New 24" Penryn iMac owners....screen bleed fixed???

[czachorski]

After 15.....yes 15 units! I can say without a shadow of a doubt that ALL the 24" iMacs have these screen issues. The units I have had have all been manufactured this year and came from the Czech Republic (VM) and China (W) weeks of manufacture were 5/9/12/14/16. All had bleed, some worse than others but all clearly visable on a dark screen in a dimly lit room. All had the gradient issue. Two units had dead pixels and two had dust trapped between the glass and screen and backlight and screen. One unit had a nasty ding in the side of the case and another a mouse that jumped all over the screen. The first 3.06GHz I had had a loud inverter buzz that got louder the higher i adjusted the brightness. I have only had to take one product back very occasionally with other manufacturers technolgy. I find it very depressing that Apple is happy to send out such sub-par hardware with a variety of QC issues. I don't want a bland black plastic box running Vista, I want a stylish all in one running a deccent OS so really have no alternative hence trying sooo many units. As I have said in previous threads on other forums on this issue, I LOVE APPLE STUFF! I have loads of it......pretty much every ipod.....a 20" core2duo imac.....apple TV......iphone etc etc etc. I am not here to bash apple but to say what a shame it is that the quality of there goods in my repeated experiance seems to be in decline.

To put this post into context, by my eye, my screen has no gradient, but by measure, it is about 25% brighter in the middle than the edge (using Leon's digital-camera-as-light-meter trick - it goes from 1/50th to 1/40th exposure in auto-mode). DigitalColorMeter showed for the 3 colors a difference in the photos of 23%, 24% and 37%, from middle to edge as described in this post in another thread.

So you can say that "all iMacs have the gradient" and "all iMacs have the bleed". But I ask you, if the performance is this good to the naked eye, and you have to test it with a light meter to know, does it matter? I ask you, have you discovered a fundamental flaw with iMacs, or with LCD's in general?

For you, it might be time to look at a Mac Pro with a top-end LCD, or an iMac with a secondary high-quality panel for your work that must so critically depend on not having the level of gradients or bleeds that you are finding unacceptable. Now you might have hit a bad batch of 15 iMacs that are terrible, or you might have opened 15 just like mine and are very sensitive to what I consider a very minor problem (especially because I can't see it until I put a light meter on it). Either way, I think you can safely conclude that an iMac is not for your level of quality distinction.

(click to enlarge)

 

[Sir Cecil]

I don't think it's gray screens that need examining. I think examining some people's gray matter would be more insightful.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

I don't think it's gray screens that need examining. I think examining some people's gray matter would be more insightful.

I'm curious if gray matter controls whining function.

 

[dantay]

I don't think it's gray screens that need examining. I think examining some people's gray matter would be more insightful.

LOL! I'm a very fussy person....to that I will happily admit. However I would point out that I have owned many products with colour LCD displays and apple's previous 20" white imac and I have never seen a screen with so many issues. LCD's generally suffer with uneven backlighting to some extent but it should not be instantly noticable. The colour should not be easily visable as being a darker shade one side of the screen to the other. Pages on this forum show it clearly so i'm not talking about image work just general use. I noticed it and then searched to see if it was an issue others had noticed and there are a whole lot of threads on these issues. I'm not trying to find a perfect screen on the 24" imac.....just one thats not instantly noticable for its faults so that I can enjoy using it as I do with my 20". If you have nothing interesting or insightfull to post please don't bother. x

 

[czachorski]

LOL! I'm a very fussy person....to that I will happily admit. However I would point out that I have owned many products with colour LCD displays and apple's previous 20" white imac and I have never seen a screen with so many issues. LCD's generally suffer with uneven backlighting to some extent but it should not be instantly noticable. The colour should not be easily visable as being a darker shade one side of the screen to the other. Pages on this forum show it clearly so i'm not talking about image work just general use. I noticed it and then searched to see if it was an issue others had noticed and there are a whole lot of threads on these issues. I'm not trying to find a perfect screen on the 24" imac.....just one thats not instantly noticable for its faults so that I can enjoy using it as I do with my 20". If you have nothing interesting or insightfull to post please don't bother. x

Wait - were the screens you examined (the 15) 24" iMac or 20"? It would make more sense if they were 20".

 

[dantay]

Wait - were the screens you examined (the 15) 24" iMac or 20"? It would make more sense if they were 20".

All 15 were new 24" Alu imacs, I also have a white old type imac with a 20" screen that has no issues.....was comparing old and new.

 

[czachorski]

All 15 were new 24" Alu imacs, I also have a white old type imac with a 20" screen that has no issues.....was comparing old and new.

I am curious if the "all having gradients" were more like what I posted with my 24", or if they were more like Leon posted with his a while back with a 250% or so brightness gradient.

In other words - is this more of you being fussy (your words ), or the screens all having major issues? This is an interesting opportunity to set expectations when buying a 24" iMac.

 

[dantay]

I am curious if the "all having gradients" were more like what I posted with my 24", or if they were more like Leon posted with his a while back with a 250% or so brightness gradient.

In other words - is this more of you being fussy (your words ), or the screens all having major issues? This is an interesting opportunity to set expectations when buying a 24" iMac.

I said I was fussy.....not I was being fussy. The gradient is brighter on the left hand side of the screen and has a white/blue hue to it, the colour on the screen becomes darker gradually over to the right hand side of the screen. This can be lessened by maxing the backlight but then its too bright for my eyes and the bleed looks even worse.

See below for some backlight pics......not pretty and representative of ALL the 15 units.

Do you feel this is acceptable? I have never seen such uneven backlighting on any LCD I personally have owned.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Looks pretty bad. Don't see bleed on all four corners on mine, just some minor bleed on the bottom in the middle.

 

[dantay]

My 20" white imac.....look no bleed! The 24" imac should be an upgrade in screen quality on my old machine.....not a downgrade! Same film, same camera etc.

 

[czachorski]

I said I was fussy.....not I was being fussy. The gradient is brighter on the left hand side of the screen and has a white/blue hue to it, the colour on the screen becomes darker gradually over to the right hand side of the screen. This can be lessened by maxing the backlight but then its too bright for my eyes and the bleed looks even worse.

See below for some backlight pics......not pretty and representative of ALL the 15 units.

Do you feel this is acceptable? I have never seen such uneven backlighting on any LCD I personally have owned.

No, that is not acceptable. I too have some slight bleed on the bottom that I don't notice in daily use, and notice slightly when on an dark screen in a dark room. I wonder if you went through a bad batch or something. Certainly if it can be shown that every 24" they are currently shipping has this same issue, that is a problem.

It's weird that mine and others does not have this severe bleed issue, and you saw 15 in a row with it. I wonder if there is a bad batch out there? I suspect that a bad batch is also what caused the 250% brightness gradient (on a grey screen) when the Alum iMacs first came out - some were claiming to get 2-3 in a row and seeing 10 in the store with the issue, but many more were getting good ones. The only reasonable explanation I could think of is a bad batch.

BTW - Apple accepted returns on all the gradients last summer/fall when they were happening, and they eventually got it ironed out. I suspect the same will happen here, if this "bad batch" theory is true.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Can anyone tell me who manufactures the 9C8D screen that I referred to in my post yesterday?

All 24" aluminum iMacs use the LG-Philips LM240WU2-SLB1 H-IPS panel.

If you want to verify this on your machine open up terminal and use the grep command Leon Kowalski has posted several times in these forums:

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

 

[minik]

Like I said on the other post, my 24-inch iMac comes with a bad display. Red and white lines on it.

 

[Sir Cecil]

See below for some backlight pics......not pretty and representative of ALL the 15 units.

Who would use flash photography to take a head-on pic of a reflective glass screen, to illustrate a point about evenness of lighting?

Look at the lower one of the first set of three. The top left corner shows a hazy highlighted area you'd have us suppose was a light leak on the screen. Yet in the alternative shot directly above it in the same posting, that top left hazy area is in better focus, with a very well-defined horizontal edge that is most certainly the point at which your lighter colored ceiling meets the wall and is reflecting in the screen.

Then you posted an example of what you call a screen without a problem. Yet this particular photo shows a similar reflection to the others, this time in the upper right corner. The images are of no value whatsoever.

 

[czachorski]

But again, not representative of all the new 24" screens. I have one in front of me right now and it looks nothing like yours. It looks excellent, with no observable highlights or dark areas or gradations. And none of the machines I've looked at in two of the three Apple stores in my area show any such problem when set to display flat colored backgrounds. That's at least 8 more machines.

Suggesting that all the new 24" screens are bad because the ones you've seen are faulty, is no more accurate than me pronouncing there are no faulty screens because all the ones I've seen are fine.

The same thing happened with a backlight uniformity issue last summer/fall. Many people got good ones, but there were similar reports of bad batches that filled out an Apple store with them. (that's what I thought Dantay was talking about when he said gradient, and I posted a picture of my grey screen iMac with no gradient - but I think he is talking about the backlight bleed). The bad batch theory is the only thing I can think of to explain what you are saying AND what he is saying. We can only hope that a few bad batches is the exception, and not the rule, or Apple may be in big trouble on this one. Time will tell.

 

[MortonH]

Who would use flash photography to take a head-on pic of a reflective glass screen, to illustrate a point about evenness of lighting?

Look at the lower one of the first set of three. The top left corner shows a hazy highlighted area you'd have us suppose was a light leak on the screen. Yet in the alternative shot directly above it in the same posting, that top left hazy area is in better focus, with a very well-defined horizontal edge that is most certainly the point at which your lighter colored ceiling meets the wall and is reflecting in the screen.

Then you posted an example of what you call a screen without a problem. Yet this particular photo shows a similar reflection to the others, this time in the upper right corner. The images are of no value whatsoever.

This is exactly right. To show this properly, you need to:

1. Take the photo in a completely dark room
2. Do NOT use flash
3. Use a tripod to avoid the inevitable camera shake
4. Use the camera's lowest ISO setting to make sure that the colours aren't skewed (a digital SLR will be much better than a compact)

If the room isn't dark, you will get different brightness depending on the brightness of the walls/ceiling reflecting off the screen (which is also why flash shouldn't be used).

Morton

 

[yagru]

(click to enlarge)

dude i can see the gradient on your screen from here

thats really bad if your working on photos or any type of gradient or lighter shade graphics work

the hp 24 lcd i use at work is sollid all the way through and its a pretty cheap lcd.. so im speanding more money for less quality.. great

 

[Leon Kowalski]

This is exactly right. To show this properly, you need to:

1. Take the photo in a completely dark room
2. Do NOT use flash
3. Use a tripod to avoid the inevitable camera shake
4. Use the camera's lowest ISO setting to make sure that the colours aren't skewed (a digital SLR will be much better than a compact)

Yep. Also:

5. Back up 6-8 feet and use a moderate telephoto lens so that the display
nearly fills the frame. This eliminates pincushion, and minimizes artifacts
related to viewing angle.

6. Set the display brightness to minimum. The 24" iMac display gradients
are most pronounced at minimum brightness -- and minimum brightness
is still FAR TOO BRIGHT for proper color calibration. Industry standard
calibration calls for 120 cd/m^2, and even at minimum brightness, the
24" ALU iMacs are 50% to 75% brighter than that. [Yech!]

7. Shoot "Solid Gray Medium" and "Solid Aqua Blue" backgrounds, as well
as solid white. When in doubt, error on the side of underexposure.


... 8. If ya can't handle the truth, don't go lookin' for it,

LK

 

[Leon Kowalski]

All 24" aluminum iMacs use the LG-Philips LM240WU2-SLB1 H-IPS panel.

Hmm, according to 'conventional wisdom' (a.k.a. Wikipedia.org) those
vaunted "H-IPS" panels are supposed to have "much less backlight bleed."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_film_transistor_liquid_crystal_display#IPS

...waassup wi dat?

LK

 

[bugbear2]

Guess I got lucky. The new 24" 3ghz I bought has no perceptible screen bleed. I don't have a light meter but with a solid black background all the lighting appears to be even.

 

[Nordichund]

Two of the THREE Al 24" iMacs I returned looked very similar to Dantay's pictures with the black screen, totally unacceptable.

LOL Sir Cecil, it sounds like because Dantay took a picture using a flash under what you deem "not the right conditions" you deny he has a problem, when anybody with normal iSight can see from the picture that that screen looks crap for a top of the range and top dollar Apple product. Unless of course he has manipulated the photo, which I very much doubt.

Oh dear czachorski's machine is also suffering from the dreaded gradient as well. I always suspected his many posts preaching the Apple gospol according to the new Al 24" iMac on here were a form of self-denial.

Like I said in other posts I know quite a few professional photographers, graphic design artists and even a lecturer in Media Studies as the University of Oslo, who are ALL die hard Apple fanatics. These people all played a big influence in my choice of moving to Mac, and they ALL say when it comes to the glossy screen of the new Al iMac, not to mention the problems I have had with my screen, they would NEVER use them or recommend them for their line of professional work. Quite simply the screen is just not good enough.

I have also read many posts on here from people involved in similar lines of work and it would seem that the vast majority agree that the 24" iMac screen is just not up to it, even without the gradient or backlight bleed.

To all the people who are satisfied with their 24" iMacs, great, congratulations on owning a great machine, I'm really pleased for you. I also think it's great reading posts from people who are happy and say their machine has no issues, I really wish I had one too.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Hmm, according to 'conventional wisdom' (a.k.a. Wikipedia.org) those
vaunted "H-IPS" panels are supposed to have "much less backlight bleed."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_film_transistor_liquid_crystal_display#IPS

...waassup wi dat?

LK

Might be due to the Alu case design if the following thread is any indication https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/433452/

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

dude i can see the gradient on your screen from here

thats really bad if your working on photos or any type of gradient or lighter shade graphics work

Oh dear czachorski's machine is also suffering from the dreaded gradient as well. I always suspected his many posts preaching the Apple gospol according to the new Al 24" iMac on here were a form of self-denial.

?

Leon himself has called Czachorski's machine a keeper.

 

[dantay]

The camera flash makes no difference to what is seen.....the screen bleed is there exactly as shown. The week numbers are 5/9/11/14/16 and from 2 different plants so I dont think its a bad batch. This is a real problem that is instantly visible so Sir Cecil please do come on......if yo think a flash produced that effect you try and reproduce it. I am only here to highlight a problem on the macs I have seen and owning one of the old generations of the machine does give me a good reference point.

Pic below of my white 20" taken this morning with NO flash. I will be getting number 16 today Sir Cecil so please be sure to let me know how you would like the pictures taken to show the problem in a way acceptable to you. Tips on how to take pics of a crappy screen with issues from any other fan boys with pro-apple goggles on would also be great.

 

[dantay]