Have you noticed any ghosting or burn-in with your 15.6-inch MacBook Pro Retina displays? Does your Pro’s Retina display “suffer from brightness, color and image display flaws?” If so, you could benefit from a class-action suit one MacBook Pro owner filed against Apple for faulty Retina displays made by LG.
Ghosting is usually more common on Plasma televisions and e-readers. It’s when a silhouette of what was just on-screen remains behind when you turn off the screen or watch something else, and it’s been plaguing some MacBook Pro owners with Retina displays produced by LG, as you can see in this side-by-side comparison by berryloui. (Samsung is the other supplier of Retina screens for MacBook Pros, and they’ve been relatively problem-free.) Judging by the almost 370,000 views of the “MacBook Pro Retina display burn-in” thread on the Apple Support forum, it seems there are a lot of Pro owners out there who paid top dollar for what they thought would be the best screen on the market, but turned out to be highly problematic.
As reported by Law360 and 9to5Mac, fellow MacBook Pro owner Beau Hodges just filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple on Wednesday, claiming that MacBook Pro customers have no way of knowing ahead of time whether they are purchasing a unit with a LG or Samsung display. In his complaint, Hodges also alleged that Apple must be aware of the difference in quality and performance between the two brands, even though, “None of Apple’s advertisements or representations discloses that it produces the computers with display screens that exhibit different levels of performance and quality.”
He is seeking unspecified damages for MacBook Pro owners with LG-made Retina screens in the United States, but it is a bit too early to start breaking out the champagne just yet. After all, we don’t know if this case will get tossed out by the judge, or what Apple’s response may be. It seems most Pro owners who have problems with their Retina displays are already able to ask for a Samsung-made screen replacement, just by walking into an Apple Store, so what would Apple do differently to settle the suit? Even if Apple issues a mass recall of MacBook Pros with LG-made displays, it would be such a hassle to have to be temporarily without your laptop while it goes in for repair that it would hardly feel like a victory for consumers. We’ll be following this case as it develops, so stay tuned!
(Image via berryloui’s YouTube video)
