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The Quality of your MBPr screens - feedback please!

JrJ 15 said:
That was with only 10-15 minutes on a page.
Click to expand...

Yeah I don't have ghosting to that extent after 10-15 minutes. I can barely make out the google logo on the light background, like i have to stick my face into the screen to see it.

I am going to assume that most people might have the same limited ghosting as my situation where you actually have to try very hard to see it or none, or ghosting to the extent yours had.
 
What makes me wonder :

1. If ghosting is considered not normal, why lenovo has page support explains ghosting like it's a normal situation? (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?submit=true&componentID=1316095732544&DocID=HT051485)

2. Why apple put the laptop directly under the top cover? No padding at all. From many unboxing videos I think the laptop has same level with the black box inside, so if there something heavy presses the top of the box, chance of the retina itself being pressed is high. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXD1X5i6aek)
 
zerotiu said:
What makes me wonder :

1. If ghosting is considered not normal, why lenovo has page support explains ghosting like it's a normal situation? (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?submit=true&componentID=1316095732544&DocID=HT051485)

2. Why apple put the laptop directly under the top cover? No padding at all. From many unboxing videos I think the laptop has same level with the black box inside, so if there something heavy presses the top of the box, chance of the retina itself being pressed is high. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXD1X5i6aek)
Click to expand...

1. I agree that thing ghosting issue from googling it seems to be the norm with IPS displays, the technology hasn't advanced far enough to get rid of this effect completely. You might of gotten lucky and gotten one with little or minimal effect on that front but the manufacturing process is not mastered yet.
2. I found that disturbing as well, I fortunately didn't have any pressure marks on my retina as that would definitely be more annoying than ghosting for me.
 
My screen is gorgeous. No ghosting, no light bleed, no discolouration. It's exactly as it should be.

There's also no scrolling lag in Safari, or UI lag from what I can tell, though that might be because the computer I came from is 5 years old and pretty laggy.

Overall loving this a lot. Did I mention I'm getting around 7-8 hours from moderate use on a full battery charge, with nearly max brightness?
 
JacinTatt said:
My screen is gorgeous. No ghosting, no light bleed, no discolouration. It's exactly as it should be.

There's also no scrolling lag in Safari, or UI lag from what I can tell, though that might be because the computer I came from is 5 years old and pretty laggy.

Overall loving this a lot. Did I mention I'm getting around 7-8 hours from moderate use on a full battery charge, with nearly max brightness?
Click to expand...

Is yours also shipped from China? to....? Just curious :D, but I think all retinas are shipped from China :p
 
So I just noticed something else about mine that may be related...

With the screen off and it sitting on a desk with me a few yards away from it, I could see the reflection of a long fluorescent light that's in the same room across the surface of the screen. You can't tell when you are sitting up close to it, but based on the shape of that reflection, it's clear that the surface of at least my particular screen is not perfectly flat. It's concave: it bends in slightly from all sides (left and right, top and bottom).

I suspect that this would cause the light reflections off the liquid crystals on parts of the display surface to be hitting my eyes differently since some would be slightly "bent-in" relative to others. The angles would be ever-so-slightly different. I wonder if this is what is causing the "yellowing" effect I'm seeing in the lower-left quadrant of the screen.

The question is whether this concave screen surface is intentional or not. Makes me wonder if it is a manufacturing problem where the screen got mounted inside its aluminum enclosure ever-so-slightly incorrectly.

-- Nathan
 
Had a go on one in a local Apple reseller a week after release - noticed if the whole screen was white it faded a bit darker in places. FINALLY received mine yesterday... no dead pixels, no bleed, no anything. It is the most perfect display ever! I am actually trying to find things wrong with it to return it (my family has never had this kind of money and I spent it all on a laptop) but I cannot find a single problem.

Very annoying tbh as a regular MBP was out of the budget but my family was willing to sell all their **** and give everything they had to support me and get one, then I bought this on the basis it would be defective, I could return it and the regular MBP wouldn't seem like such a sacrifice... it's perfect. Balls.
 
NathanA said:
So I just noticed something else about mine that may be related...

With the screen off and it sitting on a desk with me a few yards away from it, I could see the reflection of a long fluorescent light that's in the same room across the surface of the screen. You can't tell when you are sitting up close to it, but based on the shape of that reflection, it's clear that the surface of at least my particular screen is not perfectly flat. It's concave: it bends in slightly from all sides (left and right, top and bottom).

I suspect that this would cause the light reflections off the liquid crystals on parts of the display surface to be hitting my eyes differently since some would be slightly "bent-in" relative to others. The angles would be ever-so-slightly different. I wonder if this is what is causing the "yellowing" effect I'm seeing in the lower-left quadrant of the screen.

The question is whether this concave screen surface is intentional or not. Makes me wonder if it is a manufacturing problem where the screen got mounted inside its aluminum enclosure ever-so-slightly incorrectly.

-- Nathan
Click to expand...

I can't really notice anything like that on mine. But yes my friend's model is perfect and I planned on going to the Genius Bar today to have it looked.. but have come down with a cold :mad:
 
joewillmott said:
Had a go on one in a local Apple reseller a week after release - noticed if the whole screen was white it faded a bit darker in places. FINALLY received mine yesterday... no dead pixels, no bleed, no anything. It is the most perfect display ever!
Click to expand...
Just to be clear, you're saying that you've seen this phenomenon on a display model in a store, but the one you just received does not exhibit the problem?

-- Nathan
 
joewillmott said:
Had a go on one in a local Apple reseller a week after release - noticed if the whole screen was white it faded a bit darker in places. FINALLY received mine yesterday... no dead pixels, no bleed, no anything. It is the most perfect display ever! I am actually trying to find things wrong with it to return it (my family has never had this kind of money and I spent it all on a laptop) but I cannot find a single problem.

Very annoying tbh as a regular MBP was out of the budget but my family was willing to sell all their **** and give everything they had to support me and get one, then I bought this on the basis it would be defective, I could return it and the regular MBP wouldn't seem like such a sacrifice... it's perfect. Balls.
Click to expand...

That is great to hear! They must envision you doing great things with that computer, and I'm sure you won't disappoint them!

----------
NathanA said:
So I just noticed something else about mine that may be related...

With the screen off and it sitting on a desk with me a few yards away from it, I could see the reflection of a long fluorescent light that's in the same room across the surface of the screen. You can't tell when you are sitting up close to it, but based on the shape of that reflection, it's clear that the surface of at least my particular screen is not perfectly flat. It's concave: it bends in slightly from all sides (left and right, top and bottom).

I suspect that this would cause the light reflections off the liquid crystals on parts of the display surface to be hitting my eyes differently since some would be slightly "bent-in" relative to others. The angles would be ever-so-slightly different. I wonder if this is what is causing the "yellowing" effect I'm seeing in the lower-left quadrant of the screen.

The question is whether this concave screen surface is intentional or not. Makes me wonder if it is a manufacturing problem where the screen got mounted inside its aluminum enclosure ever-so-slightly incorrectly.

-- Nathan
Click to expand...

I'm actually noticing shadowing stuff in other places, too. To me it seems like the screen is flexible and maybe not stretched or laid totally flat. I say that because you can see the screen is evenly lit by moving your head and craning your neck around like a flamingo. Problem is that when sitting in one place various spots have a little grayness to them depending on your position and angle.

Lean to the right, the grayness or lack of brightness to the right goes away. Lean to the left, the lack of brightness or grayish areas on the left side go away, and so on.
 
no ghosting/scroller-lag/etc here... mine is an "ultimate" model though. very happy with it but have only had it 3 days today, hopefully it continues to perform at this level.
 
I've had my MBPr for three days now. Initially I thought the lower left might be slightly less bright than the rest of the display. I've just spent some time with both a colorimeter and my eyes. The display is damned consistent over the entire surface. No ghosting, no dead pixels, no shadowing. Perfect really.

The display is not quite as bright as the display on the 9 month old matte-finish 17" MBP I'm transitioning from. That thing can light up a stadium. The MBPr is plenty bright though. At night, three ticks down from full brightness is bright, yet comfortable. Full brightness is uncomfortably bright. In a bright room yesterday I was running full brightness and it was plenty bright.
 
iViking said:
To me it seems like the screen is flexible and maybe not stretched or laid totally flat. I say that because you can see the screen is evenly lit by moving your head and craning your neck around like a flamingo. Problem is that when sitting in one place various spots have a little grayness to them depending on your position and angle. Lean to the right, the grayness or lack of brightness to the right goes away. Lean to the left, the lack of brightness or grayish areas on the left side go away, and so on.
Click to expand...
I thought this initially, too. But after spending more time with it, and moving my head from side-to-side, certain spots do get better at certain angles, but are never quite the same as other spots. The upper-right corner of my screen is always whiter than the bottom-left, and I don't mean relatively-so. If I look at the upper-right corner straight-on and up-close, and then move my head to look at the bottom-left corner straight-on and up-close (and from the same angle I was just looking at the upper-right corner from), the bottom-left corner does get brighter, but it is still not as bright or as white as the upper-left corner.

Also, I still contend that I'm not seeing grayness/shadowing. I'm seeing yellowing. The white-point is different on that part of the display. If it was just seeing a slight bit of shadowing, then I wouldn't be as...annoyed.

There are so many reports and pictures of this phenomenon on the rMBP, though, that it is really hard for me to believe that this isn't a universal engineering...well, "defect" is too strong a word, but perhaps "weakness?"...of this particular display technology or process that affects all displays coming off the assembly line. I previously owned two IBM ThinkPads with 15" IPS displays, and they both had a similar problem, but the "shadow" was on the right-middle side of the display instead. The responses I got from others (as well as a replacement screen that looked exactly the same, in one case) eventually led me to believe that all ThinkPad IPS screens actually looked this way, but that not everybody noticed or were as sensitive to the issue as I was, so I eventually got over it...mostly. If I had to be honest, it still bugged me every time it caught my eye and I became conscious of it again.

I want to just chalk this up to being a weird IPS characteristic that all panels have in common and which some people are simply more sensitive to than others: viewing angles don't cause colors to "wash out" and invert as they do on TN displays, but do cause whites to look different and the brightness to appear less intense. The only thing holding me back from believing this are the anecdotes from posters such as Davieis, who describes a similar problem on his own unit's panel, but claims to have seen other machines that didn't have the so-called problem.

-- Nathan
 
NathanA said:
I thought this initially, too. But after spending more time with it, and moving my head from side-to-side, certain spots do get better at certain angles, but are never quite the same as other spots. The upper-right corner of my screen is always whiter than the bottom-left, and I don't mean relatively-so. If I look at the upper-right corner straight-on and up-close, and then move my head to look at the bottom-left corner straight-on and up-close (and from the same angle I was just looking at the upper-right corner from), the bottom-left corner does get brighter, but it is still not as bright or as white as the upper-left corner.

Also, I still contend that I'm not seeing grayness/shadowing. I'm seeing yellowing. The white-point is different on that part of the display. If it was just seeing a slight bit of shadowing, then I wouldn't be as...annoyed.

There are so many reports and pictures of this phenomenon on the rMBP, though, that it is really hard for me to believe that this isn't a universal engineering...well, "defect" is too strong a word, but perhaps "weakness?"...of this particular display technology or process that affects all displays coming off the assembly line. I previously owned two IBM ThinkPads with 15" IPS displays, and they both had a similar problem, but the "shadow" was on the right-middle side of the display instead. The responses I got from others (as well as a replacement screen that looked exactly the same, in one case) eventually led me to believe that all ThinkPad IPS screens actually looked this way, but that not everybody noticed or were as sensitive to the issue as I was, so I eventually got over it...mostly. If I had to be honest, it still bugged me every time it caught my eye and I became conscious of it again.

I want to just chalk this up to being a weird IPS characteristic that all panels have in common and which some people are simply more sensitive to than others: viewing angles don't cause colors to "wash out" and invert as they do on TN displays, but do cause whites to look different and the brightness to appear less intense. The only thing holding me back from believing this are the anecdotes from posters such as Davieis, who describes a similar problem on his own unit's panel, but claims to have seen other machines that didn't have the so-called problem.

-- Nathan
Click to expand...

I do agree that viewing angle does play a part in the way whites look on the IPS of the RMBP. I thought mine was just normal and that the viewing angles were to blame (similar to the iPad 3) before I saw my friend's machine and the whites were just more consistent through the whole panel.

Its annoying but I'm not sure weather to just live with it or take it to be looked at by the Genius Bar. I think its its more of an OCD problem because we know its there - I'm sure most customers don't even notice it.

EDIT: Also my panel is exactly the same as yours...brightest at the top, but lesser at the bottom. Exactly as you describe.
 
This is my 2nd rmbp.

The first one made a clicking noise whenever I placed my hand on the palm rest. It was the result of an uneven backplate. It also had a left-->right pink gradient that was super annoying. no ghosting, no dead pixels.

This second one doesn't creak/click but it has a pink gradient from top-->down and it's pissing me off, but I think I'm going to learn to live with it since there aren't any other large issues. Also for some reason the top to bottom pink gradient doesn't bother me as much as the left to right did. not sure why though
 
So I got to go to an Apple store yesterday and was able to look at a handful of rMBPs. It was obvious that all of the screens there had this issue to one extent or another, and the darkening/yellowing was always in the same spot: on the left-hand side and more obvious towards the bottom, just like on mine. Some, I think, looked ever-so-slightly better than others, and although I couldn't swear to it, after arriving back home and examining mine again, I'm convinced mine looks worse than any of the examples I saw in the store today. It's probably just all in my head, though, and a combination of "grass is greener" + that deceptive Apple store lighting. :) So I'm not sure I really feel like going through the hassle of getting it replaced, since the chances are good that I'll just get another one that looks similar to my eyes.

One interesting thing that came out of the trip, though, is that there was one laptop in particular that seemed to be the best of the bunch. I only arrived at this conclusion, however, after a hurried 30-second examination of it...the store was about to close and I was being shooed out. I got curious, so I decided to see if there was even a possibility that Apple was, in fact, already using two different models/manufacturers of screens in rMBP. And I struck paydirt: using my discovery on the "best" display there, I got a different model number out of it than the one that the units with LG/Philips panels in them (such as mine) are reporting: LSN154YL01001 on this one vs. LP154WT1-SJA1 for the LG/Philips. So that's something.

I only had time to look at 4 laptops total out of the 6 on the table; as I mentioned, I was pressed for time. The other 3 were all LG/Philips displays. Besides the seemingly-more-consistent whites on the newly-discovered panel type, I couldn't really spot any other differences in quality -- color saturation, contrast/blacks, maximum brightness, etc. all seemed to be roughly equal to the LG. But again, I only looked at it for a very brief time. Alas, I doubt I will be able to go back anytime soon to do a more thorough investigation...the closest Apple store to me is 90 minutes away, and I don't go up that way much. But if another opportunity comes my way...

-- Nathan

EDIT: Hey Davieis, it occurs to me that it might be interesting to check the panel type on your machine, to verify that it is also an LG/Philips panel, and then run the same check on your friends' machine. It would also be fascinating if it turned out that there was a correlation between it being LG or non-LG and the whole "image persistence"/ghosting issue. If so, I'd say that the non-uniformity of the whites on the LG are definitely the lesser of the two evils...
 
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I come from an antiglare 1920x1200 umbp 17", a really nice screen!

Well, if i compare that one with the new rMbp, the old 17 looks like crap! this screen is amazing and i am lucky because it has no issues at all: no ghosting, no burn-in, no dead pixel.

If it had only half of such defects i would have returned it!
 
My screen is perfect. Like, for serious perfect. And I've tested and scrutinized for every issue.

No backlight bleeding.
No dead pixels.
No ghosting.
No pressure spots.
No uneven color shifts.

Ordered 6/13 BTO, arrived July 2nd.
 
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