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What do you think about the Macbook's screen quality?

xraydoc said:
Its no S-IPS panel, but its pretty darn good for what is basically a budget laptop.
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The MacBook is a budget laptop? Well, I know it has comparable specs to a $500 Windows notebook, but the price certainly isn't budget!

Anyway, the MacBook screen is good if you calibrate it. I have one with an LG display and still images look fantastic.

The real problem with all of the displays used on the MacBooks is that they have absolutely horrid response times. In the neighborhood of 24ms. You get ghosting in EVERYTHING. Move a window, mouse cursor, scroll on a web page, watch a video.. ghosting is everywhere. It's terrible. The MacBook Pros aren't much better at 16ms.

If you can stand the ghosting, then the MB, MBA, and MBP all have good displays.
 
I am worrying about the screen quality myself. I have owned many Apple laptops, starting with the powerbooks. In our household, my wife has a MBP, I have a Mac Pro & MBA. Recently I have decided to perhaps get rid of my MBA so I ordered a Macbook. However, I am worried about the screen looking washed out. My brother not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) purchased a Macbook and when I compared it to my MBA just after he got it, the screen looked HORRIBLE, it seemed so washed out. I hope this was only because I compared it to the MBA and it's LED screen.

Perhaps his screen was bad? I thought the viewing angle was pretty bad too, even when sitting straight in front of it.
 
drewx2 said:
I am worrying about the screen quality myself. I have owned many Apple laptops, starting with the powerbooks. In our household, my wife has a MBP, I have a Mac Pro & MBA. Recently I have decided to perhaps get rid of my MBA so I ordered a Macbook. However, I am worried about the screen looking washed out. My brother not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) purchased a Macbook and when I compared it to my MBA just after he got it, the screen looked HORRIBLE, it seemed so washed out. I hope this was only because I compared it to the MBA and it's LED screen.

Perhaps his screen was bad? I thought the viewing angle was pretty bad too, even when sitting straight in front of it.
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LED is just a backlight.

Calibrate the screen and it will look fine. As I said, the real problem is ghosting. Not anything else.
 
drewx2 said:
I am worrying about the screen quality myself. I have owned many Apple laptops, starting with the powerbooks. In our household, my wife has a MBP, I have a Mac Pro & MBA. Recently I have decided to perhaps get rid of my MBA so I ordered a Macbook. However, I am worried about the screen looking washed out. My brother not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) purchased a Macbook and when I compared it to my MBA just after he got it, the screen looked HORRIBLE, it seemed so washed out. I hope this was only because I compared it to the MBA and it's LED screen.

Perhaps his screen was bad? I thought the viewing angle was pretty bad too, even when sitting straight in front of it.
Click to expand...
You do need to spend some time working on the calibration of the display but it can be made to look quite good. It is just the viewing angle that can't be fixed. It is just plain bad. I also have two HP notebooks that have bad viewing angles. It's most likely an issue with the types of displays used since my HP notebooks have video cards instead of shared as the MB does.
 
id say the screen is good enough for a mid-end laptop
if you want higher quality then youll have to pay for it.

compare the macbook screen to toshibas or sonys and youll see
 
anmoldagreat said:
id say the screen is good enough for a mid-end laptop
if you want higher quality then youll have to pay for it.

snip>
Click to expand...

How much does one have to shell out to have a decent screen then ?

I mean the entry level Macbook is what £699 UK (equal to $1300+ dollars), if that is not enough money for a decent screen I don't know what is
 
Why is it you even need to calibrate your screen (besides the fact that LCDs vary, etc.. This I understand)?

When I purchased a Powerbook, Macbook Pro and Macbook Air, I never had to once mess with calibrating. These screens should look great out of the box.
 
To be honest, I find mine a bit dark, especially next to my external display. Even on full brightness, it's nowhere near as bright as the external lcd (even at around 50%).

And compared to other laptops (such as Sonys I've seen), the brightness doesn't come close. It also flickers quite a bit, at low brightness settings. I think the backlight may be on its last legs.

I love it otherwise though :)
 
its not bright at all, the best looking screens are the imacs and the 17" hi-res macbook pros.
 
Sure its not the best, but its still better than many other laptops. When compared to the MBP you can see a difference but you also have to keep in mind the price gap between a stock MB and a stock MBP
 
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