Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Check out my near perfectly illuminated macbook pro
- Thread starter Anthony8720
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well, if you can't see the light differences on your screen then you need rain. That's about the ugliest display I've seen in a while - I'd expect this from a Walmart consumer grade Gateway for $395. Not a $3,109.00 MBP
Look at the bottom right of your screen. Now look at the top left. Holding a light meter to my monitor using YOUR photo it shows **3 f stops** difference. You'd better use a light meter with a audible tone alert, because I don't think you're going to be able to read the results with YOUR eyes. Holding that same light meter on my actual display (17" glossy C2d) shows almost 4 f stops of light darker/lighter. This is REDICULOUS.
It's posts like this with blind and complacent users that lets Apple off the hook. If you don't have any better expectations than what you posted then why'd you buy a high end machine in the first place? A 3rd party laptop from Taiwan like Acer would have suited you well. The old "I just dropped $3k on a notebook, you don't think I'm going to admit it has flaws do you"? crowd.
I can't apologize for bringing this out. If you go posting a photo that ugly and expect everyone to overlook it because you just dropped megadollars then rain it is
Look at the bottom right of your screen. Now look at the top left. Holding a light meter to my monitor using YOUR photo it shows **3 f stops** difference. You'd better use a light meter with a audible tone alert, because I don't think you're going to be able to read the results with YOUR eyes. Holding that same light meter on my actual display (17" glossy C2d) shows almost 4 f stops of light darker/lighter. This is REDICULOUS.
It's posts like this with blind and complacent users that lets Apple off the hook. If you don't have any better expectations than what you posted then why'd you buy a high end machine in the first place? A 3rd party laptop from Taiwan like Acer would have suited you well. The old "I just dropped $3k on a notebook, you don't think I'm going to admit it has flaws do you"? crowd.
I can't apologize for bringing this out. If you go posting a photo that ugly and expect everyone to overlook it because you just dropped megadollars then rain it is
I may not have phrased it that way, but there is some truth to this. The fact is, just because a person can't see it, doesn't mean that it isn't there. Those who say they have perfect displays without uneven illumination and with good viewing angles, are either 'blind' or simply have nothing to compare it to. I have seen some MBPs at the apple store that seem a tad better than others, but they all suffer from the same issuee. If all you do is surfn the web and check email with the computer on your desk and an external keyboard/mouse, you probably will be fine. If you, on the other hand, use it as a portable work station, the narrow viewing angles, uneven illumination, graininess and hardware limiations of the hinge WILL be annoying and, ultimately, unacceptable.
As a former powerbook owner (540c, wallstreet, lombard, pismo, titanium, aluminum), this is the only display that I find really problematic. I want to love it because at the right angle it's wonderfully bright, but at the same time it's very severe limitations are constantly reminding me of that it is a poor quality display. Good technology is seamless and you don't notice it; it allows you to get your work done (or play) with the least amount of complication and distraction. Just like good writing, you don't notice it and you're lulled along happily. The MBP is a disappointment in this regard.
First of all, the title of this thread is "Near" perfectly illuminated..blah..blah. Second, I have seen in person and in pictures displays on macbook pros that are far worse than mine, which is why i posted in the first place. This machine does more than i need a computer to do for me, and i do a lot of photoediting and video editing. If you look at almost any widescreen display with a solid light backround, you will notice nearly the same uneveness that my screen has. Yes, i have had a powerbook as well, and it was a little better, but not by much. Im very happy with my computer, sorry if that bothers anyone.
It doesn't bother me at all that you're happy with your computer. On the contrary, that's great. However, just because you are fine with your display doesn't mean that it's ok or of good quality. If everybody were happy like you, Apple quality would go down the drain very quickly.
I suppose it's about expectations. I'm not looking for problems: the problems are jumping in my face. I honestly thought I could live with this display until I had to use it more practically and realized that I can't. It's not any ONE of the problems (limited tilt, viewing angle, grain, uneven ill.), but the combination of all of them. If it were just one, I'd be fine with it too, but it's all four issues together that make it bad. For the money, we all deserve better - even you, despite being satisfied.
The real trouble with these screens is they have no optimal viewing angle. That's right, they have none. An posture that works when you are reading text off, say, the middle of the screen would not be optimal if you shift your focus to the top of the screen. Similarly for the sides. Over time as your eyes keeps adjusting to this constantly changing brightness you just can't help but go &@*#$&# at the damned thing.
I really suspect all these complaints about uneven backlighting stems from whatever filter they use to coat the front of the screens with. They have such a narrow viewing angle that they make brightness and colours shift with even a tiny change in viewing angle. And since the angle your eyes are at relative to the centre of the screen is different from the sides, top, and bottom, that may be the explaination for the dim corners we see on all these MBP photos.
To further illustrate what I am talking about, just sit squarely in front of your MBP and lift the side of its bottom that is towards you upwards, you can see a band on the screen that is significantly brighter than the rest move as you tilt the MBP. That is how narrow the viewing angle is.
I really suspect all these complaints about uneven backlighting stems from whatever filter they use to coat the front of the screens with. They have such a narrow viewing angle that they make brightness and colours shift with even a tiny change in viewing angle. And since the angle your eyes are at relative to the centre of the screen is different from the sides, top, and bottom, that may be the explaination for the dim corners we see on all these MBP photos.
To further illustrate what I am talking about, just sit squarely in front of your MBP and lift the side of its bottom that is towards you upwards, you can see a band on the screen that is significantly brighter than the rest move as you tilt the MBP. That is how narrow the viewing angle is.
Good Lord, give it a break....I work on my MBP for hours on end, have 20/10 vision and my eyes don't hurt one bit...and there is no grain issue. I work on Samsung, Dell, Viewsonic, and Lanova (or whatever the hell ThinkPads are now) regularly and aside from my ACD this is the best display of any of them. I do have one dead pixel...the horror, throw the thing away...
Good Lord, give it a break....I work on my MBP for hours on end, have 20/10 vision and my eyes don't hurt one bit...and there is no grain issue. I work on Samsung, Dell, Viewsonic, and Lanova (or whatever the hell ThinkPads are now) regularly and aside from my ACD this is the best display of any of them. I do have one dead pixel...the horror, throw the thing away...
If you don't have any problems with yours, that is YOUR problem, not mine. I do have problems with it. So? What are you gonna do about that?
If you are happy with it just give it a break yourself and don't troll the people here who are affected and trying to find a solution to the problem. Contrary to what you think this is not a very good screen. Who the hell do you think you are to come here and tell us what we are supposed to expect from our machine?
That screen is NOT good. I can clearly see uneven backlighting on the right side of the screen. I would not be happy with that screen.
Good Lord, give it a break....I work on my MBP for hours on end, have 20/10 vision and my eyes don't hurt one bit...and there is no grain issue. I work on Samsung, Dell, Viewsonic, and Lanova (or whatever the hell ThinkPads are now) regularly and aside from my ACD this is the best display of any of them. I do have one dead pixel...the horror, throw the thing away...
If you put this display next to macbook or 17mbp it is very very clear that something is going on with the 'texture'. the 17 and macbook have perfectly clean whites and solids while the 15" don't. It could be a bad batch, but I've been through many now and they all had grain. If you don't mind, then that's great, but I certainly did and now that I have the 17" I'm happy I didn't try to stick with the15". I suspect Apple will make adjustments soon and then everybody will get the displays they should have had to start with.
Good Lord, give it a break....I work on my MBP for hours on end, have 20/10 vision and my eyes don't hurt one bit...and there is no grain issue. I work on Samsung, Dell, Viewsonic, and Lanova (or whatever the hell ThinkPads are now) regularly and aside from my ACD this is the best display of any of them. I do have one dead pixel...the horror, throw the thing away...
Bravo!
You know, when I first got my MBP, I got a bit paranoid about the "terrible screen" threads on this website (even though I saw the same names posting repeatedly), and really scrutinized mine, and those at the 3 Apple stores here in Minneapolis, to see what I was missing. I'm a finicky consumer, and if an expensive item that I buy has problems, I take it back, for replacement or refund. But I've found no problems in mine, and am thrilled with the quality of this MBP!
If you look at MacRumors forum statistics, there are 92,150 members, with 252,842 threads including 3,090,965 posts, as of this minute. And out of all of these people, I just keep seeing the same 10-12 people, with the same complaints about a "universally defective" MBP screen, posted ad nauseum, in multiple threads. I'm sure there are individual screens with defects, it would be impossible for that to not occur. But this is not a universal "defect," apple isn't "using a crap screen now," and if you can't find one you're happy with, then please move on and buy something else - the vast majority of MBP buyers are quite happy with them. We're not "Apple apologists," we're not "too blind to see it," and we're not "easily satisfied" or "too unsophisticated" because we don't agree with you!
If you have a defective MBP, please get it repaired or replaced - you have my sympathies, and you should be happy with a $2-3k purchase. But if you've had 17 consecutive "lemons," then you're either the unluckiest person around, your expectations are unreasonable for current technology, or you'll just never be happy with an Apple product and should buy a Dell ..... or you're a "PC troll"®, just bashing Apple for sport.
iBorg
p.s. Now let the same few people respond with their usual ad hominem attacks because I don't agree that "Apple sux" .....
I did exactly that a few weeks ago, and again this weekend (to compare with 17" screens that weren't available before), and what you describe simply wasn't there in the MoM Apple store. The 17" and 15" MBP screens (including mine, which I brought in and set up beside them for comparison, much to the amusement of the Apple salespeople!) were equally bright and clear, with the glossy screens brighter and more crisp than comparable matte screens. The MB screens were also similar in quality (good to see that Apple isn't using the cheaper iBook screens, like they did in the previous 12" PowerBooks!) Clean, bright whites, crisp solid colors, no "grain."
And as in my last post above, it's not that I "don't mind," or some such rubbish, the screens I've seen, including my MBP, have been quite good. I've seen a couple of matte 15" floor models a few weeks ago that I could see some "graininess" in, but that's all.
Again, I'm sure that there are isolated "defects," it would be impossible to not occur. But it's not "universal."
iBorg
Anthony's screen might be great, or it might be lousy. There's no way to tell from his photo. Here are two screens. Which one is great, and which one is lousy?
The answer is: they're the same screen, taken by the same camera with the same settings by the same photographer, about a minute apart. The only difference was that the top photo was taken with an 11mm lens, and the bottom with a 200mm lens. I can see from the barrel distortion that Anthony used a pretty short lens, so his photo proves nothing about his screen. It might well be a perfect one.
The answer is: they're the same screen, taken by the same camera with the same settings by the same photographer, about a minute apart. The only difference was that the top photo was taken with an 11mm lens, and the bottom with a 200mm lens. I can see from the barrel distortion that Anthony used a pretty short lens, so his photo proves nothing about his screen. It might well be a perfect one.
Attachments
Ok, fair enough. There is a batch of defective displays that happen to affect people all over the world. I've had mbps core2duo week 44, 46 and 47 and the 09c60 and 0957 displays. They all had the problems:grainy with uneven illumination and exceedingly poor viewing angles making it very hard to get optimum view of the display. All 15" mbps in the Apple stores in New York City are affected as of Saturday evening. Another display 'issue' I noticed on some of the MBPs 15' is that when you have a solid background and drag a window there is horizontal banding that follows the window up and down or wherever. I had that on my last one too and decided that enough is enough.
I still think this is an issue of whether people can see it or not. One thing I do know and that's that the display on my 17" does not have any grain at all and is very comfortable on my eyes compared to the 15". This is not the best display I've seen on a notebook, but it's pretty good and I'm ok with it. So: to each his own!
To be honest, my screen actually looks even better in person. In the picture it actually looks like the top left corner of my screen is a little darker, but in actuality, nobody could ever perceive it with there own eyes, without a camera. I think you make a good point, but my picture actually makes my screen look worse than it is, not better.
I have a talent for giving the wrong impression. What you're saying is what I was trying to say. Your screen looks pretty bad in your photo, and I'm saying that this is probably just the photo because you used such a short lens. Short lenses make good screens look bad, as my two photos show.
I totally agree - the only thing that should matter is if you notice it while you're working and, if you do, if that bothers you. Unless there are very significant illumination differences, I'd say that it really doesn't matter. I was surprised to a lady sitting at Starbucks with an expensive looking sony vaio that had horribly uneven backlighting - never seen anything as bad, yet there she was typing away. Chances are she thinks it's normal and has learned to live with it.
I do think Mac users hold Apple to a higher standard than most PC users...including myself. Just important to remember.
That is the trouble of the screen, why should the viewing angle on it be so limited that even a change in focal length would have such a drastic difference?
Remember people, it is not solely the evenness of backlighting that is of issue here, it is the combination of the narrow view angles, graininess, and (due to the narrow angles) uneven brightness that is a PITA. On top of that this poor person thinks he has a brilliant screen despite the fact that he has a dead pixel. Never has it been a sadder time to be a Mac user.
At this rate I am sure we can cheer and go around telling others how we got a Mac Pro that boots up, even though its hard disk has clicking sounds and tons of bad sectors, but hey... it boots up!
The only questions I'm concerned with when I use a laptop is: does it get in my way or does it facilitate my work? If it gets in my way (for example, by forcing me into strange positions to get even illumination or optimum brightness), then it's not a good computer for me. If I use and feel that things are smooth and it helps me get stuff done in an efficient and easy way, then it's a good computer for me. Simple really.
So, to summarise:
- You are happy with your computer
- Some people are happy that you are happy with your computer
- A large proportion of the known world are probably oblivious to your computer related feelings
- A couple of people are personally offended by the gall of someone who comes on-line to post their contentment whilst they themselves seem to take issue with what they perceive as a problem with this particular line of apple products and they won't be happy until everyone else shares their level of discontentment
- Buckwheat is being sarcastic
Well good for you.
Unfortunately I wish the grain/narrow viewing angles are just issues that I notice after reading these forums, and hence started fussing over, but they aren't. I noticed them right out of the box.
As for getting in my way, well I can barely work 2 hours on this display without my eyes actually hurting, and I don't mean it metaphorically, they physically hurt.
Right now I will keep looking on these forums to see if there is any news of people getting their displays replaced, or if the new batches have this issue addressed, or even for the rumoured ultra portable MBP which may have a better screen as well. I am prepared to sell this machine at some point if no fix is forthcoming, and switch to another PC laptop if Apple does not have a machine in the line that caters for me (ie: not 17", have a GPU, and of course a good screen).
That is how much I am pissed by this issue, it is definitely something that I take very seriously.
Because a change in focal length from 11mm to 200mm is a very drastic change. Even a change in focal length from 100mm to 200mm is a very drastic change even though both are considered telephoto. The field of view of a 100mm lens is only half that of a 200mm lens, and depending on the distance from the subject, this could be several feet!
At 11mm, my camera was about 4 inches from the screen. So light rays from the center of the screen entered the lens at a near 0° angle. But light rays from the corners of the screen had to enter the lens at a greater than 45° angle. Do you have evidence to show that a typical, non-Macintosh, laptop screen displays the same lighting at both these angles?