20-inch iMacs shipping with janky LCDs?

Apple took some flak a few months ago for shipping 18-bit LCD panels in the MacBook and MacBook Pro -- a hue and cry that reached its inevitable conclusion with a class-action lawsuit over the "sparkly" and "grainy" quality of the screens. Well, it looks like Cupertino isn't too fazed by the uproar, because it appears that the new 20-inch iMac is shipping with a similar 18-bit panel -- and, not surprisingly, prompting the same type of complaints. We're not sure how widespread the issues are, but we're starting our lawsuit clock...now.

[Via TUAW]

[Juan @ Sep 12th 2007 9:11PM]

I saw a picture of one of these new macs with a wonky screen.

I would loved to have been there, and ask if that "screensaver" was included on all macs...

[jroc @ Sep 12th 2007 9:12PM]

Oh but Macs are so luxurious with their brushed aluminum igrainy screens. New Macbooks and all other "i" products now come with "ijank" an apple exclusive feature. Ha take that microsoft! (note above comment wrote with heaping amounts of isarcasm)

[mikey @ Sep 12th 2007 9:29PM]

if you don't want a mac, don't buy one. just don't be mistaken for thinking anybody gives a toss.

[LordFarkward @ Sep 12th 2007 9:32PM]

there's funny sarcasm, and there's bad sarcasm... especially when u actually have to state that u're being sarcastic...

you're funny (i'm being sarcastic. hur hur)

[chris @ Sep 12th 2007 10:19PM]

I just bought a new 24-inch iMac, and when I turned it on for the first time, I noticed a bright red dead pixel staring back at me. That makes me really angry.

[Chekote @ Sep 13th 2007 8:22AM]

@LordFarkward

"especially when u actually have to state that u're being sarcastic"

Are you serious? You *always* have to state that when using text. Without it, you're guaranteed that 98%* of all readers will misunderstand you. (Teh interwebz, lolz)

*this is a made up figure

[rex @ Sep 12th 2007 9:13PM]

Apple: Made In China

[icepop4who @ Sep 13th 2007 2:45AM]

That remark is just racist. Do you think before you write, or are you just really that pathetic?

[shaliron @ Sep 13th 2007 6:33AM]

Actually he isn't being racist. Race actually refers to a group of people, differentiated by their physical characteristics or their beliefs. Just how Americans are not really a race.

When he says that products 'Made in China' are generally of poorer quality, he says that goods, literally made in China, are poorly made. If he said, 'Made by Asians', well, that'd be racist.

And yeah, we all know that stuff made in those types of countries (China, Indonesia, Malaysia etc.) are generally of worse quality due to the economic/social positioning of those countries, which allow big companies to exploit the already inexpensive production costs.

[bob e @ Sep 12th 2007 9:14PM]

no offense but you have got to be nuts to buy an apple product.

[Brad @ Sep 12th 2007 9:20PM]

You gotta love the "no offense, but..."

[ryantrevisol @ Sep 12th 2007 9:24PM]

That's like saying, "with all due respect . . .", the Geneva-convention-upheld iron-clad insult cloak.

So, with all due respect, no offense but bob e, you're a jackass.

Now, let me get back to finding a suitable osx86 dvd image for my dell. :)

[kyle allen @ Sep 12th 2007 9:59PM]

i bought a sweet old apple clasic for 10 bucks, does that make me crazy?

[Zach @ Sep 12th 2007 10:01PM]

haha, ever owned a Mac?

I just bought a MBP back in June and WILL never look back to anything else. It works, perfectly. No slowdowns. No crashing. No LCD problems.

Every company has quality problems, you're just jumping down Apples throat cause they're sitting pretty right now.

Ironically... I typing this on my BootCamp partition of Windows XP in VMWare on a secondary monitor. It's beautiful. Truly.

[theappletruth @ Sep 12th 2007 10:43PM]

I own a mac, but then again I am a little crazy.

[tkid92 @ Sep 13th 2007 10:29AM]

Has anyone looked at the percentage of Apple's and PC's that there are in the world, yeah PC has a lot more... Dont get me wrong apple makes some very nice products and so does Microsoft. Good thing we have both companies so all the jackasses on here can get out their fanboy hats and go nutz. If u like a product great if you don't get over it.

[Daniel Smith @ Sep 12th 2007 9:23PM]

I think you mean 8-bit and not 18-bit. No one would ever complain about 18-bit!!

[suv4x4 @ Sep 12th 2007 9:28PM]

A true-color display is 24-bit (8 bits per each channel: RGB).

I have to admit, for a company that demands premium price for better parts and QA, Apple sells very flaky harware in *some* of its products.

Many iPod series are known to fail soon after warranty expires as well. Cracked cubes, poor screens, scratched nanos...

Also to the guy who said "Apple: Made in China" - you're kidding, but most US hardware brands, including Apple, *ARE* made in China. Always were.

[dmdallas @ Sep 12th 2007 9:35PM]

18 bit is just a fancy way of saying 6 bit because it is 6 bits for each channel, red, green, and blue (6 + 6 + 6 = 18).
8 bit is the current "good" color depth and would be represented as (8 + 8 + 8 = 24) bit color, or what is called "TrueColor"

So, the short answer is no, that is what engadget meant to say.

[MickeyMoo @ Sep 12th 2007 10:04PM]

RE: suv4x4 @ Sep 12th 2007 9:28PM ".... Always were."

Actually not always - Apple used to engineer and build locally up near Sacramento (Elk-Grove I think), and in Ireland as well. Only fairly recently with the advent of the mega contract manufacturers (Flextronix, HonHai Precision etc) did they start off-shoring to china and there has been a drop in quality

[Kyoji @ Sep 12th 2007 9:38PM]

So what percent of a percent of the the total computers they've sold are affected by this? I love how the hate bandwagon gets revved up for such a silly lawsuit that would be scoffed at if it were some other product. I own a MacBook Pro and have never had an issue, and neither have the 4-5 other people I've recommended them to. I'm not trying to give ammo to either side of this, but cant we all just appreciate how ridiculous this is? It's obviously another case of people over reacting, if you have have your head anywhere away from the underside of a rock the past two years this should really come as no surprise.

[Zach @ Sep 12th 2007 10:03PM]

It's pure jealously. Lemme talk shit about all the Dell's, Alienwares, HP's and etcs. that have come out with junk issues. It's ridiculous the number of "anti-fanboys" who just love jumping onto this shit. I'm in the same boat as you with a MBP, and I would never look back. Pure amazement.

[Peppie @ Sep 12th 2007 10:05PM]

Alot of people complained about how crappy Xp was and how it crashed all the time and I never (ever) had a problem. Now I'm using Vista and I'm still not seeing any problems (except for one game that just won't load, but the disc is cat scratched so yeah). I love how people stereotype something because a few people had a bad experience. The new iMacs are beautiful and I'm sure this is just a small percentage.

[trappy @ Sep 13th 2007 9:12AM]

for every fanboi there will be another anti-fanboi - and both hate eachother for the side they take. wonderful how everything works out ;)

[Rususeruru @ Sep 12th 2007 11:43PM]

You have to remember... this is the same company that once produced a machine that would get hot enough for the chips to break free of the solder and board, the solution was to pick the unit up hold it about 2 feet from the surface it was on and drop it to pop the chips back in place.

[nih @ Sep 13th 2007 1:56AM]

The number is somewhere around 100%, since it was a cost-cutting design measure.

So fucking everyone.

[Zach @ Sep 13th 2007 12:02PM]

nih, jealous?

My fuckin laptop doesn't have any LCD issues and certainly looks better then the shitty inspiron line or whatever comparable screen HP is putting in.

[Kyoji @ Sep 13th 2007 2:26PM]

I'll agree that all the shipped computers had 18bit screens, but thats not what this article is about, is it? It's about a grainy or shiny look to the screen, one that I'll admit I do not believe is present on my computer.

Crap like this seems to pop up with every new highly anticipated product in the electronics world, regardless of who made it. You see one mention of it on Enagdget, the idiots wriggle out of the wood work, then its gone in a few days, never to be heard of again. Why? Because, simply, its not a big deal. A Non-issue, I believe is the coined term these days.

[farfisa @ Sep 12th 2007 9:45PM]

Didn't you know? Crappy screens are better for the environment.

The 20-inchers are listed as having 160° viewing angles, vs. 178° for the 24-inch, so it's pretty clear they're using an inferior panel, and trying to make up for it with the gloss factor (like on the macbook--if only I could lean the screen back completely flat it might look alright...).

Sad sacrifice to make to hit their price point. Now, if they had an option for a screen upgrade, I wonder what percentage of people would go for it?

[shamrock593 @ Sep 13th 2007 3:59AM]

The fact that it has a 160* viewing angle is a dead giveaway that it is a 18 bit panel TN panel.

[Ann @ Sep 12th 2007 9:45PM]

Humm... This concerns me a bit as I just bought one of these and it's on it's way.
There are a slew of the previous version (the all white style, same generation) at my community college, and they all appear to be in perfectly fine working order. No complaints from any of the teachers that run a mac-lab. Hopefully this is an isolated event. Anyone out there personally experienced this issue with the aluminum imacs?

[Lauren the Ghoti @ Sep 12th 2007 9:47PM]

Its our eyes fault for not seeing this 'revolutionary' 'eye changing' technology that Steve Jobs blessed upon us. M$ makes their screens with brown Zunes!

[peternj @ Sep 12th 2007 10:28PM]

Apple for far too long got away with substandard hardware but as it was really only at 3% who cared? But as Apple Computer has given way to Apple Inc., more and more people are buying the consumer lines which are the notebooks and this horrible iMac.
Customers coming in from clunky Window hardware were shocked to find that all they had was a fancy pigs ear. The screen is rubbish compared to many vendors and so on.
As a longtime Apple customer I'm finding it harder to justify owning a MacBook Pro that can't be relied on to recharge as the revolutionary MagSafe fails to connect, quite impressive when clients are waiting. The screen is rubbish.

Still OSX is worth something.
The problem is soon Apple will be making toasters. It's not really a computer company anymore. Just a place to play.

[Dr. Webster @ Sep 12th 2007 9:47PM]

Wow, I love how most of the comments here are people bitching about how Apple sucks. Very useful.

My contribution to this fine discussion:

I have one of the new 20 iMacs, and yes, out of the box the display looks washed out. Turns out that the default color profile is waaaaaay off. I went through the display calibration tool, and now the screen looks much better. I suggest anyone with the same problem try it and see how big of a difference it makes.

[kyle allen @ Sep 12th 2007 10:02PM]

thank you for your useful and pertinent comment (not sarcastic)

[Luther @ Sep 12th 2007 11:15PM]

Agreed. I recently got a Macbook (I have a nice Vista Desktop PC, but decided to try a Mac since it can also run Windows), and the display uncalibrated didn't look very well. It's a shame that most people will never calibrate their displays, whether it's a computer monitor or HDTV. OSX does have an extremely nice display calibration tool, so I definitely recommend other people use it if they have not yet.

[prokanda @ Sep 12th 2007 11:24PM]

Isn't the whole POINT behind "easy to use" apple products that they don't have the bevy of customization features and therefor don't have the complications? How many APPLE users even KNOW what monitor calibration is? (besides of course the ones that use their machines for graphics/animation...) Let alone would they want to have to do something like that on this "premium highquality" hardware? You buy an all-in-one machine that comes with everything in the box, it all matches, it only requires 2 cables (power and internet) and then they set it down and start it up all to go get some calibration tools? Sounds like apple is screwing their customers because they know that most of them won't ever notice. Taking advantage of the type of people that need a "user friendly" machine. Awesome... so not only is mr. jobs a controlling, anal retentive jerk.. he's also the type that would steal outta the blind guy's cup in front of the 7-11.

[David Clark @ Sep 12th 2007 9:50PM]

This is kharma for El Jobso making fun of the cables coming out from my PC.

(and I have a Mac Mini too, before someone flames me too terribly bad)

[Dragoneye @ Sep 12th 2007 9:58PM]

It seems to me like these screen issues are due to a worldwide shortage of LCD screens. Dell has been having the identical problem with the new Insprions/Vostros, Screens are grainy and only 18bit screens. Sounds like the only manufacturer that is putting out good screens is LG/Phillips.
I didn't see it mentioned but the graininess (sparkle) is caused by the process many companies use for making the screens glossy.

As much as I dislike apple, this isn't totally their fault, its the LCD manufacturers fault.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 12th 2007 10:11PM]

and it's comments like that that remind me why I read the comments sections. thanks. that was more informative than the blog entry itself.

it's tough sometimes reading past all the knobs that want to tell me why they don't buy apple (Thanks, becuase if babikiller349 who uses z's instead of 's's doesn't like apple, well heck there's an important oppinion...)

[prokanda @ Sep 12th 2007 11:29PM]

.....or someone named "dj-alpo" who spells because "becuase" and opinion "oppinion".....

(side note: Firefox has a built in spell checker with right-click correction)

[Dragoneye @ Sep 13th 2007 12:03AM]

Thanks dj-kenpo, its people who appreciate information that I give them that makes me keep wanting to post comments.

and prokanda, that isn't called for, those are both simple typo's, and maybe he doesn't use Firefox, there are other very good browsers out there (e.g. Opera)

[SteveA @ Sep 13th 2007 1:33AM]

Actually LG manufactures screens for both Apple and Dell. I believe the Dell 24" screen is an LG and it boasts a higher color range than the 24" Apple cinema display. Strange considering they're both actually made by the same company.

[Jeff P. @ Sep 13th 2007 9:48AM]

It's still Apple's fault unless their LCD supplier secretly substituted inferior screens for the ones Apple wanted. Somebody at apple signed off on these screens. A shortage of screens is not an acceptable reason for releasing a flawed product at the same price point as the "good" one.

[sanibuy @ Sep 12th 2007 10:10PM]

why is there always problems with apple's products

[SunnyChanJP @ Sep 12th 2007 10:10PM]

Apple's product is nice looking but bad build

[Leomar @ Sep 12th 2007 10:12PM]

I definitely have one 20" iMac with a "sparkly" and grainy" screen. I hope Apple does something about or they'll find a phone call coming from me real soon.

[StreetStealth @ Sep 12th 2007 10:19PM]

Instead of yakking back and forth about "oh noes, grain!" and "lol Apple!1" how about we all read up on what the industry actually uses:

http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/lcd-panel-types.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#Types

Is Apple using an S-IPS, MVA/PVA, or TN panel? Does it matter to you? Learn more and decide for yourself.

[Henry @ Sep 12th 2007 10:19PM]

the 20" LCDs are using TN-Film panels, which is what you find in your common $300 LCD panels you would find at retail chains like best buy, circuit city, etc... the 24" is using a phillips-LG S-IPS panel which accounts for its higher price tag... panels like that are usually more up in the $700 dollar range.

what would be interesting to find out, since not everyone is complaining, is if the 1199 model is using a 6-bit panel and the 1499 model is using the s-ips panel.

[Oddur Thorri @ Sep 17th 2007 6:13PM]

I have the 1499 model, and the display is just fine, not grainy or sparkly whatsoever.