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If you mean the gradient issue on the 24" iMac it means that the left side of the screen is much brighter and it gradually darkens to the right. It will be most obvious on a light-colored or white background. There have been some cases of gradients so severe that it is obvious the moment you power it on though.

On the 20" iMac the gradient is vertical bottom to top.

I'd say you have very good odds of getting a good screen. ;)

If you have to put on a white background and really look hard then still have to think about it to decide whether or not your machine has a gradient I suggest it's just fine. :p

Congratulations on the new machine by the way! I have been loving my own 24" iMac for 6 months now. There have been a few bumps along the way with the screen thing, etc. but it's still the finest computer I've ever owned by a mile.

One piece of advice: run a good detailed color calibration on your new machine for optimal viewing pleasure. I like SuperCal for the job myself although the Apple calibration utility in expert mode worked well in the past too.


Thanks SaSasushi... I will certainly do that and if something is wrong I will just yell at them :D
 
Mine had a severe gradient, so I just returned it. I didn't want to stress about it, knowing that I might get just as unlucky with a replacement. Now I am waiting for a Mac mini upgrade :apple::confused::apple:
 
My gradient problem is gone!

The Apple Store has been fantastic this time around. :) They replaced my whole machine with a brand new one! So I have a one-year warranty from today.

Here's what happened. First, I received a phone call from the store saying that my iMac was ready to go. Then, within 30 minutes, I received an email from Apple thanking me for registering an iMac. So that was already a hint but I wasn't quite sure. I double checked my serial # and found out it was indeed different from the unit I sent in for a repair. I was still a bit skeptical too before heading to the store. I mean, why would they replace the whole machine, did something bad happen? Anyway, went up to the store, I saw the genius brought out a machine with new wraps, I was instantly happy... :D That was a brand new shinny iMac.

There was still another small hiccup too! The machine I sent in was upgraded with 4GB RAM. And, guess what? They forgot to transfer that over! Argghh!! I only discovered that on the way home, I just had that feeling that they might overlook something again. So, I pulled over and looked through the holes underneath. Sure enough, I saw only one RAM chip... quickly drove back. The genius instantly came to me, he knew something was wrong already... at the end, they put back my 4GB RAM.
 
My gradient problem is gone!

The Apple Store has been fantastic this time around. :) They replaced my whole machine with a brand new one! So I have a one-year warranty from today.

Here's what happened. First, I received a phone call from the store saying that my iMac was ready to go. Then, within 30 minutes, I received an email from Apple thanking me for registering an iMac. So that was already a hint but I wasn't quite sure. I double checked my serial # and found out it was indeed different from the unit I sent in for a repair. I was still a bit skeptical too before heading to the store. I mean, why would they replace the whole machine, did something bad happen? Anyway, went up to the store, I saw the genius brought out a machine with new wraps, I was instantly happy... :D That was a brand new shinny iMac.

There was still another small hiccup too! The machine I sent in was upgraded with 4GB RAM. And, guess what? They forgot to transfer that over! Argghh!! I only discovered that on the way home, I just had that feeling that they might overlook something again. So, I pulled over and looked through the holes underneath. Sure enough, I saw only one RAM chip... quickly drove back. The genius instantly came to me, he knew something was wrong already... at the end, they put back my 4GB RAM.

Nice. So the new iMac has no gradient issues? I may be taking mine in on Sat.
 
I've gone through 3 iMacs 24" 2.8 in the last 6 months that have all had the gradient issue. The one that had it lightest was built in january 2008 and the one that had it worst was built in february 2008. Apple has certainly not fixed this but there's always the chance you'll get one that don't suffer from it badly.
 
yup... taking mine back... just bought a new 24" iMac 2.8GHz Penryn tonight... big fat screen gradient... i'm sorry i ever doubted anyone on these threads before... this is really awful, and VERY noticeable (constantly) to anyone who is trained in color.
 
yup... taking mine back... just bought a new 24" iMac 2.8GHz Penryn tonight... big fat screen gradient...

Sorry to hear the problem still exists. Could you please let us know what
LCD panel they're using? Just cut-n-paste the following command line into
Terminal.app:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

...been there, done that. It sucks.

LK
 
Sorry to hear the problem still exists. Could you please let us know what
LCD panel they're using? Just cut-n-paste the following command line into
Terminal.app:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

...been there, done that. It sucks.

LK

this is what i get from Terminal:

LM240WU2-SLB1
Color LCD

so what does that mean exactly? can you tell if the screen is out dated or something? i can handle the slight bleeding, but i really really hate the uneven brightness / blue-yellow from left to right color casts...
 
reading all these posts is making me depressed about getting my new mac next week. :(
 
this is what i get from Terminal:

LM240WU2-SLB1
Color LCD

so what does that mean exactly? can you tell if the screen is out dated or something?

That's the LCD manufacturer's part number -- LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLB1.

It's exactly the same LCD panel/backlight assembly as the original 24" ALU.
Here are some photos of the one I returned in September. Look familiar?

http://picasaweb.google.com/TheLooby

...the display was not unchanged,

LK
 
That's the LCD manufacturer's part number -- LG.Philips LM240WU2-SLB1.

It's exactly the same LCD panel/backlight assembly as the original 24" ALU.
Here are some photos of the one I returned in September. Look familiar?

http://picasaweb.google.com/TheLooby

...the display was not unchanged,

LK

i was totally under the impression that the only screens that had errors were the 20" alu iMacs... judging from your photos, i don't think my screen is as bad as the 24" one you had, which clearly shows brighter left side...

i mean, there are some issues with this screen for sure... but they *might* be so subtle i'll have a hard time returning it... i mean, i'm trained in color so i notice slight color cast variations... and when the screen is very light color, like the background color of this website, the screen from left to right goes from blue to yellow (or normal?) to blue, although the blue cast is much more prominent on the left side of the screen... it's also quite visible on the non-opaque menu bar and textured safari window...

did you take your 24" iMac back to get it replaced? how long did it take if you did?

Yeah... it is as good as it gets.

Good luck on yours.

you know, i'd like to see apple use that in one of their adds... i can see PC-guy saying something like "hey mac, i hear you have major gradient and bleeding problems with your new iMac screens", mac would reply "yeah, well it's as good as it gets"... *apple logo*
 
After putting it off for so long I think I am going to go for it.

Whilst this thread puts a lot of negativity on the issues there is another thread with a lot of people saying theirs is fine.

I just wonder if I have the trained eye to see the issues or whether hopefully if the issues are there I just wont be able to see them.
 
did you take your 24" iMac back to get it replaced? how long did it take if you did?

... *apple logo*

If you're going to replace your mac because of the gradient then I would advise that you do it as soon as possible. As well as the backlight bleeding my 2nd replacement iMac also had the gradient (like the first two did). Instead of returning it straight away I had Apple come and collect it to examine it for themselves to see what was wrong. The answer I got back was that it was within Apple's specifications of a good screen, though they did agree the backlight bleeding didn't look nice. Trust me those specifications which Apple don't seem to have published anywhere are I believe very liberal.

My own feelings as to why Apple have not come out and publically admitted there is a problem is money and bad publicity. Judging by boards like this they seem very happy to replace or refund 24" al iMac owners who are not satisfied with their screens. I guess it's cheaper than a recall. Again these are just my thoughts.

Another thing which I have mentioned several times on this board which I find surprising is how come none of the recognised media have picked up on the screen problem. There seem to be quite a few journalists out there who get a kick out of bashing Apple given the opportunity, but as yet, not a peep from any of them. Maybe we are just a few unlucky ones, or maybe most people just don't care.
 
24 inch iMac

Mine is fine and it's just the most amazing computer I have ever owned. Going from a G5 2.0 iMac to a 3.06 ,4 gigs of ram, 8800 card is just the bomb.

I play Call of Duty 4 using boot camp and the graphics are like butter.
 
I wish Apple would offer optionally at a premium:
• matte screen
• LED backlighting (I imagine this would cure the gradient issues)
 
Mine is fine and it's just the most amazing computer I have ever owned. Going from a G5 2.0 iMac to a 3.06 ,4 gigs of ram, 8800 card is just the bomb.

I play Call of Duty 4 using boot camp and the graphics are like butter.

Get you iMac back to the store and get it fixed. Pronto!!!
Ditto. I (and everyone I work with) am amazed at my 24" Alu iMac (original model), and I work in a darkened room most of the time. So sorry to hear that others are having problems.
 
I'm a graphic designer/illustrator and after a little calibration my 24" iMacs monitor has been great so far.

Of course it's no Eizo or Lacie but I never expected it to be. ;)

Graphic Designer/illustrator here also. No issues with my last version 24" iMac extreme! I also do a lot of photo work too, no issues with color.

If "everyone" has a monitor issue, I would think it would be on Apples forum pages.
 
Went to the link suggested and it says:

I took my 24in Imac in to the apple store earlier tonight before they closed... I had made an appointment with the genius bar. I was told over the phone that if there was a problem that they could switch it out at the store.

I showed the tech guy what the screen problem looked like and it took him a while and a little convincing to get him to see what I was talking about. He told me that it was not a big enough deal to constitute being able to replace it with another computer because as far as he could tell, it was "within spec." After asking him what exactly "within spec" constitutes he asked me if I used the computer for color work, after I said yes he pulled over another person working at the genius bar over to get his opinion. "I'm more of an audio guy, this guy does work with photography so lets see what he says...."

This other guy sees the problem pretty quickly. He explained that all monitors are different and that all lcd's have inconsistencies, I told him I understood that but that I don't think that this is just a normal inconsistency, instead of telling me there was nothing they could do he offered to pull another computer out and open it up and he could let me compare it to mine and decide which one I want to take home, he stressed that he would only be able to do this with one other computer and I would have to decide, and he stressed even more so that this other computer might still have the same problem. I had shown them that website that displays the problem so it's easy to see, and asked if I could look around the store at the display Imacs and open this website on them to see how they compare before we try to open up another box.

I went to one of the display models, after opening safari, I was overjoyed to see that I couldn't outright see a big change in brightness from left to right. I then typed http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/#angleGrey into the address bar and the test came up and I could tell that this computer has the same problem mine has, it was not as drastic as mine but it was still there..... I preceded around to 4 other Imacs in the store and did this with all of them and ALL of them showed similar results, none of them where as drastic as mine was, but I could still see the bright to dark and cool to warm from left to right. Only one of the Imacs I saw out of the 5 display models I looked at would I deem as acceptable, it was extremely close, but it was just still off in the same exact way the others were, only it was pretty subtle.

I decided to add some controls to the experiment, I went first to the 20" imacs, ran the same website test, they showed change from top to bottom and when tilting the screen up and down, but when I moved the window around the screen from left to right, there was no noticeable color or brightness differences in monitor, and believe me I looked really hard here and absolutely no sign of my 24" problem for any of the 20inches I looked at.... then when on to the macpros and got the same things, normal changes in brightness etc from top to bottom, but no sign of what I'm dealing with.

It was getting close to closing and the people at the genius bar were probably wondering where I was so I went back, I took a look at my screen and told them that I would like to open up another computer and compare the two (my computer was the the worst of all I'd seen that day, so it can't hurt to try to get a improved one). But then they told me that they couldn't swap mine out with another because I had ordered the wireless mouse with mine and that changes things because now my computer is deemed a custom configuration and in order to do a swap they would have to fill out a sheet explaining what was out of spec with the first one and that they both agree that mine is within spec. The store was closing and I didn't want to be a jerk and try to push for anything so I just decided that I can come back some other time after I've thought things over.



Just to get everything straight, I didn't ever myself say that every imac had this problem, I was just stating that it might be a possibility, that's why the name of this thread "new 24 inch imacs all have a significant monitor problem?" has a question mark at the end of it..... I don't know, maybe I should have been more clear, anyway, here are a few things that I do know for sure:

1. My 24" aluminum imac has this problem.

2. Five (all that was available to look at at the time) different 24" aluminum imacs in the apple store had this same problem, some are more significant that others, one was pretty subtle, but all were noticeable while looking at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/#angleGrey

3. The other computers I've looked at in the store, as well as some older imacs that I've seen do not seem to have this problem as I can notice.

4. Other people "have claimed" to have gotten a replacement/multiple replacements without this same issue being resolved.


Some conclusions (only possibilities) I make:

either:

1. All 24inch aluminum imacs do in fact have this problem, there is something in the way they are all built that effect the screen in a way that causes this issue. Granted, some are more noticeable than others, maybe most are not noticeable at all which would be ok if that's the case. And I don't think I would have noticed it, unless I was in the field I'm in and pay very close attention to these things, plus, I think it is very possible that most people wouldn't notice my screen being off much less other screens where I could only see the change reallywell after I used the test (this is what I believe but I know that doesn't mean I'm correct.)

2. Maybe a large batch (or a couple of batches) of imacs went out that have this problem and there are other batches out there that simply do not have this problem. Maybe this could explain the problem that when we return the imacs with problems to the place we got them from we get more imacs with the same problems from the same batch from the same place. Maybe all of the imacs in the store on display also come from the same defective batch.

3. Maybe I've written too much in this post.

Your on an Apple LCD, some tests may not be accurate! Enough said!
 
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