20-inch iMacs shipping with janky LCDs?
By Nilay Patel 
posted Sep 12th 2007 9:05PM
posted Sep 12th 2007 9:05PM
[Via TUAW]
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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...
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)
if you don't want a mac, don't buy one. just don't be mistaken for thinking anybody gives a toss.
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)
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.
@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
Apple: Made In China
That remark is just racist. Do you think before you write, or are you just really that pathetic?
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.
no offense but you have got to be nuts to buy an apple product.
You gotta love the "no offense, but..."
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. :)
i bought a sweet old apple clasic for 10 bucks, does that make me crazy?
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.
I own a mac, but then again I am a little crazy.
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.
I think you mean 8-bit and not 18-bit. No one would ever complain about 18-bit!!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
for every fanboi there will be another anti-fanboi - and both hate eachother for the side they take. wonderful how everything works out ;)
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.
The number is somewhere around 100%, since it was a cost-cutting design measure.
So fucking everyone.
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.
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.
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?
The fact that it has a 160* viewing angle is a dead giveaway that it is a 18 bit panel TN panel.
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?
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!
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.
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.
thank you for your useful and pertinent comment (not sarcastic)
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.
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.
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)
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.
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...)
.....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)
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)
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.
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.
why is there always problems with apple's products
Apple's product is nice looking but bad build
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.
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.
I have the 1499 model, and the display is just fine, not grainy or sparkly whatsoever.
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.
The problem for Apple is that they are totally in the spot light. Everything they do is high profile. They are the Lindsay Lohan of the consumer electronics world and everything they do is scrutinized and talked about and examined. No one is standing around with cameras waiting for Barbara Bush's skirt to fly up (Dell). That's why we hear so much about things failing with them...
For a company who was built touting superior desktop publishing anything less than 24 bit should be unacceptable. Adding a sparkle to the mix is just alienating their original core user group. Apparently they are no longer trying to steal Adobe's photo editing market share by representing photos in an inferior color gamut. Maybe Microsoft has something right by entering the photo editing market.
But at least "back in the day" (the Apple Desktop Publishing days) they were more forthcoming with information. You want 24bit color and 16bit sound? Buy a IIci or an FX - you can deal with 16bit color and 8bit sound (and a SLOOOOOW processor - then they had the LC. But the difference was listed in the specs plain as day. Now Steve comes out on stage and talks about how great the consumer level machines are for doing this and that, and really just glosses over the lesser, but equally important differences.
I'd love to see these companies coming out with more accurate information about what they're really pushing out. Apple prides itself on the "creative" market, honestly, I've been shopping for a while on a new laptop, and while everyone swears by the MB and MBP I'm not sold on the hardware. I can compare side by side the color range and gray scale output with the MBP and my D800 (8bit 1920x1200 Samsung panel) and see the problems.
I don't enjoy having older hardware but honestly at some points it comes down to a decision if it's even worth it to go with any of these people when they're cutting corners. I mean even my original panel in my D800 was a Sanyo 6bit with horrible brightness (upgraded the inverter when I went with the samsung)
While it takes a fraction more space on the order page, I'd love to see these companies and especially apple going back to details. I dont care if it has a brushed casing that was made by washing the metal against the sandy beaches in Thailand. Is it going to be a better product because of it? no, so stop shoving it at me. Jobs should realize that more and more of the market they claim they're catering to want to know the specs and not how they plan to cover things up via software.
i got a new 20" imac. the screen is not that good. I changed the color profile to RGB and it helped a lot. But when the 24 and 20 are next to eachother, there is no comparison. and of course the viewing angles are absolutely horrendous. one thing that I noticed is that the 24" imac is much thicker than the 20" I can only relate that to the higher quality screen being much thicker. Note that the Cinema displays by themselves are all thicker than the 24" imac which is thicker than the 20" imac. I hope there is a class action suit and we get some real screens. Right now I will take the $300 I saved from not getting the 24" and buy a second LCD and use that as the main monitor.
i have the new 20 inch imac, i don't see any problems with the screen, what am I supposed to be looking for/test for?
Only the best components for Apple! Now I see where that premium comes from!
It's pretty funny that most of the people here who are crying like little girls most likely don't own an iMac or similar. What..? No friends to call tonight?
Yeah silly people, they should just jump head first into purchases without thinking twice about them. Why even bother looking at a specs page, god what morons.
Oh and yes, everyone parties on a Wednesday, Wed = Fri. People should always go hammered mid-week into work the next day. Hangovers are awesome in mission critical positions!
Maybe you can go ahead and enlighten everyone on how their choice to be critical about purchasing is a bad thing?
I suppose Apple is being 'honest' by stating on their website, 'Millions of colors at all resolutions', which is ambiguous at best. No mention on bit depth at all.
WOW! What a stinging retort! You must have lost a lot of sleep coming up with that one. But then, if you don't have any real information or even just a pertinent opinion you should always insult everyone else. A job well done doofus.
Just a curiosity - if you didn't like the screen before you bought the computer, why did you make the purchase? It's one thing if Apple knowingly displayed 24-bit screens in their showroom and gave you an 18, but if they show exactly what they're selling in the showroom, the implication is that you know what you're purchasing.
whoops.
Maybe if all you Apple Fanboys cry loud enough, Stevie will give you a $100 Apple gift card.
what a shame, this was the first apple product i actually considered buying, and im not even an apple fan, nor a windows lover. And had i purchased the imac, it wouldve also been the second time i've purchased a windows product (first was windows 98)since i wouldve added xp onto it as well. With all due respect, the imac is a well thought out machine, but apple unfortunately cuts corners in the wrong spots and botches it up.
does this affect MacBook Pros? Thinking about getting a 15 incher when leopard comes out...(LCD Blacklit)
dUN @ Sep 13th 2007 1:20AM
The long version: http://www.engadget.com/videos/PDF/apple_macbook_lawsuit.pdf
The short version : YES!
So, buy the 17"!
I don't know why I ever bother reading an Apple/Microsoft-related post's comments... I should have learned by now what an absolute waste 90% of this comment flotsam is. Seriously depressing...
HEY those one who think this is an isolated case, google the LCD panel model :
LG PHILIPS LM201WE3
see what's on LG PHILIPS' web site!
It says TN click it, you can review the specifics, by any mean, the new iMac 20' does NOT have a TFT LCD!
The long version: http://www.engadget.com/videos/PDF/apple_macbook_lawsuit.pdf
The short version : YES!
So, buy the 17"!
this is again why i boycott apple products. they put a flashy case on their products and claim it to be a premium product, when it is in fact the opposite. time and time again i hear people complaining about their disfunctional apple products. take my advice: stick to software.
>>>>>Jeffrey Bergier @ Sep 12th 2007 10:44PM
i got a new 20" imac. the screen is not that good. I changed the color profile to RGB and it helped a lot."
yoooo
I believe it.
I have a g5 imac and the 3 year warranty is just about up and the thing is acting up.. again. First problem was with the screen, the logic board was burning up or something.
Then again my g4 imac had a bad screen so I returned it. Great customer support (within 30 days)
Two links:
http://www.kodawarisan.com/imac_2007_mid/imac_2007_mid_03.html
http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/kor/prd/prd201_j_k.jsp
Comment this :-)
I went to the Apple store to check the new iMacs out. It took me like 2 seconds to realize that the 20" screens were compromised, and the larger 24" were of good quality. First, BAAAD Apple to save on the Screen on such a great machine. The screen is the front end, it must be of good quality to front what Apple's stands for. Second... consumers, go check out the stuff before you buy it, or wait a week till someone else has bought it. It really takes just a glance to spot these things. Third, come on Apple, put a decent screen in the entry level iMac.
All-in-on computers are so lame anyways. I would rather have a Mac mini or Mac Pro with a 24" standalone display any day over the iMac.
As a matter of fact,a lot of LCD screens available today are 18 bits.
Lot of people posting here are using 18 bits LCD screens, that they bought and choose themselves and I'm sure don't even know it. Almost ALL today's laptops for example are using 18 bits LCD screens.
So as pointed out some here, it's a choice made by a lot of LCD manufacturers, and companies like Apple, Dell or Sony sometimes no have choice than to choose a 18 bits screen to be able to offer their product at the targeted price, And if they choose to put a higher price to offer a more expensive 24 bits screen, they are giving sells to competitors (which them didn't hesitate to use 18 bits screens). That's the rules of a competitive market.
What's funny here is that these LCD screens have been used already for years on PCs first and then on Macs, and we have to wait for some Apple users to realize it to finally see people reacting against this LCD manufacturers' trick.
This just prove one thing again, Mac buyers are a lot more exigent vis-a-vis the product specs and quality then PC buyers. And that may be the real problem, if PC buyers would have been as exigent as that, they would have reacted to that years ago when the first 18bits LCDs were used on PCs, and we would maybe not have any 18bits manufactured anymore...
Hmmm strange, according to this site: http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/kor/prd/prd201_j_k.jsp
The LCD panel is not 18 bits but 24 bits (Number of Colors 16.7 M, 8bit(FRC))
Ok I answer to myself, it indicates FRC, which means that the 8 bit are simulated through the FRC (Frame Rate Control) dithering technic.
So it's indeed in fact a 18bits screen which is simulating the 24bits through dithering.
Who can even see the screen with the glare coming off the glass? This is the worst iMac generation eva.
Is the 15" MBP LED back lit screen 24bit then? (either the glossy or non glossy)?
*********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.***********
Hmmmm, now what main competitor to Apple you all love and know makes a product with EXACTLY the same problem? Oooohhhh, could it be Microsoft? Nearly EVERYTHING electronic is made in China or Taiwan, good on em as those countries are making a killing cuase their cheap. If Europe or the US were cheaper places to live in then the products would be cheap to make here their too.
This IS scaremongering as the numbers affected are absolutly tiny compared to the Xbox 360's failure rate and let's not all forget the Sony battery fiasco and NOW the Nokia battery fiasco. Remember no matter what product you have, if it uses a modern rechargable battery is a dangerous explosive product, the power they pack in the more dangerous they become. Bring on the fuel cells.
the 20 ' iMacs are fine. as in every new product that is release there will ALWAYS be some type of defect on some products. i love my 2o" 2.4 ghz iMac and i havent had any problems with it YET!!!
I have to agree with the substandard hardware comments, and I'd like to add quality control to the subject as well. In the last few years especially, I've noticed that Apple's quality control (Chinese factories again), has declined. Most recently, I purchased a brand new Macbook and it came out of the factory sealed box looking as if it had been used for a year; scratches all over the top and bottom case, some of them so deep they had grooves. Apple repair was called in and their techs replaced the screen instead of the case. Finally, an Apple Store exchanged mine for a new one. Anyway, that's what I got for my $1300. I haven't opened the new Macbook yet. Seems safer to leave it in the box.