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27", 21.5" iMac Owners, test your screen for yellow tint issue here
- Thread starter tapplox
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Sent back for good
I told Apple today that I wanted to send back my iMac for good and a full refund.
The original (3rd week Feb) iMac had moderate yellowing. The second one (2nd week March) had minor yellowing. They offered to replace the screen at the apple store for the third time, but I decided to pass.
After sending them photos, they did say "our engineers say it is within spec but we'll still try to fix it for you... and, btw, I personally wouldn't settle for that either". I got the same sentiments from the rep who took the return request, as well.
Basically, I did a comparison (photo and sampled segments of it in photoshop) of the 27" screen to my 6 year old cheap HP L1925, and found that the business class monitor was far better (and not great, at that). Both color consistency and lighting intensity/consistency. That speaks volumes about the poor quality of the overall panel. After all, this is advertised as the 'ultimate display'.
FWIW: I asked the tier-2 tech about the rumor someone posted about a third version of the display being used. They came back a day later, and said they could not find record of that being the case -- but that all panels used for service replacement are inspected manually for the yellowing issue.
Good luck to all of you with these machines. I opted to find a 2009 8-core mac pro for about half of retail, so that was the preferred option, despite it's a power hog. I can use any non-apple display with it, though!
I told Apple today that I wanted to send back my iMac for good and a full refund.
The original (3rd week Feb) iMac had moderate yellowing. The second one (2nd week March) had minor yellowing. They offered to replace the screen at the apple store for the third time, but I decided to pass.
After sending them photos, they did say "our engineers say it is within spec but we'll still try to fix it for you... and, btw, I personally wouldn't settle for that either". I got the same sentiments from the rep who took the return request, as well.
Basically, I did a comparison (photo and sampled segments of it in photoshop) of the 27" screen to my 6 year old cheap HP L1925, and found that the business class monitor was far better (and not great, at that). Both color consistency and lighting intensity/consistency. That speaks volumes about the poor quality of the overall panel. After all, this is advertised as the 'ultimate display'.
FWIW: I asked the tier-2 tech about the rumor someone posted about a third version of the display being used. They came back a day later, and said they could not find record of that being the case -- but that all panels used for service replacement are inspected manually for the yellowing issue.
Good luck to all of you with these machines. I opted to find a 2009 8-core mac pro for about half of retail, so that was the preferred option, despite it's a power hog. I can use any non-apple display with it, though!
Well, IMHO yes! It's within the technology used. The backlight follows an Apple patent - that's why you don't have this kind of "quality" on any other screen, even from the same manufacturer (LG that is).
My 21.5" is on the 5th panel. I did not qualify for a refund, since I bought it at a non-apple retail store, bought Apple Care somewhere else and fixed it at a third place. I just received the call from the repair guys where it has been now for the fith time (trips 4 and 5 only for cleaning their own dust!!!) that the machine is ready.
I now have an "acceptable" panel with very slight yellowing but a grey shadow along the lower border. If you look at iMacs displayed in shops, you will realize their bad screens when they are not showing the space aurora wallpaper :-(. I will settle with it but continue to warn everybody to buy this round of iMacs!!!
PS: Got it back from the 5th trip to repair. Sole purpose was to clean the dust. We fired up the machine in store. I saw dust. He opened it again, it was no dust, but dead or 50%lit sub-pixels (about 5 or 6 green and 4 or 5 red and 3 or 4 blue sub-pixels not OK). He would change it, but chances are that Apple would monitor my panel very closely and find it was within (their) tolerances. I decided to keep it.
At home, I found one single corn of dust that sneaked in while this procedure near the center of the screen.
I don't dare to call the shop for fixing it for free and I guess I would not get Apple's approval for another warranty case based on this.
Interesting. With this being said, does anyone have a rough estimate on when the 'next round' of iMac's will be released, or atleast when this issue may be fixed properly?
I Am 50/50 in my mind whether to go ahead with my Genius appointment on Tuesday.
It will be such a pain to lug the darn machine to the Apple Store in Sydney CBD and have to lug another machine back (which will probably have the yellow tinge!).
Go ahead. Just make sure you got a screen you wanted. Otherwise you have the right to say no. Though just be prepared that if the new one has just slight faint yellowing (like really feint, not noticeable during reading text unless you go match up pixel by pixel in photoshop) that is evenly distributed instead of blotchy spots and the grey band is not so visible then you should probably keep it. All the panels inherent the problem from the design.
Just open up about:blank in safari and test without the bright lights in the shop.
Yours judging by the picture looks fine. I think the top two bars are darker is because of the viewing angle. The colours in the other bars look consistent (well at least from the photo since you didn't widen the bars to the edges of the screen). I'd keep it if I were you. It's not one of those crazy replacements I'm so bloody lucky to receive again and again.
return if you are not 100% satisfied and if yellowing bothers you. From the pictures it looks like there's light bleed at the bottom towards the left corner (seems lighter than areas around it), and yellowing seems to build up to the right side as well as a big blotch at the bottom centre (noticeable at where the lighter and darker grey bar meet -- grey tone suddenly changes).
I personally won't mind looking at people's screens should anyone have doubts provided I have time, but what I think you should take it no more further than a suggestion. As I do a lot of stuff that requires uniform colour distribution and colour precision, I could be a bit more picky than some other people who would otherwise be more tolerant to your case. I have seen and used many, many screens similar sized to the iMacs and IMHO they do not have any of these blotchy random yellow tints on the screen.
Well I went to the apple store and he never had to deal with it he said but its his first time and he saw it. I was going to keep it until my mother stopped by and said "thats beautiful! why's it look yellow down here though?" fail lol. I just shipped it back, it wasn't a horrible copy but thats not what I'm paying for.
hi guys.
first of all sorry me for my english (i'm italian).
i have ordered a new BTO iMac 27" from a premium reseller (BTO means built to order,correct?) 8gb ram,i7,2 terabyte hard disk
very curious thing: when i asked to the seller "from all the 27 inch imac you sold,how many machines return back to you for: freezing,yellow tinge etc.." the answer (LOL) was something like this ": really? no never happened. don't trust what you read from the forum over the web".
anyway...i think i will receive a 14-15th week machine. i hope that all will be ok (but i have read some people with 14th week imac and also having problem..my god!)
i'll send you my personal feedback when it arrives (maybe next week) live from the premium reseller store (i will open and test the machine for the first time there,could be very funny to see the faces of other customers and the sellers).
first of all sorry me for my english (i'm italian).
i have ordered a new BTO iMac 27" from a premium reseller (BTO means built to order,correct?) 8gb ram,i7,2 terabyte hard disk
very curious thing: when i asked to the seller "from all the 27 inch imac you sold,how many machines return back to you for: freezing,yellow tinge etc.." the answer (LOL) was something like this "
: really? no never happened. don't trust what you read from the forum over the web".anyway...i think i will receive a 14-15th week machine. i hope that all will be ok (but i have read some people with 14th week imac and also having problem..my god!)
i'll send you my personal feedback when it arrives (maybe next week) live from the premium reseller store (i will open and test the machine for the first time there,could be very funny to see the faces of other customers and the sellers).
Thanks iSamurai, I've uploaded the pics.
Appreciate any comments you or anyone else might have.
Attachments
Thanks iSamurai, I've uploaded the pics.
Appreciate any comments you or anyone else might have.
Slighly warm/yellow in the bottom corner. It's not bad though. Not sure what it looks like in person.
Thanks iSamurai, I've uploaded the pics.
Appreciate any comments you or anyone else might have.
There is no grey bar at least !
I didn't know there were some grey bar free 27".
Thanks iSamurai, I've uploaded the pics.
Appreciate any comments you or anyone else might have.
I would probably return that if I had it. Yellow builds up a gradient at the bottom edge and gets higher to the right, and two vertical columns of yellow (less prominent) on the middle and the right edge. I wouldn't keep that for my purposes if the severity actually looks worse in person but if it doesn't affect your work then you should consider keeping it.
Here's what I think about the yellowing issue if you have a screen like alanwong's screen (blotchy at places, vertical or horizontal bands at some regions across the middle or at the edge of the screen). Ask yourself what tasks below you would most likely to do on your iMac.
tolerable when:
- watching movies or TV
- browsing photos from your last holiday
- playing games
- family computer when most of the time kids are using for school projects/homework
- video editing, even at a professional level (though some may disagree)
- editing photos and of high importance on a regular basis, for submission or publishing
- reading plain text, articles & journals, or simply browsing the web and word processing frequently (against a solid background colour)
- graphics designing, interior design or where colour selection is crucial
- profession or job related tasks, when you just don't want to take that chance
Gosh, I can't believe paying for a premium computer AKA "Apple", we would resort to listing what tasks may be ok for what purposes
.....
Here's what I think about the yellowing issue if you have a screen like alanwong's screen (blotchy at places, vertical or horizontal bands at some regions across the middle or at the edge of the screen). Ask yourself what tasks below you would most likely to do on your iMac.
.......
Gosh, I can't believe paying for a premium computer AKA "Apple", we would resort to listing what tasks may be ok for what purposes
My assessment was very similar, yellow bottom right and blueish top left. Also the gray level changes quite substantially across the screen.
My more general question would be, how the 27" iMac screen compares to, say, an LCD TV screen? I think it would be fair to compare apples and apples, and for example the LED Samsung screens look so brilliant and uniform in the store. I did some tests with my slides on such a screen and the results were stunning (for me).
What are your thoughts on it?
Tom B.
How did you get your refund?
I'm going into the Apple Store on Tuesday to try and get a refund.
For those of you who managed to get a refund, did you call Apple Care beforehand or just rocked up to the Store and asked for a refund?
Appreciate any tips to ensure I have a smooth refund experience!
I'm going into the Apple Store on Tuesday to try and get a refund.
For those of you who managed to get a refund, did you call Apple Care beforehand or just rocked up to the Store and asked for a refund?
Appreciate any tips to ensure I have a smooth refund experience!
Do you mean LED computer screens like this?
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31045_1-10427633-269.html
Does anyone know if the iMac screens are RGB Dynamic LED backlit or Edge LED backlit? There's an interesting article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED-backlit_LCD_television
I called Apple (I dunno which department but it's 1300 321 456) and I told them I want a refund, they transferred me to someone and they said ok no problem.
The new iMacs appear to use a white LED "tile" backlighting (not edge) system of Apple's own design...check out the patent in my thread here.
I meant a regular LED LCD HDTV, for example like this. There is a number of large screen LED HDTVs from Samsung (6000, 7000, 8000 series) and lately LG, which can be used as a computer display, or slide show medium, with really excellent picture quality. Could be a good reference point to quantify iMac screen quality (maybe we expect too much from the iMac LED display, although, judging from the Samsung visual experience, I don't think so).
Tom B.
I am not sure it is fair to compare with an LCD TV. A TV is designed to view material from a distance not for close work that monitors are generally used for. Also non of these other makes make the claim "Ultimte Display".
Thanks iSamurai, I've uploaded the pics.
Appreciate any comments you or anyone else might have.
I'm on my own IPS screen. The entire bottom half is a much darker yellow color than the top half. I'm not sure why people are saying it's only the bottom right corner. It's very bad in the bottom half. Same for one of the machines up above.
Oh, for me it's the Ultimate Display:
* Never had to change a screen 5 times - ultimate experience
* Never had to find that the dust they left after finally finding an "acceptable" ("Keep it, they won't get better!") panel ultimately were dead pixels.
* Never had a display with dead pixels, so it's ultimatively the first
So, for me, having the iMac since November 2009, theoretically since it had been away over 2 months combined, this is my ultimate first-Mac-experience.
I could have gotten that cheaper by buying a PC.
We are splitting the hair on the 27" iMac display quality, my suggestion was that maybe we are asking LCD display (LED, or not) for too much.
My observation is, that the LED LCD HDTV screens seem to be very uniform with white (I didn't test variations of the grey) and was/am curious, how this things, using similar technology, compare to the iMac (or rather how iMac compares to those displays)? Anybody?
Tom B.