside it exhibited absolutely nothing but black (albeit with a blue cast). I captured this flickering on video, I'll try to put that online later.
I don't know whether this is a faulty GPU, the normal behaviour of a 9c85 panel with black images or just a faulty panel... either way it's going back.
And I'll only settle for another 9c85 panel, of course. Too bad the previous units had 4GB ram instead of 2, or even a 7200rpm disk... I'll take the vivid screen anyday
Finally, I see what the fuss was all about ! and I can confirm what the poster of this thread found out.
Here are some comparison photos, taken with the same calibration settings on both units (gamma 2.2 and D65 white point using the Colorsync utility). I didn't use the same profile, just the same settings.
The orange wallpaper is particularly breathtaking (I stacked the laptops to avoid viewing angle differences). The 9c85 is simply more saturated and is closer to the true red/orange displayed by my CRT, even if the colors are still incredibly dull (it's my first glossy screen and it's really deceiving).
The white screens were taken at maximum brightness on both machines. The 9c84 being (much?) brighter than the 9c85 is a myth, apparently. I metered each screen from up close with my EOS 5D markII and the exposure readout was strictly the same, proof that they're not even 1/3 EV apart (you couldn't tell the difference).
I also wouldn't call the 9c85 "piss yellow". It's simply less cold than the 9c84 and it's closer to the proper white.
I didn't shoot a comparison of the black level side by side with a black screen but they were quite close, except of course the 9c84 had a blue-ish black whereas the 9c85 was normal. There was no noticeable bleeding on the 9c85 either.
But sadly... this 5th 9c85 unit is going back to Apple : its trackpad is sticking out on one side, it has slanted F keys, an unpleasant "spongy" right arrow key and most of all, when booting it up for the first time, I noticed colored flickering groups of pixels on the language selection screen at the beginning of the OS X installation. Freaky. I couldn't see those again during normal use but it certainly wasn't a pleasant thought. And then, upon comparing the black level on fully black screens, the colored packs of pixels appearing randomly, were back on the 9c85 screen, while the 9c84 just beside it exhibited absolutely nothing but black (albeit with a blue cast). I captured this flickering on video, I'll try to put that online later.
I don't know whether this is a faulty GPU, the normal behaviour of a 9c85 panel with black images or just a faulty panel... either way it's going back.
And I'll only settle for another 9c85 panel, of course. Too bad the previous units had 4GB ram instead of 2, or even a 7200rpm disk... I'll take the vivid screen anyday
