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New MBP.. uneven coating/backlight?

7

7even

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 11, 2008
1,048
79
This is bugging me every other day. Straight-on I'm satisfied with my screen, but at any angle over 20-30 degrees off-axis, this pattern is visible.. not even sure if it's the backlight at fault, or whether it's the coating that is uneven. I don't think it's noticeable on a totally black screen (at least compared to the backlight bleed on the bottom and corners). I keep forgetting about it, but then as I leave or approach my desk I look at the screen and go :mad:

What would you do? I still have a few days before the initial 14 day period expires. Sorry for the image quality.. only have a cellphone available at the moment.
 

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My opinion if your not 100% happy take it back. That is some wacky refresh **** right there. It's something you can show and recreate in the store so i doubt you'll have issues getting it replaced.
 
can you try taking pictures from the rightside

i believe youre gonna see that discoloring from whichever side youre viewing.
its just that the discoloring is going to be the one away from you because its at a greater angle away


im not sure though, can anyone confirm?
 
oh wait, are you referring to the horizontal lines and not the yellowing?
 
sukanas said:
oh wait, are you referring to the horizontal lines and not the yellowing?
Click to expand...

i think he's talking about that "bulge" in the lower middle of the screen. the cursor is residing on top of it.

i think the horizontal lines are from the glass/lcd panel.

take it back.

looks like there are quite a number of issues with these new uni mbps. i'm gonna hold off till nehalem.
 
e12a said:
i think he's talking about that "bulge" in the lower middle of the screen. the cursor is residing on top of it.

i think the horizontal lines are from the glass/lcd panel.

take it back.

looks like there are quite a number of issues with these new uni mbps. i'm gonna hold off till nehalem.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am talking about the bright area in the middle of the screen, surrounded by a couple darker areas. The lines are probably interference somewhere between my camera phone and the LCD (so, my camera's fault). The screen is fine other than the uneven backlight.. I think I'll get an appointment for Wednesday and see what they say.
 
Hilarious that some people didn't even know what they were looking at/he was referring to yet they said to take it back. Listen, if it really bugs you that bad maybe take it in for a genius appointment....however, you did say it only happened from an angle and was fine when looking straight on (which you'll be most likely doing 99% of the time anyways). If you can live with it and nothing else is wrong with the machine I'd say KEEP it. Man are we Mac users the most finicky bunch or what? If you return it beware you'll be getting into that return/wait/unknown cycle....you'll most likely be without a machine for some time and even then you don't know what you're going to be getting. Some posters on here have returned a machine over what they described as a minor issue but did it because they needed it to be totally perfect....then after going through 3 or 4 returns (because sometimes the replacement is worse or has other issues) they regretted it and wished they had just kept their original w/ its little tweak.

Put it this way, this does NOT affect your work in anyway because its fine when looking straight at it (which is how screens are designed to work primarily) and is bugging you because its there. Return it if you have to but you've been warned the grass isn't always greener...
 
MowingDevil said:
Hilarious that some people didn't even know what they were looking at/he was referring to yet they said to take it back. Listen, if it really bugs you that bad maybe take it in for a genius appointment....however, you did say it only happened from an angle and was fine when looking straight on (which you'll be most likely doing 99% of the time anyways). If you can live with it and nothing else is wrong with the machine I'd say KEEP it. Man are we Mac users the most finicky bunch or what? If you return it beware you'll be getting into that return/wait/unknown cycle....you'll most likely be without a machine for some time and even then you don't know what you're going to be getting. Some posters on here have returned a machine over what they described as a minor issue but did it because they needed it to be totally perfect....then after going through 3 or 4 returns (because sometimes the replacement is worse or has other issues) they regretted it and wished they had just kept their original w/ its little tweak.

Put it this way, this does NOT affect your work in anyway because its fine when looking straight at it (which is how screens are designed to work primarily) and is bugging you because its there. Return it if you have to but you've been warned the grass isn't always greener...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I generally agree with that logic. However, I've never had an LCD screen that exhibited this (including a really crappy Toshiba panel I had in a Lenovo). I'm sure it's not the backlight alone because the pattern switches if you look at it from the other side - the bright area in the pics looks more like a dark area from the right side. It's pretty annoying to have to keep turning the laptop towards yourself @ the office because harsh fluorescent lighting makes the flaw somewhat more obvious. At home with a single warm light source, it's tolerable.... can't even take a decent photo of the effect here.
 
Bobioden said:
Why is this only bugging you every other day? It doesn't bug you every day?
Click to expand...

Haha mostly because some days it strikes me as baaad and other times, like me sitting in my room with favorable lighting, it seems bearable. Then I pull out my laptop at work, and bam wtf what's wrong with my screen :mad:
 
I think I figured out exactly the cause of this pattern, and I'm definitely taking it back. I realized it's caused by pressure on the LCD panel from within... pushing on the back of the screen in that area causes these ripples to change.. looking closely at the lid, the metal by the apple logo on the un-bitten side is actually slightly bent inward? I know I didn't cause it, looks to be from the manufacturing process, and that's exactly how my screen was from day 1...
 
Just an update, I'm home with a replacement... has the generic uneven backlight, but nothing out of the ordinary. Also got the 9C84 (LG) panel so I'm happy :D Little more "dust" in the speaker holes but whatever. The rest of it seems fine.
 
7even said:
Just an update, I'm home with a replacement... has the generic uneven backlight, but nothing out of the ordinary. Also got the 9C84 (LG) panel so I'm happy :D Little more "dust" in the speaker holes but whatever. The rest of it seems fine.
Click to expand...

hrm.. u sure the 84 is the lg panel? if so link?
cause if it is..
ILL be HAPPY TOO
 
MowingDevil said:
Just curious, are you building a case for a class action suit or something? :D
Click to expand...

No sir, nothing of the sort. I wish Apple no harm or anything even though I totally disagree with their recent turn to low quality releases. But thats another story, what I am trying to accomplish here is to determine whether certain build dates or factory where they are made, attribute to more defects. I am doing this mostly for people looking to buy a new MBP and would like some sort of knowledge based on serial numbers printed on the outside of the box before they buy, whether or not what they are about to buy is more likely to have defects based on the data.

At the Apple stores they will not let you open the box before buying one to see what defects or display panel that particular unit may have. Only after you buy it then your faced with the whole talk to the store manager and beg to swap it thing.

Anyhow just trying to reduce some grief for folks looking to buy one and trying to have better odds of it not being crap out of the box. Secondly it does strike my curiosity as to whether or not certain build dates are more prone to issues. Additionally at next refresh launch I want to continue the data collection and see if we see a pattern relevant to a certain ramp up of production time frame whenever a new model is released.

Anyway, no harm whatsoever is meant towards Apple or anyone else and just a hope we might fare better armed with real data and not opinions.

Hope that explains what I am trying to do here. So far it appears some members are also interested in this as well.
 
me too!

i have a macbook pro with unibody and ive got the same problem as you, only perhaps even worse (more pronounced - i think). ive got a highly visible circular ring that you can see when you view the screen off axis. i live near the flagship apple store in london and i visited today to see the other mbp's, and all the ones in the store are good, and mine is the only one ive seen thats bad (until i heard of yours).

ive booked myself in to see a genius on thursday to complain and ask for a swap out. unfortunately, ive already installed a lot of brand new s/w on the computer, so if they swap it for another laptop, i wont be able to reinstall the s/w on it, and i will have to repurchase, so im hoping they can swap just the display or switch the motherboards & hard drives or something.

-- Jez
 
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