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Macbook Air 2012 - LG vs Samsung LCD

I calibrated my LG display and my wife's Samsung display with the Spyder 4. The only difference I can find is that on the exact same brightness setting, the LG looks a little, tiny bit less bright than the Samsung. We looked at both of them with brightness set at 50%. This is inconsequential to me, because at the brightest setting, it is WAY brighter than I like a screen to be. I'm comfortable with it at 50%.

We spent some time looking at it with different images and text, and there was no perceptible difference that we could find. Because she has hers set up differently then mine, we didn't play the switch the macbooks around and spot the Samsung game.

I am happy with the LG screen. I'm happy with her Samsung screen.
 
I have a LG screen and I was already quite happy with the colors out of the box, but after the MacRumors-profile calibration it only looks better! I'm very happy!
 
Difference...

Okay. Here's my story :

I bought the base Macbook Air from Bestbuy on Tuesday. Yesterday, while browsing around forums for the Macbook Air, I stumbled upon this topic. I immediately checked and found out that I had the LG screen. I read through each and every post and went through different calibration profiles.
I had previously noticed the washed out screen on a Macbook Air at Best Buy, next to a Macbook Pro (13 in base version) The colors definitely looked more vibrant on the Macbook Pro (compared it through news sites, flickr, etc)

Long story short, I had no intention of returning my Macbook Air until today (2 days later :( ). My power supply charger was giving me issues. It would stop charging (no green light, no orange) even when the battery went below 93%. It would charge to a 100% and simply stop charging. Plugging it out and plugging back in did not work. Resetting the SMC did not help either. So, I took it back to Bestbuy and guess what happened ?

The replacement base macbook air came in with a Samsung display and a samsung SSD. I noticed the contrast right off the start, when I booted it up for the first time. The colors are definitely more vibrant and overall the screen, in my opinion of course, looks much better. I had no intentions of returning my previous unit, but now I'm glad I did. I guess I got lucky. If you are on the fence about it, I would definitely recommend trying to get a Samsung based screen. I think I notice the difference now that I've seen it for myself, and so will you.
 
usmaak said:
I calibrated my LG display and my wife's Samsung display with the Spyder 4. The only difference I can find is that on the exact same brightness setting, the LG looks a little, tiny bit less bright than the Samsung. We looked at both of them with brightness set at 50%. This is inconsequential to me, because at the brightest setting, it is WAY brighter than I like a screen to be. I'm comfortable with it at 50%.

We spent some time looking at it with different images and text, and there was no perceptible difference that we could find. Because she has hers set up differently then mine, we didn't play the switch the macbooks around and spot the Samsung game.

I am happy with the LG screen. I'm happy with her Samsung screen.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind, could you please upload the color profile file that you created with the help of Spyder 4 for Samsung screen? I am just curious to try it out on my base 2012 MBA with Samsung screen and see the difference.

Thanks in advance!
 
AppleInMyHead said:
If you don't mind, could you please upload the color profile file that you created with the help of Spyder 4 for Samsung screen? I am just curious to try it out on my base 2012 MBA with Samsung screen and see the difference.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

If you can tell me how to do it, I'd be happy to do it. I'm very new to the whole Mac thing, and am still working my way around it. I guess that all I need to know is where the profiles are kept.
 
usmaak said:
If you can tell me how to do it, I'd be happy to do it. I'm very new to the whole Mac thing, and am still working my way around it. I guess that all I need to know is where the profiles are kept.
Click to expand...

On your wife's MBA, go to Macintosh HD/Library/ColorSync/Profiles and see what's in there. I believe there should be a file (.icc) created by Spyder 4. In Lion, you can go to Library folder by pressing (alt) and "Go" in Finder. I hope this helps.
 
I found out the default color profile was calibrated after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Does anybody else notice the same thing? I have LG panel.
 
Raejin said:
I found out the default color profile was calibrated after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Does anybody else notice the same thing? I have LG panel.
Click to expand...
I haven't been able to get my upgrade yet. I put in for it a few days ago, and still haven't gotten my code. I'm getting anxious because I really want to upgrade. I'm almost ready to just shell out the 19.99.

Tonight, I'll upload my spyder profiles for both the Samsung and LG monitors. Maybe they'll help someone out.
 
usmaak said:
I haven't been able to get my upgrade yet. I put in for it a few days ago, and still haven't gotten my code. I'm getting anxious because I really want to upgrade. I'm almost ready to just shell out the 19.99.

Tonight, I'll upload my spyder profiles for both the Samsung and LG monitors. Maybe they'll help someone out.
Click to expand...

I was also frustrated about not getting the redeem code. But I got it this morning, so it should arrive soon. FYI I signed up for the free upgrade around 11 am on the first day.
 
Raejin said:
I found out the default color profile was calibrated after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Does anybody else notice the same thing? I have LG panel.
Click to expand...

Yep, the LG panel in my 2012 was definitely recalibrated when I installed ML.
 
Those who have seen and used both displays, would you say that the lg is indifferent to the Samsung after calibration?
 
Is it just me or has the dock lost some color in mountain lion? I don't know if it's related to the profiles, it shouldn't be I guess. I've had to reload one from here as the default still looks like a$$ on my monitor with black levels set way wrong.

But I still can't get away from that the dock's icons don't look like their colorful selves :S
 
plucky duck said:
Those who have seen and used both displays, would you say that the lg is indifferent to the Samsung after calibration?
Click to expand...
After calibrating my LG and my wife's Samsung with the Spyder 4, neither of us could see any difference in colors at all. And we spent some time looking at them both and comparing the same images and pages. The only difference that I noticed was that the LG screen was slightly less bright when set at the same level as the Samsung. But I keep my screen at 50% brightness, so brightness will never be an issue. And it is not even close to a big difference. If I didn't have them next to one another, I'd never look at the LG and notice a problem. Both screens looked great.

One thing that I noticed about the stock profiles on both of the machines is that there was a lot of blue in them. I didn't notice it before calibrating. But after the Spyder gets done, you can compare between what it came up with as the correct calibration, and what it looks like stock. It was a major difference on both screens. The Spyder was a great investment, and I've used it to calibrate the macbooks, and all other screens/computers in my house.

I will upload my spyder profiles from both machines tomorrow. Time kind of got away from me today.
 
The LG Displau is great

I just got my 2012 11'' air and i have the LG display. I actually think it looks better than the samsung which i compared at the store.

Just saying this as a lot of people are worried about how it looks.

I am running Mountain Lion right now just upgraded.
 
My Spyder 4 LG and Samsung Profiles

These are the LG and Samsung profiles that my Spyder 4 created for my family's macbooks. I hope that they help someone. Let me know what you think.
 

Attachments

  • MACBOOK AIR PROFILES.ZIP
    4.7 KB · Views: 597
Thanks usmaak. Samsung profile looks good. One problem with the reds though. If you look at this picture, you can see some red in the grey bar.
 
Last edited:
Skoopman said:
Thanks usmaak. Samsung profile looks good. One problem with the reds though. If you look at this picture, you can see some red in the grey bar.
Click to expand...
Where can I find this image to run on my computer?

When I got done with the calibration, the spyder software said that I had 65% of RGB on both the Samsung and the LG. Perhaps it has something to do with that? I read somewhere that colors weren't extremely accurate on these things.
 
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