Should I exchange this iPad? (Pic)

[octiceps]

Hey y'all, first time iPad user here.

I recently bought a refurbished 16 GB iPad 3 (WiFi) online through the Apple Store website. It arrived in pristine condition and has worked great for the last 3 months.

However, I was watching a movie in bed last night and noticed some white patches at the top of the screen where the letterboxing was. Further investigation and testing confirmed that my unit definintely has some backlight bleeding.

It's looks like maybe 10-15 small white patches along the top and left edges. This is what it looks like with a completely black screen and maximum brightness in a dark room:



I have no prior experience with this issue or iPads in general, so do the knowledgeable folks on this board think I should go to the Apple Store and request an exchange? Since I am still early in my warranty period it would be best to do this sooner rather than later.

Is it possible to get a perfect iPad with absolutely no bleeding on any of the edges (like the bottom and left in my picture) or is this just something inherent in the design/manufacturing of the device?

Thanks for the help!

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[Barçamad]

That certainly doesn't look normal and as you have bought it from the Apple Store web site and it is still under warranty, you should go to the Apple Store and show them the problem. I am sure, given all the excellent customer service reports regarding Apple, the issue will be resolved to your satisfaction.
FYI I have an iPad 3, Wi-Fi only, 32 GB and my screen is perfect. No problems whatsoever.
Good luck.

[goofy8275]

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[scifan57]

Hey y'all, first time iPad user here.

I recently bought a refurbished 16 GB iPad 3 (WiFi) online through the Apple Store website. It arrived in pristine condition and has worked great for the last 3 months.

However, I was watching a movie in bed last night and noticed some white patches at the top of the screen where the letterboxing was. Further investigation and testing confirmed that my unit definintely has some backlight bleeding.

It's looks like maybe 10-15 small white patches along the top and left edges. This is what it looks like with a completely black screen and maximum brightness in a dark room:

<img src="http://www.ipadforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=36194"/>

I have no prior experience with this issue or iPads in general, so do the knowledgeable folks on this board think I should go to the Apple Store and request an exchange? Since I am still early in my warranty period it would be best to do this sooner rather than later.

Is it possible to get a perfect iPad with absolutely no bleeding on any of the edges (like the bottom and left in my picture) or is this just something inherent in the design/manufacturing of the device?

Thanks for the help!

Virtually every iPad ever made has some degree of backlight bleeding. What you show in your screenshot is quite minor bleeding. Do you notice it in normal room light with the brightness at 50% and information displayed on the screen?

[AQ_OC]

IPS screens of every ilk have backlight bleed. Even if you got another, you'll get no guarantee it won't be worse. And I have seen much worse than this. On my Nexus 10, I can see spots on the screen even when the brightness is down and a movie is playing on the screen. I could have taken it back, but the majority of the time I don't notice it at all.

[octiceps]

Thanks for the info everyone. Looks like I'll be keeping the iPad. To be honest, I don't notice the backlight bleeding at all unless I'm specifically testing for it. I wouldn't crank up the brightness to maximum in a dark room anyway.

Just out of curiosity, I also took this opportunity to check the screen uniformity of all my LCD monitors and laptops and sure enough, every single one of them had visible bleeding to some extent. Unsurprisingly, my Dell IPS monitor was probably the closest to perfect, but it did cost more than the entire iPad. Seems to me that these uniformity-related problems are an inevitable reality of LCD's in general.

[Barçamad]

Thanks for the info everyone. Looks like I'll be keeping the iPad. To be honest, I don't notice the backlight bleeding at all unless I'm specifically testing for it. I wouldn't crank up the brightness to maximum in a dark room anyway.

Just out of curiosity, I also took this opportunity to check the screen uniformity of all my LCD monitors and laptops and sure enough, every single one of them had visible bleeding to some extent. Unsurprisingly, my Dell IPS monitor was probably the closest to perfect, but it did cost more than the entire iPad. Seems to me that these uniformity-related problems are an inevitable reality of LCD's in general.

That's really interesting as I must admit I have never cranked up the brightness to maximum. I keep it as low as possible, without affecting the display, in order to help with battery conservation.
Thanks for the input.
Mike

[octiceps]

That's really interesting as I must admit I have never cranked up the brightness to maximum. I keep it as low as possible, without affecting the display, in order to help with battery conservation.
Thanks for the input.
Mike

If you do the same test that I did, I almost guarantee that you'll see it. It may even be the exact same bleed pattern if Apple's manufacturing is consistent. I never notice the bleed during normal usage, only during testing. I'm not going to bother exchanging mine because all my LCD's have this. Plus, as the other posters pointed out, the bleeding on mine is pretty minor relative to other iPads and a replacement could be worse.

[AQ_OC]

Check out these images I found on Amazon...these are dell ultra sharps (IPS panels):

[octiceps]

Check out these images I found on Amazon...these are dell ultra sharps (IPS panels):

Attachment 36282

Wow. That looks pretty bad. I would definitely notice that if I were, say, editing photos in a dark room. That must have been a bad batch or something. I don't know if those are the same model as my Dell monitor, but I wouldn't be happy if mine looked like that.