Does this have the Image Retention problem that many of the retinas have?
Wow that's a good question. Thanks. I'm actually surprised to hear there was a problem, I'd never heard of it before. Had I known I might not have bought it. Well, I looked it up
here and
here. I was pretty shocked. I kept reading,
here for example.
From what I read, the problem affects LG panels (SJA1, on mid-2012 models), and not the Samsung panels. This is the most recent 2013 model available -- dated 4/25/2013. I checked using 'ioreg -lw0 | grep EDID | sed "/[<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6' and the panel ID is "LP154WT1-SJA2" (i.e. a LG model) but luckily it's a hardware revision model (SJA2).
I also have an LG LP154WT1-SJA2 display. So far, no issues. I haven't been able to find anyone with an SJA2 display confirming the presence of IR/ghosting on the SJA2.
(from
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21614406#21614406)
The SJA1's are the original LG displays known to be problematic. The SJA2's appear to be going into the second generation rMBP's, there do not seem to be reported problems with them, and is what I have in this one.
(from
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21805138#21805138)
As I said those pages are hundreds of pages long but the general consensus is that the 2013 hardware revisions fixed the problem. At any rate, according to the facebook page linked above, Apple is fully aware of the problem as they started ensuring anyone with an IR problem got a replacement Samsung (or SJA2) screen. And again, this is a 1 day old model with 3 years of Apple Care. There isn't going to be a problem with it and if there is, they will fix it.
Apparently these SJA2 screens are even better than the Samsung ones they used to replace the SJA1's originally. In fact, the latest trend is that the Samsung screens suck and people want the hardware revision LG's now
I recently bought a 2nd retina macbook 15, production week 2(April) 2013. Samsung screen. suffered non-uniform backlight, left side was yellowish and darker than the right side of the screen. Brought to Apple store, the genius was happy to replace the screen for me, but they didn't have any spare parts, took 3-5 days to order a new screen. Got it replaced with another samsung screen, same issue. The genius agreed to replace the screen again.
I decided to e-mail Apple. Explained this screen issues(non-uniform backlight, IR), and asked if I could have a SJA2 screen instead of samsung screen,since SJA2 seems to have fixed the IR issue and has no non-uniform backlight issue.
(from
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848?start=7770&tstart=0)
Here's another post comparing the Samsung models to the new SJA2's:
AT LAST, I have finally received a flawless Samsung display rMBP after 13 attempts prior to this one. There is no backlight bleeding, yellow/pinkish tints, or dead pixels. I'm absolutely blown away with this machine, however, because I still have possession of my LG rMBP for a few more days before the 14 return period, I compared the two. The Samsung seems to be more washed out in colors, somewhat giving a matte feel to it, whereas the LG has BEAUTIFUL contrast levels and appears more color accurate, especially the blacks. I have also noticed the Samsung display is extremely sharp with texts and textures, almost as if it were illuding forward. In addition, the Samsung is slightly brighter than the LG by 1 bar. Nonetheless though, despite the benefits the LG has, I truly am happy with the Samsung for not possessing IR, which I have been frustrated with when working on my animation projects.
My unit was built on the 44th week and I'm hoping the rest of you guys will be fortunate in receiving one. Let's hope I won't be needing to return to this thread again and finally enjoy my machine that I have been longing for since 3 months ago
(from
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20164983#20164983)
Anyways yeah those threads are hundreds of pages long but the issues seem to revolve around the first string of rMBP's they put out.
I'm happy to confirm the date on this model is 4/25/2013 and that after using it for a day or two now there are no issues. I can provide photos of the box and so forth if you need.
Thing is, at this point I am really on the fence on whether I should sell it or not. It's an amazing and beautiful machine. I love the gestures, the way it does notifications, and the way it does e-mail. The new Office 2013 upgrade is going to make this my go-to machine. The thing friggen talks to me in Japanese and Chinese (it even has more than four different Chinese dialects/accents). I can talk back to it in various languages too. It's all configurable. It has dozens of English voices too including voices with accents, like a London accent, an Irish accent, an Australian accent, an India accent, a South African accent.. amazing.
Funny story. I walk into the Apple store on Wednesday. I went to a big one. The #1 one in the city over. I ask them for their top of the line model. I wanted everything. So they say they don't have it. But, actually, after 15 minutes of looking around the store they come back and say they just got a top of the line model in only thing is it has the 512GB hard drive not the 768GB one. It's the only one left in the country, do I want it. I say oh wow really, and they get a guy to send it over to the store in about 10 min. Just as I am paying for it someone phones in and tries to buy it. Too late! So I feel lucky to have the most powerful and recent macbook pro in the country
Actually I've been using it for the last couple days as I said above and it's a kick ass machine. I copied over 400gigs of backup video to it yesterday in like an hour, which blew me away. The display is much brighter and clearer than the benq 24inch I use at home. In fact it looks horribly dim to me now, dim and old. Beware. Using a retina will spoil you forever. You can't go back to a normal screen after using a retina.
BTW,
check out Parallels. It runs programs about twice as fast as Virtualbox and it runs them side by side with the mac programs. It's second only to dual booting. Oh and yes you can dual boot this with windows or linux (ubuntu) and there is a reasonable amount of support out there for it.
I also just bought a thunderbolt to VGA adapter for use with projectors at work. You might want to wait a couple of days and I'll report any screen issues (or confirm that there aren't any). But by that time I might decide to keep it for myself.
