This light bleed on new thunderbolt display isn't normal, right?

[RS1999ent]

Hi,

The monitor is under a month old --- I just noticed this this morning when switching to a different desktop background. Wanted to ask if this seemed excessive for this type of monitor before hauling it off to an Apple store. It definitely seems so, given the cost

The sad thing is that I got both a new Retina macbook pro and a thunderbolt monitor last month. The laptop had a non-working USB port (since it was a port on the I/O board, not the logic board, I let them replace the I/O board instead of exchanging the laptop) and now the monitor seems defective as well...

EDIT: Yes, I know the picture is upside down. It should be sufficient to get the point across though

 

[theluggage]

The monitor is under a month old --- I just noticed this this morning when switching to a different desktop background.

At first glance, that looks like quite bad backlight bleed, but if you look carefully at the photo you'll see the icons and menu bar are hideously over-exposed, to the point that all the colour has leeched out. So the 'bleed' will also be exaggerated. Nobody can make an objective judgement based on that. Try and get a photo in which the brightness and colours of the icons look natural.

Case in point was that you didn't notice it for a month, until you chose an all-black background. You could also dial down the brightness on your screen a bit - especially if you're using light-on-black images in a darkened room. Displays tend to ship with the brightness in 'look good in a brightly-lit store' mode.

Light bleed on black backgrounds is what you get with IPS screens. There's no such thing as a perfect LCD monitor - if you look at somewhere like TFTCentral that does detailed reviews you'll see that most screens show some sort of backlight bleed. (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2711.htm).

 

[RS1999ent]

Thanks for the informative response. I do know that light bleed is to be expected, I was just taken aback by the seeming amount of it. The discoloration is visible on almost the entire lower third of the screen, albeit with the brightness turned all the way up and with the room lights off (there is a window, but it's a bit gloomy outside) Obviously, I don't want to make a big deal out of it if it's normal.

Btw, it's very hard to get a properly exposed picture of the entire screen (including the dock) with an iPhone .

 

[CubeHacker]

Does the amount of light leakage change when you shift your view from left to right or up and down? If it does change, then thats the white haze seen with IPS displays and is normal. If it doesn't change when viewed on different angles, then its light bleeding and not normal.