2011 13" Macbook Air - inconsistent screen quality

All this talk about the Samsung being the superior display is non-sense, based on my experience. I exchanged my 13" MBA. Take a look. The one on the right was mine. You're probably thinking that's an LG display. Wrong. I had the Samsung display. The one on the left is the display model with an LG display. Notice the whiter white.

What bothered me is not even the yellowish white. See that dark area on the bottom? It was starting to drive me nuts at night. It is VERY noticeable at night when I dim the screen. The funny thing is it's more noticeable by the peripheral vision when I'm looking at another part of the screen, it's like something is in my eye. Very annoying.

Also my replacement has the Toshiba SSD. I honestly can't tell it's any slower. Actually according to Xbench the Toshiba has better random access, which may actually be better off than big sequential numbers which is somewhat meaningless when accessing many small files, such as when booting the OS.

The bottomline is that there's an inconsistency in quality, though I am very happy with my LG display/Toshiba SSD unit

PS they didn't have a 256GB in stock. I exchanged it for the 128GB and put $300 back in my pocket.

 

I have heard about inconsistent screen quality issues with the 2011 13" MBA mainly revolving around the dark area at the bottom of the display. I can't see it in your picture (my eyes are thrown off by seeing your shadow in the picture) but I know it is an issue since you definitely aren't the only one complaining. It is kind of sad that this is happening but Apple definitely isn't the only one experiencing this. I remember when I purchased my Dell 17" notebook in 2005. The high res displays on those were either an LG or a Samsung and, if memory serves me correct, the LG ones were better while the Samsung models had more of a gradient backlight and blacks always came out as really dark grays. On the other hand, one of my other notebooks had the superior display which was made by Samsung.

Either way, companies have to do this in order to keep up with customer demand. Dell, HP, Apple, Sony, etc. all do it. Otherwise they would have extremely difficult times keeping up with customer purchases.

 

The dark area is right above where it says Macbook Air, it is the most pronounced in that area but it's along most of the bottom edge. I think someone mentioned that he returned the MBA because of it. It is not caused by my shadow which is right inbetween the two Macbooks. The MBA on the left is the store display unit, I can still see a hint of it when the screen is dimmed and only when on a white page. My replacement is just like that which is acceptable to me.

I understand they have to source from multiple suppliers, one to keep up with demands, two use as leverage for better pricing, and three so that they can't be held hostage by a single supplier. I remember on some of the Dells some of the screen were grainy which is completely unacceptable. I have never seen an Apple laptop with a grainy screen like that, so at least Apple has some sort of control in that regard.

 

oops mispost

 

How can you determine which LCD manufacturer your panel on MBA is ? Does not show on About this Mac ....?

 

It won't show on the outside, and TBH most of the time you can tell from the GSX support site based on the part number.


As for the LCD panel being slightly yellow, that is a very easy fix by adjusting the color as follows:

System Preferences>Displays>Color Tab>Advanced

This will allow you to adjust the machine to your own concept of whats the correct color. What I usually do is print off a copy of a color wheel on my printer and then adjust it to the screen so I get more accurate printing.


As for the LCD panel being dark in one corner. Its a defect in that particular display. I have seen many of both screens and they have been fine. Just remember they make millions of these, unfortunately you got a bad one. Fortunately Apple is pretty good about flipping them out.

 

Now you have the LG display?

Is it possible that when purchasing a Mabook Air, that I request for an LG display opposed to a Samsung? How can you tell who the display is made by, is it marked anywhere?

 

They will not know at the store, and I don't think system profiler will tell you either. As far as I know the only way is to check on the serial, but even then that only tells you a part number without who makes it. I wouldn't recommend taking it part to see the sticker on the back, which is where I know it is.

I really wouldn't worry to much about it, if it doesn't work right, return it.

 

Yes I got the LG display now which I'm very happy with, paired with the Toshiba SSD some call it the double whammy LOL. It bothered me a bit at first (I had prior experience with Toshiba being slow in a Sony Z, dual 64GB RAID0 SSD being slower than a single 64GB Sandforce SSD), but I honestly can't tell there's any difference in speed between this 128GB Toshiba and the one I returned with a 256GB Samsung. I'm not going to keep switching and end up with a bad display again. This one is a keeper.

To see what LCD you have, run this command in terminal:

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


If it returns LP133WP1 it's the LG. If it returns LTH133BT it's the Samsung.

 

It's possible the inconsistency may not be in the panel, but in the backlight/light diffuser.

 

That is the only correct answer.

 

How is that known? dmk2's possibility could be correct but has anyone taken a MBA's panel apart, removed the backlight, and conducted a consistency check on it? Unless someone has done something like that, it can never be truly know if the issue comes from the panel itself, the backlight setup, or both.

 

I have a new MBA 13" with LG Display but found slightly yellowish screen problem.
Could you kindly please share the adjusted settings of how to solve this issue? As I'm not familiar with how to adjust.

Thanks a lot!

 

Just to throw a wrench in the works, I have four 13" MacBook Airs right now. Three are Samsung panels and one is an LG panel. Samsung panel #1 has very "white" whites, Samung panel #2 has very yellow whites, Samsung panel #3 is slightly off-white, and the LG panel is very similar to Samsung panel #1.

What does this mean? It's all in the panel variance. I don't believe the Samsungs are any whiter than the LGs in general, or vice versa. Posting your own examples of "yellow" displays means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Nothing! Panel variance is at play here. NO two panels are alike.

 

The Samsung Display Panel in the Macbook Air 13 is NOTICEABLY better than the LG Panel. I compared 2 identical MBA's with calibrated displays (1 was Samsung, the other LG), and samsung had MUCH BETTER VIEWING angle than the LG. The LG panel had narrower viewing angles (color shade became apparent the farther the viewing angle increased from center) and Anandtech also confirmed this in his review.

 

@dejacky - if you compare one apple to one orange and the apple is rotten and the orange is not, you might decide oranges are better than apples.

it should be obvious why further research is needed.

 

Who dug this thread back up Getting a good screen is a lottery, you simply can't generalize LG = crap and Samsung = best.

While we're on that subject, I didn't want to bring it up on the 2012 thread, but take a look at Anandtech's early review on the new 15" with 2880x1800 display. The last picture, that screen looks very "warm" to me. Here we go again..

 

I went to the 2 largest Apple stores in my city, brought along a friend's 13" Macbook Air (w/ samsung panel) and compared it to several Macbook Air 13's with Samsung & LG panel displays in the store. All MBA displays we used for comparison were calibrated and every time the Samsung Panel MBA's had wider viewing angles than the LG panel ones. i.e. The Samsung Panel's always held more consistent shades at a wider viewing angle than the LG Panels. We even did a simple test of asking people which display had "less color shift" when tilting the display up/down and they all picked the Samsung Panel one (including the Apple workers there) when they did not know which panel was in which MBA. So, I speak from first hand experience.

I'm not saying the LG Panel is bad, I'm just saying in terms of viewing angle consistency, the Samsung panel was better.

 

others seem to have had different experiences

 

The LG actually had better contrast than the Samsung from my experience. The viewing angles were similar, with a slight not to the Samsung, though under normal usage conditions I'd take the LG every time.