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Just by from the referb store. That way you know that the iMac had already been inspected for those defects your worried about and get a discount while your at it.
 
Just by from the referb store. That way you know that the iMac had already been inspected for those defects your worried about and get a discount while your at it.

Good idea, in fact such a good idea that I tried it!

After two brand new iMacs with these issues, I got a refund and ordered an i5 refurb... by far the worst screen I had out of the three.

Refurbs are not the answer. They are just tossing them right back out the door.

I am now waiting on a LCD replacement for my refurb. If this doesnt take care of it, I am going to just wait and/or take my money else where.
 
Due to 4 returned iMacs (two for loud hard drives, 2 for VERY yellow tinge screens down center and right of screen and three of them had the gray bar) I have given up on this version of the iMac. My original thought after the 4th iMac was to wait for the next revision, however I am not confident that this will be resolved at that point (not saying it won't, but it may require significant redesign of the screen which would take some time). I used to get SO excited opening a new Apple box, but almost opened them with dread with the iMac.. no fun...

As I really want to get a new mac and not wait, I am seriously evaluating going with a new Mac Mini/24" ACD. I am going back to the Apple store this weekend to do some additional performance testing on it, and will most likely buy it. I am looking forward to the advantages of a separate screen/computer, and the 24" screen is a better fit for me than 27". I am just not convinced I will get a quiet iMac with a great screen anytime soon....
 
I've thought about one as well but knowing myself and being very anal about screen quality, I'll probably end up returning it 10 times!

I know I'll eventually keep the iMac that has the best screen BUT my only one gripe is the user UNfriendliness of the HDD swap that the Imacs have.

I'd love to put in an SSD drive but it seems like hard labor work to just get to the HDD itself.

Oh and the ATI 4850 is kind of MEH~~ to me as well. The GPU just doesnt match up well with the i7 imho.
 
I read a lot here about all the issues and I still ordered an 27' i7 iMac, mostly for working with my photos. Yesterday it arrived. Almost instantly when I turned it on I saw substantial yellow tinge and also greybanding. The test later with the testsite confirmed it. Also my wife saw it. So send it back?

I started to check out various applications and looked at a selection of photos. While doing that it was impossible to see anything unusual.

So - yes, I would prefer a completely white screen and if at one time Apple has solved the issue and there is a 99% chance to get a perfect screen, when asking for a fix, then I might contact Apple. But until then I can work perfectly fine with the one I have right now.

Even knowing that I would get exactly this display I would have still ordered the iMac because all the advantages outweigh this little issue by far.
Huge respect to you. I wish i can just forget the faults of a product i have. Even if it doesnt show. But if i know its there, i cant enjoy the product, but im glad someone can
 
Due to 4 returned iMacs (two for loud hard drives, 2 for VERY yellow tinge screens down center and right of screen and three of them had the gray bar) I have given up on this version of the iMac. My original thought after the 4th iMac was to wait for the next revision, however I am not confident that this will be resolved at that point (not saying it won't, but it may require significant redesign of the screen which would take some time). I used to get SO excited opening a new Apple box, but almost opened them with dread with the iMac.. no fun...

As I really want to get a new mac and not wait, I am seriously evaluating going with a new Mac Mini/24" ACD. I am going back to the Apple store this weekend to do some additional performance testing on it, and will most likely buy it. I am looking forward to the advantages of a separate screen/computer, and the 24" screen is a better fit for me than 27". I am just not convinced I will get a quiet iMac with a great screen anytime soon....
Damn mate, i feel for you, cant be funny to open a brand new box and think like "**** i hope this is the one". Should not be like that. Anyways im glad you stopped getting replacement, and said enough is enough.

Also i hope u dont buy the mini just because the imac was ****ed up. That kinda ruines it. Atleast i think so
 
Damn mate, i feel for you, cant be funny to open a brand new box and think like "**** i hope this is the one". Should not be like that. Anyways im glad you stopped getting replacement, and said enough is enough.

Also i hope u dont buy the mini just because the imac was ****ed up. That kinda ruines it. Atleast i think so

Actually, I am pretty excited about the mini.. I only wish it was a bit stronger in the graphics card area, but it is quiet and reliable which is exactly what I am looking for.. Plus the 24' ACD is gorgeous, so it will be a good fit for me.. Plus as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, if they upgrade some of the components of the mini I can always just get a new mini!!
 
My i7 has worked flawlessly since I received it last year. I did a couple of things which needed some attention from the genius bar, but aside from that there have been no problems.

I've gotten to know a number of people who work at the Apple store at the Biltmore and I've asked them about how many problems the iMacs are really having.

The Apple store may not be the most reliable source of information, but they said these issues are a tiny percentage and that the claimed problems are being hyped by competitors.

As I sat waiting for my appointment at the genius bar, and at other times I've visited for other reasons I have not seen one single 27" iMac being brought in for repairs.

I see what I would expect to see, which is a lot of older iMacs and people who are having software difficulties.

Nope, this is my third iMac. G3, G5, i7 and I'll be replacing this one with another iMac at some point in the future.
 
I see some of the comments that people will live with the blemishes, and that's too bad. Apple has a reputation for delivering really good looking hardware that "just works", looks awesome and caters to professionals, especially in design and media production. Maybe they're trying to shed that niche in favor of the general consumer, and therefore have lowered their quality to offer a better price point.

If that is the case, I think it's a mistake and will hurt their branding.

Well...

There are tons of products out there that cater to professionals that regular people buy...cars, car wax, pianos, guitars, shoes...you name it. iMacs aren't exclusive to just professionals...that may've been the case in the past, but I don't think it is now. I didn't buy my iMac because its the trendy or hip thing. I'm a professional, not in graphics or multimedia but IT security at a large managed security provider. Everything I do on my Linux machines (I test security software), I can also do on my Macs. I bought the iMac because I'm a huge fan of *nix, because I love Apple software, and because their stuff just works...the 27" screen offers huge real estate too.

To be honest, I've seen dead pixels before and know that most manufacturers (including Apple) have policies regulating returns on dead pixels. I don't care about one pixel in millions. I've seen the yellow screens. Some are bad...all are not and some have yellow where some people see it and others don't. I've been computing since the TRS-80. I know my way around most systems, whether it's a Cisco PIX or a Pentium 200 PC. Different people have different views. My opinion doesn't mean I'm common or a non-professional. I'm sure there are lots of professionals out there with Macs...just don't assume that they all share your own profession or views.
 
I had three i7 models, and whilst waiting for the fourth I bailed at went back to a Mac Pro. I love the iMac's design, screen size and compactness, but it was just too much hassle when I needed to do some work to deal with the problems.
 
I had three i7 models, and whilst waiting for the fourth I bailed at went back to a Mac Pro. I love the iMac's design, screen size and compactness, but it was just too much hassle when I needed to do some work to deal with the problems.


As a graphics professional, there are just too many hassles with the Imac screens. I will not buy another one until they are solved.
 
I just had my LCD replaced on site.

Took him about 20 minutes. This is what it looks like.

4475109765_e67f17c697_o.jpg
 
Im not spending alot of money on a computer thats 8/10. How stupid is it to even accept a 8/10. Ur buying quality products, then u shouldnt settle for average, then you just let apple get away with it.

I think Apple gets unfairly criticised about these monitor issues. I have a 27inch iMac whose screen I would rate 8/10. But a friend just got a brand new Dell 30" and it has the exact same screen problems as my iMac.

I think given the price point we expect to pay for these things, it's probably unrealistic to expect a "perfect" screen.

edit: I wasn't about to point the problem out to my friend, he thought his screen was perfect and I wasn't about to bring him down about it. Once you see it you can't unsee it.
 
wow... you make it sound like the issue is on all imacs, when it clearly isnt.. maybe 1% of all imacs are effected!

I'm on my 3rd iMac, and they have all had yellowing issues. So it's pretty obvious the problem is larger than 1%

And my first one was perfect. So it's pretty obvious the problem is smaller than 100%.
 
I'm on my 3rd iMac, and they have all had yellowing issues. So it's pretty obvious the problem is larger than 1%

i dont know where you came up with that logic, but its flawed.

you have 3 bad imacs.. just because you get 3 in a row doesnt mean that all other imacs that were produced in that time frame were bad. you probably have a bad batch, especially if you got the imac from the same store (or even country!).

the amount of people complaining vs amount of people not complaining is monstrous.
 
i dont know where you came up with that logic, but its flawed.

you have 3 bad imacs.. just because you get 3 in a row doesnt mean that all other imacs that were produced in that time frame were bad. you probably have a bad batch, especially if you got the imac from the same store (or even country!).

the amount of people complaining vs amount of people not complaining is monstrous.
The number of people complaining is irrelevant. What about all the people that don't know/care to complain? All my iMacs were from week 6, however from what other people have said on here, they have had the problem from many other manufacturing weeks, so its also not a batch problem, more like a manufacturing problem.
 
The number of people complaining is irrelevant. What about all the people that don't know/care to complain?

What about the 99.9% of Mac users whose don't visit MacRumors and their iMacs are fine.
 
The number of people complaining is irrelevant. What about all the people that don't know/care to complain? All my iMacs were from week 6, however from what other people have said on here, they have had the problem from many other manufacturing weeks, so its also not a batch problem, more like a manufacturing problem.

well there you have it. you have 3 computers from a week6 batch. surely you can put 1 and 1 (and 1) together to conclude that it was a bad batch?

similar results with all the rest of the complaints no doubt.

the problems will slowly be fixed.
 
Apple isn't sweating this. Clearly there are many who don't mind settling for minor blemishes on their computer.

It's about the numbers. And I'm sure that you hear more about the issue than you should. Yeah, some displays have an issue, but at the same time, alot of people have enjoyed hyping this up for the fun of it (I'm looking at you monkeys at Gizmodo).
 
well there you have it. you have 3 computers from a week6 batch. surely you can put 1 and 1 (and 1) together to conclude that it was a bad batch?

similar results with all the rest of the complaints no doubt.

the problems will slowly be fixed.

Not to rain on your parade, but I had a Week 49, Week 52 and Week 02 models, all with the yellowing. Obviously I understand that they have *fixed* many of the issues, and that the yellowing is much less widespread, but with the earlier batches they were pretty much all bad. To have three separate production week units, all bad, indicated a production problem.
 
Not to rain on your parade, but I had a Week 49, Week 52 and Week 02 models, all with the yellowing. Obviously I understand that they have *fixed* many of the issues, and that the yellowing is much less widespread, but with the earlier batches they were pretty much all bad.

Mine is a Week 48 and it is perfect.
 
Not to rain on your parade, but I had a Week 49, Week 52 and Week 02 models, all with the yellowing. Obviously I understand that they have *fixed* many of the issues, and that the yellowing is much less widespread, but with the earlier batches they were pretty much all bad. To have three separate production week units, all bad, indicated a production problem.

now thats a better logical argument. i was waiting for somebody to say that. ;)

but see, i have a week ~45 (i think) model - and it is absolutely fine. now whether or not you would classify it as fine is a different story as each user is different.. personal preference. what apple see's as "satisfactory" and "damaged" may be different from your view.

i will agree though, build quality has gone DOWN. just look at FCP.
 
Fear mongering threads like this are a real shame imho, because they prevent some people from enjoying this fantastic machine. Sure there's been some trouble for some people with the displays, but I've had Macs for decades now, and the 27" iMac is by far my favorite. Mounted on it's articulating arm, it is truly what I always dreamed computers would be like one day. The new iMac is a great machine.
 
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