I opened three Macbook Airs today and they all had lines, backlighting, grey spots

[IcedOrange]

I picked up a new MacBook Air at the Apple store last night and came home to find that the screen had the "recycled paper" horizontal lines going across it, grey spots along the bottom left and right corners, and a bar of really bright backlighting across the top of the display.

I took it back this morning, they gave me a replacement and I opened it up in the store. The second one had the same exact issues, plus bright backlight coming from the bottom left and right corners. The manager was kind enough to open up one more box with me and it had the exact same issues.

I looked through the MacBook Airs on display and only 1 of the 4 had these issues.

The manufacture date on the second one I received was week 52, 2008. In the end, they let me return the laptop without a restocking fee. I've owned 3 Apple laptops in my life and I haven't gotten any more anal retentive (I don't think), but I find these display issues to be unacceptable enough for me not to own the laptop. I really hope Apple acknowledges and resolves this issue soon.

Edit: I posted this before I read through this giant thread - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/594520/
Guess I'm not alone...

 

[HLdan]

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this but this is slightly your fault my man. You knew about the MBA having lines on the screen yet you had the manager open not 1, not 2 but 3 machines which all had lines.
Your thread title says 3 machines but you stated 4 in your OP. Again, you already knew what was up, there was no need to open 3 machines, for Pete's sake.

 

[IcedOrange]

I actually did not know about the extensive coverage of the lines issue prior to returning it. I only Googled for it after the second one was the same way. Then at that point if the manager told me, "most MacBook Airs have a screen with issues," I would have just returned it the first time and been on my merry way. But the manager was unaware as well.

 

[RHD]

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this but this is slightly your fault my man. You knew about the MBA having lines on the screen yet you had the manager open not 1, not 2 but 3 machines which all had lines.
Your thread title says 3 machines but you stated 4 in your OP. Again, you already knew what was up, there was no need to open 3 machines, for Pete's sake.

So, just to recap, you are blaming the OP for being dumb enough to try and buy a top of the range, state of the art expensive laptop and not being happy if it's faulty?

At least this guy saved three other people from getting a dud machine and not everyone is strong enough to take them back and tough out a salesman.

I consider myself reasonably sensible but here I am with my very expensive (especially in the UK) state of the art MacBook Pro with the faulty nVidea graphics card and it still isn't fixed because not having it fixed is the least worst scenario Apple UK have offered me so far.

I think everyone of a warrior nature should go round to Apple stores and open up as many faulty laptops as possible to save the less robust folk a lot of expensive misery.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

How come my two local apple stores have MBAs that do not have any of those issues? My friend recently bought one, and there isn't any backlight issues or grey lines.

 

[SFStateStudent]

How come my two local apple stores have MBAs that do not have any of those issues? My friend recently bought one, and there isn't any backlight issues or grey lines.

Yeah, I noticed that after (3) hours of wandering throughout the Bay Street Apple Store the other day that the exact same issue was nowhere to be found on "their" MBAirs.

OP, I'm pretty sure I would have done the same if I were in that situation. If they had to go through (10) or more, you know what, "make it so!" If it's a known issue, Apple needs to address the issue and not sell defective Macs. I'll bet the Manager was pretty embarrassed about the whole situation. As consumers, we shouldn't be forced to take a defective product home and be satisfied that just maybe, we got a good one!

 

[mikey28]

I am so sorry that happened to you. I am glad, however, that you did not get stuck with a faulty AIR, and that you were allowed to "look" before you purchased.

I got my Rev B 1.8/SSD from Amazon, and thankfully (!!!) there are no screen issues. I am wondering if it is certain "batches/lot #s that this is happening. Like maybe the "end of every run, there is a glitch"...

 

[schizoidwoman]

I think credit to the OP for doing this! Once the first replacement was opened in store and shown to be defective, I think it was a good move to ask to check the others before taking one. I assume, after all, that if one of them had been OK, no more would've been opened.

The OP also saved the disappointment of unboxing a faulty unit, not to mention the hassle of returning them time after time and even saved three more consumers from taking home faulty machines!

 

[tubbymac]

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this but this is slightly your fault my man. You knew about the MBA having lines on the screen yet you had the manager open not 1, not 2 but 3 machines which all had lines.
Your thread title says 3 machines but you stated 4 in your OP. Again, you already knew what was up, there was no need to open 3 machines, for Pete's sake.

1 of the 4 machines on display had the lines.
Thus 3 of the 4 machines on display didn't have the problem.
Thus it's reasonable to expect a good display seeing 75% of them without problems.
Thus opening 3 boxes with this expectation doesn't seem far fetched.
...
But it's slightly his fault anyway for not predicting all 3 to have problems?

 

[SFStateStudent]

1 of the 4 machines on display had the lines.
Thus 3 of the 4 machines on display didn't have the problem. Thus it's reasonable to expect a good display seeing 75% of them without problems. Thus opening 3 boxes with this expectation doesn't seem far fetched. But it's slightly his fault anyway for not predicting all 3 to have problems?

Too funny; I started to get my Ti83Plus out for the statistical probability of this situation, but I usually get headaches after about a minute from banging away on my calculator...

 

[jackfrost123]

So, just to recap, you are blaming the OP for being dumb enough to try and buy a top of the range, state of the art expensive laptop and not being happy if it's faulty?

At least this guy saved three other people from getting a dud machine and not everyone is strong enough to take them back and tough out a salesman.

I consider myself reasonably sensible but here I am with my very expensive (especially in the UK) state of the art MacBook Pro with the faulty nVidea graphics card and it still isn't fixed because not having it fixed is the least worst scenario Apple UK have offered me so far.

I think everyone of a warrior nature should go round to Apple stores and open up as many faulty laptops as possible to save the less robust folk a lot of expensive misery.

Hear, Hear.

 

[justit]

Yeah, I noticed that after (3) hours of wandering throughout the Bay Street Apple Store the other day that the exact same issue was nowhere to be found on "their" MBAirs.

Wish I lived in SF. That's actually a good thing. I've had to open 2 bad B-SSDs in store when they first came out and since the store also had the lines the manager's reply "well i don't see what the problem is, they are just built that way"

If the store had a good display I would have had an argument to compare them to.

 

[darrellishere]

I also noticed at the apple store Regents Street, that the 1.8 SSD on display with the faulty line display, also had sloppy loose mouse button! And keys were all loose too!

If I buy from a third party e.g. amazon, and had any of these problems, would I take it back to the apple store, with my applecare or anonymous amazon supplier ???

 

[SFStateStudent]

If the store had a good display I would have had an argument to compare them to.

I hear ya' I saw that the display MBAir had the display problems a couple of weeks ago, but when I was at the store on Tuesday, everything was fine...

(San Francisco is the coolest...)

 

[SFStateStudent]

If I buy from a third party e.g. amazon, and had any of these problems, would I take it back to the apple store, with my applecare or anonymous amazon supplier ???

Take it to the Apple Store; that's what I've done with my MBP that I bought from the University of California, Berkeley, just a few weeks ago. It was not charging the battery and I had a kernel panic, and Apple Store took care of the kernel panic and AppleCare sent me a brand new battery overnight Fedex...

 

[kockgunner]

Good on you. don't settle for a crap display.

 

[begoo]

I almost buy mba last week and then I am still thinking this problem, I decide it to not buy it untill new release soon..in the mean time still happy using ibook old one

 

[darrellishere]

I'm buying one-second hand tomorrow. The seller was bought it as a gift. & now I'm buying it! It's not the ssd that I wanted! But it should suffice!

Apple Care Next!-------(LOL)!-----