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rMBP week 45 screen brand

tivoboy said:
you bring up a good point that I didn't get answered on another forum. The holiday period return policy, is that just an extension of the regular NQA 14 days policy, or an extension of the 30 days to return unopened policy? I should be getting my 2nd MPBr to try out, first one was a very dim and IR plaqued LG panel. I'd like to be able to try it out longer than 14 days to get really comfortable that it isn't going to slip into IR after 14 days.
Click to expand...

It's an extension of the 14 day one. But I have determined mine is going back now regardless of IR. It has an uncalibratable pink/magenta color cast. You can even see it through the backlight on the Apple logo in the back. You'd think for a screen aimed at photographers you wouldn't have this issue. I have read enough that I am now not confident at all in this product. I will likely be buying an SSD to put in my 2010 MBP and seeing what comes out next year.
 
I picked up a base 2.3GHz retina MacBook Pro Tuesday night. Samsung screen. Week 48. Fit and finish is perfect. That's the good news. The bad news is the display is yellow. It was noticeable the minute I first booted it without any comparison. Whites have a dirty look to them. And it doesn't seem like it gets bright enough. I compared it to my almost 4-year-old 17-inch MacBook Pro with it's white whites, it's very noticeable.

I attached the rMBP to my Sony Bravia TV (where it was painfully obvious compared the mirrored version on the Sony).

Sigh.

It should have white whites. I could live with the brightness issue. It's like geez….c'mon Apple! While the screen on the retina is crisp as hell, it's not like the anti-glare screen on my 17-inch MacBook Pro is a fuzzy mess or a slacker by any means. I'm seriously wondering if I should have just gotten the standard anti-glare model. I've seen three different current generation 15-inch high resolution anti-glare screens and their screens were all perfect with white balance. They have the best white balance overall as far as my discerning eyes can tell. If anyone's on the fence, I'd say save the dough (and the headaches of Apple's early retina teething problems) and get the standard MacBook Pro with anti-glare. It's really good. Upgrade the RAM & hard drive to an SSD from a third party. You can't go wrong with that arrangement.

I took some pictures, you can clearly see what one is the rMBP.
 

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I had to calibrate my LG screen on 15" retina as it wasn't on match my Eizo external display.

Retina was pinkish/redish. After calibration it was spot on compared to Eizo.

calibrated to D65.

Honestly, every screen needs to calibrated. This wasn't issue for me.
 
My LG screen was pinkish/reddish as well even after calibration. I was knocking my head against the wall trying to fix it, trying all kinds of different calibration software and all of them not being able to fix it.

Then last night I turned it around and noticed the Apple logo glowing pink. I took a picture of it next to my 2010 MBP so you guys can see. (rMBP on left MBP on right) Sort of difficult to see in a picture, but when it is light glowing at you, it is much more pronounced. This straight up seems like an issue with the back lighting causing my red color cast.

This retina is going back to Apple. It's an LG, so likely will develop ghosting and has a red cast I can't calibrate away.
 

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Hmmm my Apple logo's pink too, but clearly the display is more yellow than pink.

It's very hard to calibrate a screen that already has a color bias because you have to compete with the bias. I've tried calibrating & have not had that good of luck with it. I'm using it now, and it seems like it would be perfect if not for this one annoying issue!

When I think about it I've never had to calibrate my iPhones or iPads or previous computers (laptops & desktops). And on further thought when I boot the machine each time it's going to show the yellow bias. I understand color calibration for certain things but seriously, it should be pretty straightforward out of the box don't you think?
 
Well my pink backlight gave a more red color to my display, which I perceived as a little warmer. Not unreasonable it would seem yellower to you. Also could be my calibration software accounted for the yellow in it, but couldn't get rid of the red.

Every display typically can be better with calibration. I always calibrate since I do photography which I need to rely on colors being true. Use a colorimeter or spectrophotometer for measuring and usually you ensure a very consistent look from screen to screen. Doing Apple's built-in calibration utility is a waste of time. I'd rather use the default profile than that.
 
millerrh said:
Well my pink backlight gave a more red color to my display, which I perceived as a little warmer. Not unreasonable it would seem yellower to you. Also could be my calibration software accounted for the yellow in it, but couldn't get rid of the red.

Every display typically can be better with calibration. I always calibrate since I do photography which I need to rely on colors being true. Use a colorimeter or spectrophotometer for measuring and usually you ensure a very consistent look from screen to screen. Doing Apple's built-in calibration utility is a waste of time. I'd rather use the default profile than that.
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention one thing here. You probably know this, but the backlight color when viewed via the Apple logo will never change regardless of calibration as it has no impact on the backlight.

I know the rMBP has a different color temperature. People were measuring D65 (around 6500k) whites. My 2011 macbook pro at native white clocks in around 8000k at its white point. I'm not sure how the temperature holds up at lower values, as i1 profiler won't measure that. It still shouldn't look red. Just looking at the difference between the two rather than their absolute colors, they seem quite far apart.


DHagan4755 said:
I
It should have white whites. I could live with the brightness issue. It's like geez….c'mon Apple! While the screen on the retina is crisp as hell, it's not like the anti-glare screen on my 17-inch MacBook Pro is a fuzzy mess or a slacker by any means. I'm seriously wondering if I should have just gotten the standard anti-glare model. I've seen three different current generation 15-inch high resolution anti-glare screens and their screens were all perfect with white balance. They have the best white balance overall as far as my discerning eyes can tell. If anyone's on the fence, I'd say save the dough (and the headaches of Apple's early retina teething problems) and get the standard MacBook Pro with anti-glare. It's really good. Upgrade the RAM & hard drive to an SSD from a third party. You can't go wrong with that arrangement.

I took some pictures, you can clearly see what one is the rMBP.
Click to expand...

Actually it is natural for these to be somewhat more yellow or warmer in appearance. With the other comparison I've seen the older macbook pro compared to the rMBP. I know it's different. It just appears to be off in spite of that. With yours I'm less sure. It may not be tracking well if it's below maximum brightness. Just be aware that you cannot hold these others up as a reference standard of what the rMBP should match. They're different displays. Computers often try to stay with the somewhat ubiquitous sRGB standard, and a good rMBP should almost hit that when measured natively. This means if you're profiling with whatever package, white point native, gamma 2.2 or sRGB setting, brightness set manually to a comfortable level. If you're not doing that, expect a bit more variation. It may still be off there. Just be aware that comparing it to your television is a bad point of comparison. The non-retina models would actually be a closer match, although they're further from what used to be considered "standard". Admittedly that standard is from the mid 1990s, but it's still considered in a lot of display designs today.


DHagan4755 said:
When I think about it I've never had to calibrate my iPhones or iPads or previous computers (laptops & desktops). And on further thought when I boot the machine each time it's going to show the yellow bias. I understand color calibration for certain things but seriously, it should be pretty straightforward out of the box don't you think?
Click to expand...

Again it's really just profiling. It builds a description of the display gamut and forms a transformation matrix which is fed to the graphics card. It alters instructions to the display rather than calibrating the display itself. This isn't a replacement for proper calibration of the hardware at the factory. It's something you do in addition to that as colors shift and they still assign generic profiles at the factory.
 
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thekev said:
I forgot to mention one thing here. You probably know this, but the backlight color when viewed via the Apple logo will never change regardless of calibration as it has no impact on the backlight.
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Right, I did know this. My assumption is that the Apple logo is being lit up by the backlight without any of the filtering of the LCDs. That's why I thought seeing a pink logo was indicative of pink/red backlighting and causing my color cast.

Normally I would assume that a proper calibration would tweak the display to remove such a color cast, but this seems like it is too much to compensate for (at least with an eye-one pro).
 
millerrh said:
Right, I did know this. My assumption is that the Apple logo is being lit up by the backlight without any of the filtering of the LCDs. That's why I thought seeing a pink logo was indicative of pink/red backlighting and causing my color cast.

Normally I would assume that a proper calibration would tweak the display to remove such a color cast, but this seems like it is too much to compensate for (at least with an eye-one pro).
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what calibration device you're using, as none of them can truly set hardware levels. Even if they could, if the backlight is out of spec, you could run into problems anyway within the life of the device. They don't have an infinite range for corrections. I'd take that one back. You should expect it to look warmer than the older macbook pros. It just shouldn't look red. Side by side with a cMBP it might look a little yellow by comparison. It just shouldn't be like this where the color temperature is probably shifted across the entire range.
 
I have had two different screens on the same rMBP, LG and Samsung, and both of them show a purple Apple logo... but neither of them looks like they are red-tinted.

So I believe the purple/pink Apple logo is by design.

It's not surprising, though. A white backlight means it's emitting light of all visible wavelengths. Slightly red means there are more red light than there are light of other colors.

Since red light by nature is not very penetrating (low energy level), and coupled with pixel pitch that's only 1/4 what it was before, Apple probably needed to boost red light intensity on the backlight in order to balance red against other colors.
 
DHagan4755 said:
I picked up a base 2.3GHz retina MacBook Pro Tuesday night. Samsung screen. Week 48. Fit and finish is perfect. That's the good news. The bad news is the display is yellow. It was noticeable the minute I first booted it without any comparison. Whites have a dirty look to them. And it doesn't seem like it gets bright enough. I compared it to my almost 4-year-old 17-inch MacBook Pro with it's white whites, it's very noticeable.

I attached the rMBP to my Sony Bravia TV (where it was painfully obvious compared the mirrored version on the Sony).

Sigh.

It should have white whites. I could live with the brightness issue. It's like geez….c'mon Apple! While the screen on the retina is crisp as hell, it's not like the anti-glare screen on my 17-inch MacBook Pro is a fuzzy mess or a slacker by any means. I'm seriously wondering if I should have just gotten the standard anti-glare model. I've seen three different current generation 15-inch high resolution anti-glare screens and their screens were all perfect with white balance. They have the best white balance overall as far as my discerning eyes can tell. If anyone's on the fence, I'd say save the dough (and the headaches of Apple's early retina teething problems) and get the standard MacBook Pro with anti-glare. It's really good. Upgrade the RAM & hard drive to an SSD from a third party. You can't go wrong with that arrangement.

I took some pictures, you can clearly see what one is the rMBP.
Click to expand...

Calibrate your display to D65 and the yellow tint will go away.
 
bill-p said:
I have had two different screens on the same rMBP, LG and Samsung, and both of them show a purple Apple logo... but neither of them looks like they are red-tinted.

So I believe the purple/pink Apple logo is by design.

It's not surprising, though. A white backlight means it's emitting light of all visible wavelengths. Slightly red means there are more red light than there are light of other colors.

Since red light by nature is not very penetrating (low energy level), and coupled with pixel pitch that's only 1/4 what it was before, Apple probably needed to boost red light intensity on the backlight in order to balance red against other colors.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. If you're seeing it on both screens it does seem to be by design for some reason. I'm not sure why I have a red cast on it then. It's pretty annoying. If I use the screen for long enough, it starts to look normal and then everything else looks green when I look away...

Could be they are intentionally increasing reds on these displays, but I think on mine they are doing it so much so that I can't calibrate out of it.
 
From using that website, I found out I have a Week 39 production date. i have the base model 15 inch Retina.

How do i tell what screen I have??

Thanks!!!
 
UPDATE:

I brought mine to the Apple Store tonight. The genius compared my rMBP to the other retina models in the store. He agreed that it was off. He was like wow, I see what you mean. So he ran a few diagnostic tests. No amount of calibration could fix the yellow tint issue. So they replaced it with a new one. All in all GREAT customer service and support. Now I haven't had time to open up the new one yet. From a brief glance at the receipt, it appears the serial #'s are very close. I'll report back and let you know how I make out.
 
Moshe1010 said:
Calibrate your display to D65 and the yellow tint will go away.
Click to expand...

First there's no way to change the hardware temperature. You're just adjusting instructions and forcing the display to drop some values and create a profile based on that target. The other point would be that while D65 is a specific color target, a profile that matches up with it is going to appear warmer than some displays on the market, including the prior macbook pros. You can't simply profile out hardware differences in their entirety. You can profile it to a target by means of different instructions. How they're applied affects the end result. It's like when you see perceptual vs relative colorimetric. The first one tries to scale values across the range. The second basically attempts to reproduce identical values based on a reference space (typically XYZ or LAB) and clips anything that falls out of gamut to the nearest value. It just means you lose some detail in areas of extreme saturation. In RGB terms if you everything was assumed as 8b 0-255 and you're trying to change that white, it means one to two channels have to terminate prior to their maximum range to produce that white. It's basically solved by gpu instructions and panel blocking, but if the hardware is off from the intended spec, you can lose quite a lot, especially as the display ages.
 
millerrh said:
That's interesting. If you're seeing it on both screens it does seem to be by design for some reason. I'm not sure why I have a red cast on it then. It's pretty annoying. If I use the screen for long enough, it starts to look normal and then everything else looks green when I look away...

Could be they are intentionally increasing reds on these displays, but I think on mine they are doing it so much so that I can't calibrate out of it.
Click to expand...

Since the polarizer (glass layer) is very very thin, I'd think that it's pretty hard to properly control its consistency in manufacturing.

And if the polarizer is just a fraction of a mm different, it'll cause a shift in light wavelength, which can create a red-tinted screen.

So in that case, you're right. It's impossible to calibrate out something like that. It's an inherent hardware problem. In fact, even if it wasn't doing it "much", I'd think it's still impossible to calibrate out.
 
GREAT another issue to look out for NOW the Apple logo has issues too...!!!

STEVE JOBS why did you leave usssssssssssssss!!! :(
 
UPDATE #2:

Replacement MacBook Pro, week 48, also has a strong yellow tint. :(

It HAS to be the backlight. NONE of the MacBook Pros in the store they compared it to had yellow or dirty whites. (And none of the floor models had been calibrated —*I checked.)

I checked the Apple Serial # info site. Based on the serial #, it is #473 made that week. And this time the panel is an LG. The previous model they swapped out was made the same week, had a Samsung panel, and was #1157.

Apple's quality control on these is horrible!
 
Anyone got rMBP week 50? Is your screen panel lg or samsung?
 
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Aware,

I don't think the week number matters. Looking at this situation, Apple has an issue with the color temperature of the display. I've had 2 LG displays, one Samsung display on the 3 retina MacBook Pros I've been through. All 3 have been wildly off color temperature right out of the box. It makes it very difficult to calibrate with software because you're competing with a fault that already exists in hardware. Like I said earlier, this color temperature issue isn't something I saw at the Apple Store on the floor models. So I think there's a greater problem with overall display quality control than just image retention.
 
DHagan4755 said:
Aware,

I don't think the week number matters. Looking at this situation, Apple has an issue with the color temperature of the display. I've had 2 LG displays, one Samsung display on the 3 retina MacBook Pros I've been through. All 3 have been wildly off color temperature right out of the box. It makes it very difficult to calibrate with software because you're competing with a fault that already exists in hardware. Like I said earlier, this color temperature issue isn't something I saw at the Apple Store on the floor models. So I think there's a greater problem with overall display quality control than just image retention.
Click to expand...

Totally in agreement on this one. I'll be sitting this round of rMBPs out Apple. It's the computer I want to have so badly, but if they can't get the screen right it's pointless. Let's hope they can clear this up by the next refresh.
 
Apple seriously need to get the Quality Control in China looked at. So many issues that are coming up with these RMBP's. I can not recall this many problems with the CMBP's.....I really hope Tim Cook is not slacking off after he got RICH!! This is pretty SAD!
 
I just returned it. Sad. I asked if i could get this problem some prominence up the food chain. The gal at the Apple store processing my return said they were having a problem with the 15" retina displays but wasn't sure if it was my problem (yellow screen). The screens on the floor models looked great & white balanced retina & classic MBPs alike.
 
My Macbook Pro I bought on launch day had some ghosting issues but since it didn't bother me I was fine with it until a solid band appeared on the screen (LG Screen). I had to restart it 4~5 times to make it go away (every time I restart it, it was disappearing slowly). I took some pictures and showed it to the Apple store genius and got it repaired.

Now I have a Samsung screen and I'm ok with it...bit yellowish then the LG but seems alright to me.
 
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