There seem to be a lot of people posting about various issues with their MBP LCDs I'm beginning to wonder if, in fact, ALL MBP LCDs have many of the flaws that are reported, but only a few people see them. What I'm wondering is what is *reasonable* to expect from these displays in terms of:
- Even backlight? I have never really seen a completely evenly illuminated notebook backlight. My new MBP looked extremely even, but I've noticed that it really isn't and that the sides are darker than the middle. That's fine because the center of the display is brighter and the differences in brightness are only slight, making it hardly noticeable in daily use. But I wonder if there are any macbook pros with better illuminated distribution? If you go over to notebookcheck.com, they measure the unevenness of the illumination of the notebooks they review. There are those that are much better than the MBP, but often they are less bright. The MBP rate fairly low in terms of evenness.
- Backlight bleeding? I didn't notice anything on my beautiful display until I watched a DVD and saw that there is significant backlight bleeding on top and below. AND, in the middle of the display, there is a large darkish area that looks pretty awful. If you pause any of the APPLE HD trailers in full screen mode (in a dark room) immediately after the green ratings screen, you might see what I mean. It's only really visible in a dark room when there is a completely dark background, but it is very pronounced then.You can also see this with the black screen in the app LCDTest.
I really thought I had a perfect screen! And for most intents and purposes, it looks really good. But, objectively speaking, it's FAR from perfect and, if I actually look closely and care to care about it, the backlight bleeding is nasty under specific circumstances. When I had a MBP with yellowing in the bottom 1/3, I showed the display to my girlfriend and asked if she could comment on anything strange with the display - she couldn't, but to me it was very obvious.
So, what should we expect/demand? Are there any notebook displays of similar brightness and contrast (this is important since the less brightness=the less visible the flaws) that do not have uneven illumination and do not have backlight bleeding? Do they exist? And are there better displays on the market used by other manufacturers?
Any insight to spark the discussion? I think the question that really needs addressing is what we should expect from a notebook display given current technology - otherwise we could forever be chasing a kind of LCD that simply does not exist. In other words, what are the characteristics of a high end notebook LCD in 2008?
- Even backlight? I have never really seen a completely evenly illuminated notebook backlight. My new MBP looked extremely even, but I've noticed that it really isn't and that the sides are darker than the middle. That's fine because the center of the display is brighter and the differences in brightness are only slight, making it hardly noticeable in daily use. But I wonder if there are any macbook pros with better illuminated distribution? If you go over to notebookcheck.com, they measure the unevenness of the illumination of the notebooks they review. There are those that are much better than the MBP, but often they are less bright. The MBP rate fairly low in terms of evenness.
- Backlight bleeding? I didn't notice anything on my beautiful display until I watched a DVD and saw that there is significant backlight bleeding on top and below. AND, in the middle of the display, there is a large darkish area that looks pretty awful. If you pause any of the APPLE HD trailers in full screen mode (in a dark room) immediately after the green ratings screen, you might see what I mean. It's only really visible in a dark room when there is a completely dark background, but it is very pronounced then.You can also see this with the black screen in the app LCDTest.
I really thought I had a perfect screen! And for most intents and purposes, it looks really good. But, objectively speaking, it's FAR from perfect and, if I actually look closely and care to care about it, the backlight bleeding is nasty under specific circumstances. When I had a MBP with yellowing in the bottom 1/3, I showed the display to my girlfriend and asked if she could comment on anything strange with the display - she couldn't, but to me it was very obvious.
So, what should we expect/demand? Are there any notebook displays of similar brightness and contrast (this is important since the less brightness=the less visible the flaws) that do not have uneven illumination and do not have backlight bleeding? Do they exist? And are there better displays on the market used by other manufacturers?
Any insight to spark the discussion? I think the question that really needs addressing is what we should expect from a notebook display given current technology - otherwise we could forever be chasing a kind of LCD that simply does not exist. In other words, what are the characteristics of a high end notebook LCD in 2008?
