Would you return this 13" rMBP?

[objectiveseeker]

I looked up what screen I got this afternoon after reading through this post...

Unfortunately, I landed a A029 on my 2.7/16/256 2015 rmbp

My screen seems really uniform.... but when I turn the brightness up all the way on my phone (iPhone 6+) and my macbook, the phone looks much more white and crisper. I can get it matching pretty close if I turn the brightness down on my phone some.

I also checked the site for testing the image retention and didn't seem to have an issue. I might like to go by the apple store and compare the laptops there...

Not crazy about the thought of having to reorder a new machine... but if it is yellow tinted, I will always be thinking about/noticing that!

It's uniform with no retention! You lucked out there. Also, you can use the color pane of System Preferences to adjust the tone (I liked 9300K on it), and the A029 does have better viewing angles fwiw. If you don't see image retention and the color is even and not obviously yellow (as in, the background of the url bar in safari looks white, not in comparison but to your eyes when you use it) I wouldn't go through the pain of ordering a BTO just to have it be the same or worse.

Now, i can't tell you what to do, but if my first BTO (with A029) had not had 2-minute retention issues i would have kept it. The good A029 screen I saw was just fine, actually, even brighter than A02A, but it wasn't the model I wanted.

So, I can understand looking at it very closely but I don't believe a good A029 is automatically worse than a A02A for your money. Except that image retention, when it exists at all, is a no-go.

I have no reason to believe a screen w/out image retention develops it later. If someone else want to chime in, please do, but i've not heard of it. I'm truly sorry the question even exists however. I understand personally how stressful it can be to wonder about it.

I hope I can at least give you some peace of mind that i'd keep a perfect A029 if i'd gotten it BTO.

 

[blwade]

Honestly if you like it don't bother. I believe there probably are A029's out there that are decent, I swear I've seen some in previous posts, this is just for people who SEE issues and need to be certain those aren't the only devices out there.

That's really my intent.

I went to the Apple store and looked at the models on display... 2 of them I checked were the A02A, and where I thought mine looked a little yellow, I thought the A02A's were a little pink. I think I'll keep mine with the slight yellow.

 

[objectiveseeker]

I went to the Apple store and looked at the models on display... 2 of them I checked were the A02A, and where I thought mine looked a little yellow, I thought the A02A's were a little pink. I think I'll keep mine with the slight yellow.

you've got 14 days to think about it, but the logic of comparing to the other screen(s) in the store is a good one. good luck!!

 

[objectiveseeker]

Unrelated, check the attachment. My rMBP is -3 days old

 

[8tm]

Update :


My replacement wasn't due for shipping until the 16th smh.. Got fed up. Maxed my credit card. Got the i7/16GB/512 at my local Apple Store.

Unwrapped it at the store, and already noticed the whiteness of the screen. And voila a nice A02A !

Glad this nightmare ended

Good luck

 

[objectiveseeker]

Update :


My replacement wasn't due for shipping until the 16th smh.. Got fed up. Maxed my credit card. Got the i7/16GB/512 at my local Apple Store.

Unwrapped it at the store, and already noticed the whiteness of the screen. And voila a nice A02A !

Glad this nightmare ended

Good luck

All these people getting 16gb models at the store.. where the heck are those, around here?? Great to hear!

Interestingly 10.10.3 updates the Activity Viewer's display of memory to give you the sense you have more memory available (doesn't count inactive memory, filing everything under "cache") which i suppose will help people with 8GB feel better. Not that 8GB is too small for most consumers.

 

[8tm]

All these people getting 16gb models at the store.. where the heck are those, around here?? Great to hear!

In Paris all the Apple Store got this config in stock & by default !

 

[TrijiconAMR]

everybody have beers to A02A

Image

I have my own little victory though not nearly as annoying or problematic or time consuming (understatement), bought a pentalobe off amazon and just re-adhered the screws in the order above.

My MBP creaks SO much less/almost never now manhandling it

this is a nice kit if anyone is interested: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I039E9W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My new rMBP creaks as well but only in the upper left hand area (#9 in that diagram). I ordered the same pentalobe screwdriver set from Amazon and am planning on loosening then re-tightening that particular screw. Hopefully it will stop creaking!

 

[thadoggfather]

mine feels way more solid removing and re-seating the screws.

 

[lbass]

Man am I happy to have stumbled across this thread. I'm a photographer and I purchased the rMBP (base model) when it came out in March. Without doing any research I hated the screen (strong yellow tint to half of it) which could not be removed through calibration with an i1 display pro. So I exchanged it. The new screen was uniform but so yellow, just awful to look at. So I exchanged it, same again. At this point I cut my losses and got a refund.

How do you determine if you have the A02A screen? And is there a trend between the models that have the A02A screen (ie more BTOs have them). For those who have observed both, would you say that the A02A screen is less yellow, or less uneven (better by comparison), or are they actually nice displays?

Out of interest do you know if there is a similar display lottery with the new iMac?

 

[objectiveseeker]

Man am I happy to have stumbled across this thread. I'm a photographer and I purchased the rMBP (base model) when it came out in March. Without doing any research I hated the screen (strong yellow tint to half of it) which could not be removed through calibration with an i1 display pro. So I exchanged it. The new screen was uniform but so yellow, just awful to look at. So I exchanged it, same again. At this point I cut my losses and got a refund.

How do you determine if you have the A02A screen? And is there a trend between the models that have the A02A screen (ie more BTOs have them). For those who have observed both, would you say that the A02A screen is less yellow, or less uneven (better by comparison), or are they actually nice displays?

Out of interest do you know if there is a similar display lottery with the new iMac?

You find out the display by

1) opening "ColorSync Utility" (use spotlight to find it),
2) selecting the "devices" pane,
3) then "displays",
4) pick "Color LCD",
5) open the factory profile (a button marked "open" on the right),
6) scroll to the bottom of the list that appears and select the last entry ("Apple display make and model...")
7) and the second entry, "Model", will either be 0000A02A or 0000A029

While it seems some (many? dunno) A029 screens do not have image retention, none are quite as "white" as A02As. However, some people may actually prefer a perfect A029 to an A02A as they like the "warmer" tone a good one has. But if you are interested the purest whites then it seems, yes, there is no replacement for a good A02A.

While some (many? dunno) A029s do not have any image retention, you have to check right away to make sure. As far as I have seen, no A02A models exhibit that flaw. All Apple Store floor models seem to be A02A.

I personally prefer A02A screens and think the colors are deep, rich, and vibrant. The one big upside to A029s is that they have better viewing angles (screen has a more uniform brightness when viewed from side to side unlike the A02A which obviously less bright when viewed at an angle)

As far as what you will get, i believe that apple needs more than one supplier of screen to deliver in volume, so they use A02A to begin with and when they run out of stock they use the A029s until the next shipment comes in. They also use A02A's in the initial shipment so floor models and reviewer units have that screen.

From what i've seen, ordering online or from an apple store is going to be a toss up and there is no way to know ahead of time. It seems as if third party authorized resellers get A02As more often and when they do get an A029, they have image retention problems less often. That is all conjecture, however.

I have already written about my experiences in previous posts so I wont re-type it (much to the thread's relief, lol)

 

[lbass]

You find out the display by

I personally prefer A02A screens and think the colors are deep, rich, and vibrant. The one big upside to A029s is that they have better viewing angles (screen is brighter when viewed from side to side)

Thanks for all that info, great post.

For somebody with this screen, would you mind loading this page:

http://imac.squeaked.com/test.php

Press test screen, which will take it full screen and then press yellow check. Displays two grey bars top and bottom. If those look uniform then I'm going to place an order and swap until I get one!

 

[objectiveseeker]

Thanks for all that info, great post.

For somebody with this screen, would you mind loading this page:

http://imac.squeaked.com/test.php

Press test screen, which will take it full screen and then press yellow check. Displays two grey bars top and bottom. If those look uniform then I'm going to place an order and swap until I get one!

I am doing your test. I saw (almost) no difference.

I am not going to post the pic I took because the camera cant capture it correctly - polarization and camera artifacts mean that the pic i got looks much worse than it did here.

BUT, to my "trained" eye, the bottom bar was just a smidge yellower than the top. I mean, real subliminal difference stuff. i dont know if the test was supposed to be that way or not. My friend here said they were the same, but i just noticed the most delicate of shades being different, really, really hard to tell if i'm making it up or not.

Had i seen the image without knowing what it was I would have believed they were the same and chalked up any difference to polarization effects. It sure as heck doesn't bother me, if it's actually different.

 

[lbass]

I am doing your test. I saw (almost) no difference.


BUT, to my "trained" eye, the bottom bar was just a smidge yellower than the top. I mean, real subliminal difference stuff. i dont know if the test was supposed to be that way or not. My friend here said they were the same, but i just noticed the most delicate of shades being different, really, really hard to tell if i'm making it up or not.

This is very promising. How was the uniformity from left to right within the same bar?

 

[objectiveseeker]

This is very promising. How was the uniformity from left to right within the same bar?

Looking carefully, it seems to have good uniformity left to right. Understand i am referencing very, very slight perceptions here, but it looks to me like the top and bottom of the gray boxes have a slight "shadow" to them, that is, the top and bottom of each bar seem to be slightly -- slightly -- darker than the middle.

I loaded it on another LCD (big, external) and didn't see that there. My opinion is that while the average person would not notice, if we are to go very OCD than there are slight differences both in the top and bottom bars, and in each bar, that "shadow" effect makes it look oh-so-slightly darker at the edges of the bars. It definitely doesn't appear perfectly uniform which I feel I could discern. Again, it might be some kind of polarization effect.

I say this knowing you are a professional photo type person. Had I saw it in another context, I would never have noticed it (and it doesn't change my opinion of it being very nice, personally, as a non-photo guy. Im straining to see it, looking multiple times).

 

[objectiveseeker]

This is very promising. How was the uniformity from left to right within the same bar?

I took a screen shot. I think its exaggerated here, but that it does show the tiny difference I see. Since camera angle and polarization are in play, YMMV, but since it's relative, it wont matter so much that you have a diff screen to see it. I think it gets close to what I saw

 

[TrijiconAMR]

Thanks for all that info, great post.

For somebody with this screen, would you mind loading this page:

http://imac.squeaked.com/test.php

Press test screen, which will take it full screen and then press yellow check. Displays two grey bars top and bottom. If those look uniform then I'm going to place an order and swap until I get one!

A02A owner checking in. Both of the bars appear the same to me.

Not really related to this post per say however I had mentioned a couple pages back that the my latest rMBP had a sticker on the outside of the shipping box with the date 3-22-15. I assumed that this was the manufactured date. However, I just downloaded coconutBattery and it tells me that this machine was manufactured on 3-2-15. Could I have gotten one of the early production models with the A02A screens?

 

[objectiveseeker]

A02A owner checking in. Both of the bars appear the same to me.

Not really related to this post per say however I had mentioned a couple pages back that the my latest rMBP had a sticker on the outside of the shipping box with the date 3-22-15. I assumed that this was the manufactured date. However, I just downloaded coconutBattery and it tells me that this machine was manufactured on 3-2-15. Could I have gotten one of the early production models with the A02A screens?

We dont even know. My manufacture date hasn't occurred as of today! So i'm guessing it's not set in stone But yeah, you almost certainly did get one of the first "batch". I'm guessing mine (from the battery manufacture date being near the end of march) was right near the beginning of a second batch.

Pulled out of my ass moment: I'm guessing that so far there have been two main runs and in each they use all the A02As until they run out then switch to A029. At least, they got two distinct shipments of batteries, which is what I based that on. Going through more than a few units, i noticed things like battery date (the earliest I saw was two months old as of a week ago)

 

[salvator]

hey guys so i don't have the 2015 model but the 2014 model and have gone through 3 screen replacements all A020 except for the first one being A018.
The current screen I have seems perfect like its uniform and no backlight bleeding or No IR at all but the only part is the grey colors appear to be yellow and that annoys the **** out of me.

Mostly all the colors in the #F1F1F1 #F2F2F2.......#F8F8F8 range all of them appear to be yellow, I don't know why and I have OCD so it drives me crazy. Also sometimes they appear to be grey and sometimes grayish yellow, the color keeps changing which is weird. I'm from India and here we have only authorized service centers and they have already changed my screens thrice because

1)first time they scratched it and it creaked,
2) secondtime it was highly uneven (even now it's little uneven but you can barely notice the difference , I guess all the screen have such a minimum difference)
3)third time because again they scratched it again


I have had this computer for almost 7 months and only used it for the first 3 months when I had the A018 screen after getting that replaced I just don't feel like using it. Is my screen okay or am I being really psychotic about it.
And since everyone is saying the A029 screen is the bad one the similar was the case between the A020 and A018 so that is stuck in my head that I lost a good A018 for the bad A020 ones

Funny part is after comparing it with few displays some were much brighter and vibrant and some weren't. The good part is no problems are there except for the grey colors being slightly yellow but again they are all in the F1F1F1 range as I mentioned earlier.


Here are few pictures(notice the grey ares like in the google search bar and Facebook comments area), the screen looks washed out in it but it's not in actual it's just that my phone camera sucks.

What do you think and suggest?

I pray that my screen is fine as I can't deal with Apple Care anymore, they are completely ignorant and not really helpful at all.

 

[8tm]

Quick update once again :

I saw some folks discussed keyboard feel earlier in this thread.

My I7/16GB/512 is really nice but i can't help noticing the keyboard is really soft, it doesn't make any clicking noise.

The keys are kinda loose. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way but i have trouble getting used to it right now. My previous retina had snappier keys i think.

What are you experiencing ?

Thanks.

 

[aodesigns]

Quick update once again :

I saw some folks discussed keyboard feel earlier in this thread.

My I7/16GB/512 is really nice but i can't help noticing the keyboard is really soft, it doesn't make any clicking noise.

The keys are kinda loose. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way but i have trouble getting used to it right now. My previous retina had snappier keys i think.

What are you experiencing ?

Thanks.

I too noticed this compared to my 2012 rMBP. I think it's normal, few other people I know have the same.

 

[Harthag]

Quick update once again :

I saw some folks discussed keyboard feel earlier in this thread.

My I7/16GB/512 is really nice but i can't help noticing the keyboard is really soft, it doesn't make any clicking noise.

The keys are kinda loose. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way but i have trouble getting used to it right now. My previous retina had snappier keys i think.

What are you experiencing ?

Thanks.

Same on mine, I like it. 4 out of the 5 I've gone through have had the good soft keyboard. One of them was very loud and click-clackity. So in addition to different screens, they are using different keyboards it seems. Smh.

----------

Here are few pictures(notice the grey ares like in the google search bar and Facebook comments area), the screen looks washed out in it but it's not in actual it's just that my phone camera sucks.

What do you think and suggest?

I pray that my screen is fine as I can't deal with Apple Care anymore, they are completely ignorant and not really helpful at all.

Hard to tell based on your photos. But from what I can see yours doesn't look all that bad.

 

[objectiveseeker]

Same on mine, I like it. 4 out of the 5 I've gone through have had the good soft keyboard. One of them was very loud and click-clackity. So in addition to different screens, they are using different keyboards it seems. Smh..

all i can add is that i did notice a diff. in keyboards in the first BTO I received. it was ever so slightly shallower than the first best buy model (and what I was used to on the cMBP 13 2012). The Apple Store person (in obliviousness) said it might be redesigned ahead of the macbook launch.. sure, ok.

It does look like they have two slightly diff. keyboards out there. I found both to be fine.

 

[thadoggfather]

Do you think its actually different keys or different assembly process at the factory?

 

[objectiveseeker]

Do you think its actually different keys or different assembly process at the factory?

interesting question. I believe (mostly-uneducated opinion) that it is in fact a revision (still using the same key mechanism) of the previous keyboard that they've got stock in for. I can't see how it would be just assembly since there really isn't room for a variance of even a millimeter in the vertical positioning of the keyboard, held down by 40ish screws.

If I had to choose, i'd choose the deeper "original" ones, but it's also something I could get used to very quickly. Might even be better if it was quieter although my mandatory keyboard cover (which I, perhaps uniquely, really, really like the feel of) is already less clacky.

/i can't imagine having an exposed keyboard. The crumbs and droplets are out to kill your lappy!

//I highly recommend this one: http://www.amazon.com/UPPERCASE-Ultra-Clear-Keyboard-Macbook/dp/B007FL6100