iPad 2 LCD Refresh Problems?

[nathanjbrown]

Hi Everyone,

I've owned the original iPad since launch and never noticed the following. It seems to me that my iPad 2 has an LCD refresh issue. Would you all mind trying the following:

Open the App Store and tap an app to view the details page (GarageBand will suffice). While on the details page, tap the "$4.99" button once (or whatever price it is)…Don't tap it twice as I don't want to be blamed for you purchasing an app you didn't really want. Now…When you tap that price button, move your finger out of the way and look closely at the button as it animates the transition from price to "BUY APP." Do you see a little flickering vertical line about an eighth of an inch in from the left side of the button? It only occurs during the transition animation from app price to "BUY APP." That appears to be an LCD refresh issue because I can't snag it with a screen shot (I've tried repeatedly and it doesn't show up). To test this repeatedly, simply tap anywhere other than the "BUY APP" button so that it animates back to its original state and displays the app price.

Next test: Load up MacRumors.com (or any other page with a combination of text and images) in Safari on your iPad 2, touch your finger to the screen, and gently wiggle up and down so that the page scrolls vertically slightly. Do you see the text and images "bending" horizontally on the screen? Again…I can't capture this in a screen shot, so it appears to be a horizontal refresh issue (something I don't ever remember seeing on my original iPad).

Thoughts?

Nathan

P.S. I tend not to be an individual who seeks out problems with new gadgets. These two abnormalities jumped out at me as obvious oddities. I've used my original iPad every day and don't ever remember seeing these issues.

 

[Kadin]

Hi Everyone,

I've owned the original iPad since launch and never noticed the following. It seems to me that my iPad 2 has an LCD refresh issue. Would you all mind trying the following:

Open the App Store and tap an app to view the details page (GarageBand will suffice). While on the details page, tap the "$4.99" button once (or whatever price it is)…Don't tap it twice as I don't want to be blamed for you purchasing an app you didn't really want. Now…When you tap that price button, move your finger out of the way and look closely at the button as it animates the transition from price to "BUY APP." Do you see a little flickering vertical line about an eighth of an inch in from the left side of the button? It only occurs during the transition animation from app price to "BUY APP." That appears to be an LCD refresh issue because I can't snag it with a screen shot (I've tried repeatedly and it doesn't show up). To test this repeatedly, simply tap anywhere other than the "BUY APP" button so that it animates back to its original state and displays the app price.

Next test: Load up MacRumors.com (or any other page with a combination of text and images) in Safari on your iPad 2, touch your finger to the screen, and gently wiggle up and down so that the page scrolls vertically slightly. Do you see the text and images "bending" horizontally on the screen? Again…I can't capture this in a screen shot, so it appears to be a horizontal refresh issue (something I don't ever remember seeing on my original iPad).

Thoughts?

Nathan

P.S. I tend not to be an individual who seeks out problems with new gadgets. These two abnormalities jumped out at me as obvious oddities. I've used my original iPad every day and don't ever remember seeing these issues.

Oddly enough, both of these things you mention I actually do now see. I didn't before and truth be told, I don't see it as an issue. I've been surfing for the past few hours and buying a bunch of apps and both of these things were completely unnoticeable...

 

[h00ligan]

It's not a refresh issue it's an HTML / image issue. Dashed line ending at the plus sign spells overlay to me..the line is there for buy and the price


No on macrumors text bending.

 

[nathanjbrown]

With another few hours of use under my belt, I'm fairly convinced this is an LCD refresh rate issue. Here's another thing to try:

Visit MacRumors.com, scroll about an article or two down the page, and then quickly "drag" your finger the entire vertical length of the screen, bottom to top and top to bottom. Notice that the left side of images and lines of text move slightly ahead of the right. Why? Because - if I'm not mistaken - LCD panels refresh from left to right, top to bottom. As you drag a webpage vertically at a rapid pace, the refresh rate can't keep up and a visual abnormality is created wherein the left side of images or lines of text appear to move slightly ahead of the right (because, in fact, those pixels on the left are indeed shifting state before the pixels on the right). In other words, the right side of your screen is always a step behind when scrolling rapidly.

I never noticed this on the original iPad and it certainly isn't the case on my 13" MBP or 27" iMac. It's painfully obvious - and distracting - to me on the iPad 2. I asked my fiancee to take a look and she said, "i don't know what you're talking about. I don't see anything. Wait a minute! Yeah. I see it. That's weird."

Her "weird" is my "unacceptable."

Thoughts?

Perhaps I'll head over to iFixit to determine if there is anything different between the LCD panels of original iPads vs. iPad 2.

 

[kramjam]

I almost feel the same way, can we get some more input on this issue and reports from other new owners to see what's going on here before we are out of return policy?

 

[nathanjbrown]

A quick update for those who are interested:

The "refresh rate" issue I'm seeing is not unique to the iPad 2. I went back and conducted the same Safari scrolling test on the original iPad and iPhone 4 and both exhibit the "bending" issue in one way or another:

• iPad 2: Scrolling up and down in Safari at a rapid pace, the left side of text and images appear to lead with the right side lagging a bit behind (it looks like everything is bending when scrolling).
• iPad: Scrolling in the same way as mentioned previously, the RIGHT side leads with the left side lagging behind. Again, text and images appear to bend when scrolling rapidly, but in the opposite direction. Curious...
• iPhone 4: This bending issue is present when scrolling rapidly in Safari with the iPhone 4 oriented horizontally in landscape rather than portrait. Interesting!

So whether this is a refresh rate issue, pixel response time issue or simply a page rendering phenomenon, it's nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not sure why it jumped out at me as it did, but I'll learn to ignore it. It's rather odd, however, that my other Apple products with LCD panels don't exhibit the same behavior when scrolling in Safari.

 

[Maclver]

I can't reproduce it on the iPhone 4?

 

[admanimal]

The web page bending-when-scrolling issue was one of the very first things I noticed when I was using the iPad 2, but you're right that it does happen on the original iPad as well. Perhaps it is a bit more pronounced on the iPad 2 because the page can be rendered faster by the GPU, so as you scroll more of the image will have changed from one LCD refresh to the next.