My story with apple display lottery draw

[pennymac]

When I decided to purchase my second Mac I only considered two options, either the cheap 13" 128G MBA or the revolutionary 15" 2.3GHz rMBP. Anything between is just not worth the money.

I was planning to get a MBA at this time and sell it next year to buy the Haswell rMBP since I am the victim of 2007 yellowish 1st gen LED MBP.

The 13" MBA display models in the apple store just look gorgeous (confirmed later they are all Samsung panels) and I decided to buy one. When I opened mine from the box I noticed the colour was a bit washout and it was a LG panel! Compared side by side with the display model it looks so dumb, and of course they refused to exchange for another one. I was so piss off since I had no luck at all with display lottery draw (in 2007 got 3 conservative yellowish LED displays).

I was so upset for the whole weekend and the more I read from macrumors the more I hated my new MBA. So I decided to go all-in for a rMBP , the moment I powering up the machine I felt like proposing to my gf and waiting for her to say “yes”. I finally got a Samsung and I felt like I am the luckiest man in the world. I hope everyone get what they want and be happy with your Macs.

 

[mohsy90]

Lol, glad it worked out. I would have just returned the MBA and bought another one, that is if the display was as bad as your claiming.

 

[Dark Void]

Congratulations. I have heard mixed opinions on the LG vs Samsung screen debate, some say it makes or breaks the laptop and others say that it doesn't matter at all. If you're happy though, that's all that matters - be it LG or Samsung.

 

[thekev]

I'm not sure it's so much the panel hardware. It's much more likely that Apple's implementation is flawed. I've looked at their default profiles in detail to see what is assumed and what they do for final output. It's a very weird approach. On this one the profile indicates a very high red gamma, with blue and green correction curves to match the red output. It does make for a high level of perceived contrast in the mid and quarter tones due to the high gamma values, but that isn't a great way to optimize the thing. The rMBP seems to be set up differently, but I'd suggest that a huge difference is viewing angles. Most people do not view their notebook displays dead on, so viewing angles are really crucial.