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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Macbook Screen Crappy?

Macbook Screen Crappy?
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cocoa_coder
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May 22, 2007, 11:48 PM
 
Hi, I just got the black macbook for travel purposes and it seems as if the display is not as good as my mac book pro or my sony ux or even my cellphone. When i look at the text on the screen it seems kinda jagged and i can see its not as smooth as other machines. even graphics havea grainy edge to them. At first I thought this is what you get when you dont have a GPU as the GPU usually does filtering (usually billinear) on windows before display, however when i was in the 5th Avenue apple store i did not notice these issues on the demo machines.

Am I being too picky? Even a crapo cheat HP monitor at the office didnt have this jaggy look. The text is not crisp at all.
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variozin
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May 23, 2007, 01:27 AM
 
ooops
( Last edited by variozin; May 24, 2007 at 07:37 PM. )
     
frdmfghtr
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May 23, 2007, 08:41 AM
 
Go into the system preferences and make sure the screen resolution is set to 1280 x 800; on LCD displays (are these really LCD displays anymore, or TFT or something else?), any resolution other than the native resolution (determined by the physical design of the screen) will look fuzzy and/or jagged.
     
Macola
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May 23, 2007, 03:54 PM
 
Do you have font smoothing at the right settings in the Appearance prefpane?
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Sophus
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May 26, 2007, 01:17 PM
 
Also, in addition to the other tips, calibrating the display will usually also help to get a smoother and better anti aliasing.
     
amazing
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May 26, 2007, 06:03 PM
 
Best thing is to take it in to the Apple Store and set it up side by side with a demo MB, and have both set to the same page. Check the differences at that point, where you'll at least be able to bring a Genius or store manager over--if indeed you can see a difference. If you can see a difference, then you've got some leverage, but you'll have to remember to be very diplomatic.

Where'd you buy the MB? what kind of return policy do they have? If it was an Apple Store, then they've got the most restrictive policy, but you're still within the 10 days.

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shifuimam
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May 26, 2007, 10:47 PM
 
Could this possibly have anything to with what I've read online about some macbooks being shipped with 18-bit displays?
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Pierre B.
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May 27, 2007, 11:00 AM
 
I had never the chance to check in detail a Macbook's display, but there is a class-action suit out there against Apple on the display quality issue.
     
Commodus
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May 27, 2007, 11:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
Could this possibly have anything to with what I've read online about some macbooks being shipped with 18-bit displays?
Almost all notebooks ship with 18-bit colour displays. He needs to check the resolution, try color-calibrating the display, and also try adjusting the antialiasing settings for fonts.
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shifuimam
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May 27, 2007, 02:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Commodus View Post
Almost all notebooks ship with 18-bit colour displays. He needs to check the resolution, try color-calibrating the display, and also try adjusting the antialiasing settings for fonts.
I've found that this is more or less true - notebooks use dithering to make it appear to display millions of colors (24-bit).

However, with the complaints of grainy/sparkly displays in certain runs of MBPs, I'd wonder if there's something wrong with how the system dithers the display - perhaps he should take it back to the Apple Store, compare a test image with the same model on display there, and see what he finds out.
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