Where? Seriously, where can I find pics of a display without the problem since the fact that I have not seen one is the only reason for me not to ask for the display to be repaired right away because I think I would get another of the same.
There are a few good ones in here. and a
bunch in here as well as some posts of solid white walls with photographed gradients. And no, Leon, the gradients on the white walls are not blaming the camera. They are blaming uneven lighting in the room (and probably most rooms) that can obviously cause an issue with a photo.
What I think is really going on here is a small percentage of genuinely bad screens, at a frequency that is much higher than is acceptable, but still nowhere near affecting all machines, and some very unlucky few who got multiple bad ones in a row who have congregated here and on other forums. Those with bad screens, have posted photos, and there is
very obviously a problem with them. Some of those people have then called for anyone to post a photo of a good working iMac, on the theory that they are all bad based on discussions in forums, which is a flawed assumption right out of the gate due to the nature of forums.
When genuinely good screens get photographed and posted they scrutinized under a microscope, photoshopped, enhanced, etc, to
find a problem. What does that tell you? Some photos look perfect or very very good and some have a very slight gradient, probably caused by uneven ambient lighting in the room, the camera itself, or a real very low-grade gradient on the screen that is within specs but gets amplified on the photo or in the scrutiny process. These actual slight gradients or virtual gradients get all blown out of proportion and then used as "evidence" that all iMacs are bad by those who are hell-bent on "proving" that all iMacs are bad. Heck, we even photographed my high-grade 2 year old 20" Apple Cinema Display, and the lighting in my room, it showed a small gradient (one that happens to look the same as my iMac - very very slight). Trust me, if you come to my house, and use these screens, you will see that both are perfect.
If the iMacs are shipping with a screen issue at a rate of 10%, that is way to high, is absolutely unacceptable, and needs to be fixed. Right away. Even at 5% or 1% the same is true. My guess is the actual failure rate is in this range. If it is 10%, 1 in 100 buyers will draw on those odds and get a dud twice. 1 in 1,000 will get a dud 3 times. They are selling these to
hundreds of thousands of people. If the failure rate is that high, it is going to flood the forums with people with problems, including 100's or 1000's of people who got 2 or even 3 bad ones in a row. It will make it look terrible, like every single iMac must be flawed because tens of thousands of people may be complaining. It could be a total PR disaster for Apple and
look real bad. And the real failure rate could be on the order of 1 to 10%. If the failure rate was 100%, there would be articles all over the tech world, in print and on-line. There would be class actions under way and no one like me (or thousands of others like me) posting in forums that theirs is working perfectly.
It is called bias. Even in a photo. It is high around here. Don't let it fool you. The overwhelming vast majority of iMac buyers are not having screen brightness gradients. These are great machines, and if you get one, you will most likely be thrilled. If you get a dud, Apple will take it back, again, and again, until you get a good one.
as the same old left to right gradient issue persisted. Anyhow Leopard arrived yesterday and I couldn't resist giving it a run through on this 2.8 machine this afternoon (Absolutely ripped through the installation by the way.) 
