Comments on: 24 inch iMac display brightness problem and what you can do about it

By: Howard

Howard — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:05:19 +0000

i have both a 24″ iMac and a 23″ ACD; the 23″ ACD is far superior to the iMac screen. I wanted to buy a Mac Pro, but the combined costs were too high, but if i had the money, I would absolutely opt for the 23″ ACD instead of the iMac

By: B. Collier

B. Collier — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:33:01 +0000

I have the most recent 24″ iMac which I purchased on 7/16 of this year. After reading through this post and comments, I proceeded to test my screen against various colors of background to look for any evidence of irregular patterns between illumination and darkness. Sure enough; the screen still follows the 1-2-3 pattern as provided on the illustration above. As an individual who works with colors, graphics, photos, and such all the time; I DO NOT like how the screen doesn’t evenly provide an accurate display of color and brightness. I keep my brightness settings at the minimum setting, and it’s still too bright for my taste. It burdens me that Apple has taken the route they’ve so chosen to “fix” this problem. It seems that customer service and quality of product is continually declining the larger a company gets- Apple now showing examples of this.

I have now considered returning my iMac for not just a replacement, but perhaps moving to a Mac Pro with an external 23″ Monitor. Has anyone heard of similar problems with the Apple display line of external monitors? Furthermore, has there been any known problems with the new Mac Pro 8-cores?

Thanks – A fellow Macintosh advocate & enthusiast.

By: toshi

toshi — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:01:57 +0000

Sorry mistake.

Oh and there is one more thing. 2 of my friends bought new silver 24″ iMac just when they have been released ( with Tiger ) and they screen is much diferent like it would come from diferent manufacturer and _no_ gradient.

By: toshi

toshi — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:25 +0000

I’m an amateur of photography and computer graphics and when I bought first iMac in December 2007 I couldn’t stand it so gave it back to reseler and they gave another one with the same problem ofcourse. I already had a background of that problems from all kind of forums and that they’re people on all over the world with the same issue.
I said OK let’s try the third one in the shop and what? The same problem.
Now I uderstand why the gradient was deeper and deeper along with time of iMac being turned on, cause the temperature of the panel was increasing.

In March 2008 I’ve called apple care and after serious of conversations they have admited that: “such a problem existed but it has been adressed” and that “if I’ll order from them directly I’ll have an iMac from the newest batch without issues” So I gave it a go and I’ve played in this apple lottery ones again. First one was bad as hell. The second one was so bright that I couldn’t use it but the gradient was almost invisible. Now I understand this cover up from apple. I gave it back. They send the third one and ofcourse you know what was the outcome. Now I’m still using my PC. Looks like apple doesn’t want any “switchers” anymore. They have enough money from ipod’s and iphones that imac’s are just 15% of their profit so they just don’t care.

But the most anoying thing is that they niether fix the problem or admit it and give resolution time.

And about software fix using “Shades” or other app. I’m afraid this fix comes with another problem which is “depth of colors”. With software shading of all colors you decreasing numbers of all colors that can be displayed. So one way or the other we loose something. Spending that amount of money for and iMac we geting great operating system, nice hardware all boxed in marvelous brushed aluminium box and crappy screen comes with along. Some things never change and computers are so strong as their weakest part. So I’ve been forced to stay with my Sony VAIO.

By: David J

David J — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:07:39 +0000

Up to you. If it’s not too bad I would wait as log as possible simple because you might end up with a better quality screen. I figure Apple will be forced to pay $$$$ and hopefully replace these crappy monitors.

By: steve

steve — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:46:21 +0000

I have a 24″ iMac from oct 07 which is bleeding a little and creating dark areas in 3 areas near centre of screen. I have applecare..Should I live with it for now or get it replaced – ie will I set myself up for more probs ?

By: David J

David J — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:41:53 +0000

I figure those of us who got the 3 year warranty will be getting new 24in iMacs in about 2 years. These Macs get really hot and in the small iMac casing heat will eventually kill the HD, CPU, and board capacitors. Basically I feel this is going to coat A$$ple some $$$$ in the near future because these units will be replaced. I use my iMac a lot and I hope it dies in about 2 years so I will get a new one!

Normally I don’t feel this way about a company but A$$ple is screwing it’s customers in so many ways today.

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 18 May 2008 13:12:30 +0000

Are you talking about the new iMacs (released a couple of weeks ago)? This is not the first hardware problem you have with Apple products (especifically the iMac, right?), and you’re getting me really worried about quality from Apple lately.