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Attention new MBP owners: Please perform this Yellow tint test

Ok, went to the London store, bought another one.

It was another Chimei, and had the same issue. I'm beginning to think this is just how the Chimei ones are.

There wasn't much point opening any more, I'm pretty sure they'd be from the same batch, with the same displays.

I think I'm going to give up - it's too time consuming and too expensive to try and find one that works properly... :(
 
mcbeej said:
Ok, went to the London store, bought another one.

It was another Chimei, and had the same issue. I'm beginning to think this is just how the Chimei ones are.

There wasn't much point opening any more, I'm pretty sure they'd be from the same batch, with the same displays.

I think I'm going to give up - it's too time consuming and too expensive to try and find one that works properly... :(
Click to expand...


I've seen several Chi mei displays, both on the first generation MBP and on the most recent, and they've all been yellowish/brownish with murky whites and uneven backlighting. Quite frankly, they've been among the worst laptop LCDs I've seen. If I had received two of those, I would not try another one either. Sorry to hear about your bad luck - what about looking into a used MBP? That's not a bad idea since you can easily inspect the display before you buy.
 
PDE said:
I've seen several Chi mei displays, both on the first generation MBP and on the most recent, and they've all been yellowish/brownish with murky whites and uneven backlighting. Quite frankly, they've been among the worst laptop LCDs I've seen. If I had received two of those, I would not try another one either.
Click to expand...

I've received *four* of these now.

PDE said:
Sorry to hear about your bad luck - what about looking into a used MBP? That's not a bad idea since you can easily inspect the display before you buy.
Click to expand...

Yeah, possibly. The thing is, I want a recent machine, with Applecare, and some peace of mind. It seems my money might not be good enough to get all of those things.

I haven't decided what to do about it yet, but thanks for your support.

In the meantime, back to my trusty Powerbook - it may be old, slow, and significantly broken, but at least white is the same colour at the top and the bottom of the screen... (!)
 
mcbeej said:
They won't do that, for fairly obvious reasons. The won't open a box until it's been purchased. You can't get them to open up a hundred boxes until you find one that's "acceptable".

The best you can do is buy a machine, then open it up, and if it has a noticeable problem, swap it for a new one. If you're lucky you may get a third try - after that they will just offer a refund.
Click to expand...

Yea, that's what I meant, at least you avoid the pain of going back/sending it back to be fixed.
 
Well, I've just ordered MBP #5, this time as a cto from the online store with a larger hard drive - at least that way it won't be coming from current UK stocks, giving the best chance of avoiding those chimei screens.

If it's still crap, then unless it's really bad, I'll live with it and buy an external monitor to do much of my regular work on.

Fingers crossed...
 
just received my mbp today

I just received my Penyrn 15.4, 2.4 mbp today. I was concerned with all the posts on yellowing screens. I did not notice any yellowing after taking the test.
 
PDE said:
I don't think it's spreading. I think it has been an issue ever since the introduction of the LED LCDs last year. It's neither worse or better - which means that it's still bad. I've seen some pretty awful 17" MBP LCds too - mainly very unevenly backlit displays, but perhaps the new LED ones are much better. And I used to have one that had an LG display that was great too.
Click to expand...

The yellowish issue itself is acknowledged by Apple engineers, at least from my own experience. 17" MBP may have unevenly backlit issue, though it is far better than 15" LED.
 
verveshen said:
The yellowish issue itself is acknowledged by Apple engineers, at least from my own experience. 17" MBP may have unevenly backlit issue, though it is far better than 15" LED.
Click to expand...

That may be the case, but an acknowledgement doesn't mean anything when the product line has suffered from this defect since last summer. They need to act! Not just acknowledge....
 
PDE said:
That may be the case, but an acknowledgement doesn't mean anything when the product line has suffered from this defect since last summer. They need to act! Not just acknowledge....
Click to expand...

Only if the noise is loud enough! :D
 
mcbeej said:
Yeah, possibly. The thing is, I want a recent machine, with Applecare, and some peace of mind. It seems my money might not be good enough to get all of those things.
Click to expand...

I gave up after two 15 inch screens. I was thinking about upgrading to the 17 inch high res, but I just don't have confidence in those either now.

I don't care about the price, but in this case even spending more money doesn't seem to be a guarantee of quality.

Now I'm downgrading to a Macbook because I don't care about the screen as much on a $1000 machine. Especially when it won't be used in the same way. When Apple decide to redesign the MBP I'll take another look at a desktop replacement unit.
 
I got the standard 17", not the hi res. It was build to order.
The screen is clear and white. As far as I know these macbook pros are the last ones that use the old screen technology which is one of the reasons I bought it as I was worried about the issues I'd read reported.
 
I'm hoping it isn't as widespread as it appears in this thread. I would hope there are many more satisfied MBP owners out there that got a great screen.
 
ArcaneDevice said:
I looked at some of the 15inchers at two local Apple stores and they seemed fine. They had C83 screens.
Click to expand...

I've seen good ones and bad ones in the NYC stores - of both 9c83 and 9c81 models. Whether or not one gets a good display seems to have nothing or little to do with the model. It seems to be just pure luck and a gamble.
 
PDE said:
I've seen good ones and bad ones in the NYC stores - of both 9c83 and 9c81 models. Whether or not one gets a good display seems to have nothing or little to do with the model. It seems to be just pure luck and a gamble.
Click to expand...
I find that hard to believe its THAT bad as a whole. In my OPINION, if it was they would address the issue, similar to MS and the RROD.
 
PDE said:
I've seen good ones and bad ones in the NYC stores - of both 9c83 and 9c81 models. Whether or not one gets a good display seems to have nothing or little to do with the model. It seems to be just pure luck and a gamble.
Click to expand...

I definitely thinks it's more prevalent in the C82.

I wouldn't be surprised if the problem units were all assembled early last year. The display on the 15 has not changed in a long time so most of Penryn screens have probably been assembled a long time ago just waiting to be dropped onto the next unit in line.
 
Heil68 said:
I find that hard to believe its THAT bad as a whole. In my OPINION, if it was they would address the issue, similar to MS and the RROD.
Click to expand...

Well, its all about having a strict quality control department, directly at the assembly lines. If Apple would see this as a priority, there would be a significantly lower number of affected displays.
 
ArcaneDevice said:
I definitely thinks it's more prevalent in the C82.

I wouldn't be surprised if the problem units were all assembled early last year. The display on the 15 has not changed in a long time so most of Penryn screens have probably been assembled a long time ago just waiting to be dropped onto the next unit in line.
Click to expand...

According to the switchrevX DDC data on everybody's LCDs, the LCDs were all manufactured in the first weeks of 2007 - even the ones shipping now...

I agree that the 9c82 seems significantly worse than the other two. Apple should really stop using it immediately. I think one of the reasons they haven't addressed it is that they part number is the same regardless of the LCD model, which means that it would be very hard to remove all the bad displays. That's what a genius told me when I tried asking for a specific LCD model last year - don't know if he was well-informed or not.
 
MBP 15.4" 2.4 Penryn (stock)
Purchased from Amazon.com (arrived yesterday)
Screen: 9C81

Issue: Obvious yellowing and vertical LED shadows on 1/4 inch bottom section. No dead pixels or noticeable color bleeding. Changing icc color profile does not help and actually exacerbates the LED shadow issue.

I waited for the recent update in hopes that the LED display issues would be resolved. Unfortunately, that doesn't look to be the case.

I guess I'll head into my local Apple store tomorrow. :(
 
MBP 15.4" 2.4 Penryn
Screen: 9c83

With the test image, can see yellow color on the bottom. However, when I changed the whole background to be white. The yellow is not obvious on the bottom. The perception of grey/white transition makes the yellow stand out.
 
PDE said:
According to the switchrevX DDC data on everybody's LCDs, the LCDs were all manufactured in the first weeks of 2007 - even the ones shipping now...
Click to expand...

It's a bit unlikely, is it? :confused: Over half a million LED TFTs were manufactured in a couple of weeks?
 
verveshen said:
It's a bit unlikely, is it? :confused: Over half a million LED TFTs were manufactured in a couple of weeks?
Click to expand...

Well, there are at least three manufacturers. The information comes directly from the DDC file - I didn't make it up. And, of course this is from a small sample of displays being checked by posters at macrumors....
 
PDE said:
Well, there are at least three manufacturers. The information comes directly from the DDC file - I didn't make it up. And, of course this is from a small sample of displays being checked by posters at macrumors....
Click to expand...

Aha! You misunderstood my reply; it is the switchrevX DDC data that is a bit suspicious:D
 
verveshen said:
Aha! You misunderstood my reply; it is the switchrevX DDC data that is a bit suspicious:D
Click to expand...

That may be true, but the other information in the file seems accurate. Do you know where switchrevX gets its data? I'll go look on their site...
 
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