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Macbook Air 2012 - LG vs Samsung LCD

Got the LG screen. Aw chucks ;/ It doesn't look THAT bad to me though yesterday I could swear the all fonts were not pixel mapped properly hence were a little bit blurry. Today the problem seem lesser.

Soo which page of the thread has the best color profile for 13" LG? :D
 
me22 said:
OK, here's my completely unscientific comparison...

I got two Airs (one is for a friend), same configuration, same order. They shipped from the same place and arrived at the same time. The serial numbers have one different character. They are identical down to the geekbench score, except that one has a Samsung panel, and the other has an LG. Go figure.

I took a bunch of photos, with and without calibration by eye (on both of them at the same time). Everything was done side by side. Don't ask which shots are calibrated... I don't know anymore, but I included the system preferences app in some to make it clear.

They were taken with an iPhone 4 in a dimly lit room. Deal with it. ;)

See the photos here (edit: oh yeah, Samsung is on the right): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9qxinbz1bpfsp39/hWP6K-5Tcq

My observations:

Yes. the Samsung screen has more contrast, but IMO, a bit too much by default. The LG shows a bit more detail in the darks, but less pop in general. The LG's white is *ever so slightly* darker when side by side, but not noticeably otherwise. Calibrated, they are very close, but the Samsung seems to have more trouble with very smooth gradients (such as window shadows) in either case. For example, the login screen with a solid gray background shows some extreme banding on the Samsung (not so much on the LG). That bugs me a bit. The Samsung is not "sharper" as some have said (I assume that's just a misunderstanding of the terms contrast vs. sharpness).

The Samsung has darker blacks, as you can see with the black screen when the lights are out, but the LG seems more even overall as you can see in many shots, but mostly on the gray login screen and dashboard background. Blues seem a bit richer on the Samsung, but as with contrast, almost too much.

My opinion:

They are both very nice, and I seriously can't decide which one I will take for myself just yet. If I were to use it mostly for watching movies and stuff, I might prefer the Samsung just because of the slightly darker blacks, but possibly the LG since along with smoother gradients, compression artifacts don't seem to stand out as much. For black on white text, the Samsung also seems a bit better when side by side with the LG, but it wouldn't bug me if I couldn't compare, and neither is amazing after seeing a Retina MBP. If this is at all a companion for photo or graphics work, I think the LG may have an edge, since it doesn't lose as much detail in dark areas, seems to be able to handle gradients better, and is more consistent across the screen.

I will be sleeping on it and comparing again in daylight tomorrow, but honestly, I kind of wish I didn't get to compare the two. As picky as I am, I would have been plenty happy with either.
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Huh? You opened your friends brand spanking new MacBook Air and are trying to determine which of the two to give him? Your friend must really be understanding.
 
Fissure said:
Huh? You opened your friends brand spanking new MacBook Air and are trying to determine which of the two to give him? Your friend must really be understanding.
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Um. She asked me to unpack and set it up. Where am I in the wrong here? Should I have flipped a coin first?
 
Fissure said:
Huh? You opened your friends brand spanking new MacBook Air and are trying to determine which of the two to give him? Your friend must really be understanding.
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he means he picked them both up and his setting the friends up and then will give it to them. Also, I honestly think with a color profile they look so similar the LG vs Samsung issue is irrelevant
 
Wokis said:
Got the LG screen. Aw chucks ;/ It doesn't look THAT bad to me though yesterday I could swear the all fonts were not pixel mapped properly hence were a little bit blurry. Today the problem seem lesser.

Soo which page of the thread has the best color profile for 13" LG? :D
Click to expand...
Three posts above yours. From those, I prefer the MacRumors profile (it also shows up as Color LCD in System preferences, but the tooltips reveals the file's name).

I see no issues with blurry fonts or anything else, and I can't see why an LCD panel of the same resolution would have that problem.

What I can say with certainty at this point is that the LG with a custom profile looks better than the Samsung without one. Better gradients and less apparent clipping in lights and darks. I'd bet that a properly calibrated Samsung would look better as well, but I'm going to say I prefer the LG and expect to be pretty happy with it.
 
me22 said:
Three posts above yours. From those, I prefer the MacRumors profile (it also shows up as Color LCD in System preferences, but the tooltips reveals the file's name).

I see no issues with blurry fonts or anything else, and I can't see why an LCD panel of the same resolution would have that problem.

What I can say with certainty at this point is that the LG with a custom profile looks better than the Samsung without one. Better gradients and less apparent clipping in lights and darks. I'd bet that a properly calibrated Samsung would look better as well, but I'm going to say I prefer the LG and expect to be pretty happy with it.
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the one on osxdaily? or the 280 one?
 
I have 2012 MBA: 13" LG screen and 256GB Samsung SSD. I used the color profile for the screen and personally I like this one BETTER than my previous with Samsung panel. I had similar MBA with Samsung screen but returned it due to battery life issues and dead pixels.

If you have the LG screen, just use the color profile and you're good to go!
 
Just got my MBA, i7/8/512. Samsung display+Samsung SSD.

I knew immediately upon starting it up that it was a Samsung display. To me, the difference is startling compared my returned LG model.
 
What's the over/under on how many posts there will be in this thread before people realize that posting their subjective opinions is pointless and that with the right profile, the LG looks as good as the Samsung?
 
aatuz said:
I have 2012 MBA: 13" LG screen and 256GB Samsung SSD. I used the color profile for the screen and personally I like this one BETTER than my previous with Samsung panel. I had similar MBA with Samsung screen but returned it due to battery life issues and dead pixels.

If you have the LG screen, just use the color profile and you're good to go!
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can you point me to the correct file? (it seems there are quite a few files in this post)
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15232676/

Thanks

----------

found it: it should be CustomMacRumors.icc.
 
I originally got a LG display but returned the unit due to another issue. The replacement unit has a Samsung LCD and Samsung SSD. Even though I replaced the color profile with the MacRumors profile on the LG, I still prefer the Samsung display (I had Samsung on my 2011 MBA as well).
 
ctdw said:
I originally got a LG display but returned the unit due to another issue. The replacement unit has a Samsung LCD and Samsung SSD. Even though I replaced the color profile with the MacRumors profile on the LG, I still prefer the Samsung display (I had Samsung on my 2011 MBA as well).
Click to expand...

Prefer = subjective.
 
ctdw said:
Which is why I said "I prefer"...I can't tell anyone that the Samsung is technically the best screen. It's just what I prefer after seeing them both.
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I understand what you mean and I agree 100%. It would be nice to know the technical abilities of the displays to absolutely know for sure which is "better". For me the Samsung pops, whereas the LG was flat.
 
mpaquette said:
I'm calling my Spyder profile a winner. Everything seems to have more contrast and there is less blue compared to the default profile. It's really noticeable when viewing photos.
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Hmm, that pretty much sounds like my experience with calibrating my MBA. I did tell it to calibrate with a gamma of 2.2 and colour temp. of 6500K though.
 
I would love to create a counterthread saying "DON'T WORRY IF YOU DON'T GET A SAMSUNG PANEL".

Seriously, I would love to know if the average user can distinguish between the screens without being told what they are beforehand. I failed and I suspect most (except those with a trained eye for it) will fail too.
 
Jobsian said:
I would love to create a counterthread saying "DON'T WORRY IF YOU DON'T GET A SAMSUNG PANEL".

Seriously, I would love to know if the average user can distinguish between the screens without being told what they are beforehand. I failed and I suspect most (except those with a trained eye for it) will fail too.
Click to expand...

I, like may others, can definitely tell pre profile that is. I think if you slapped a profile on the LG and put it next to the samsung it would be difficult to tell.
 
aatuz said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the panels are same what they've used last year. :rolleyes:
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The Samsung part number mentioned in the 2011 Anandtech comprehensive review of both the 11" and 13" models is the same as the part number mentioned at the beginning of this thread. I imagine the same is true of the LG panel.
 
aatuz said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the panels are same what they've used last year. :rolleyes:
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With this comment in the article I think some changes were made between the two. "The LG panel is slightly dimmer than the Samsung panel I originally tested." The Samsung in the 2012 MBA is definitely dimmer than the LG.
 
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