Grey Lines Mar MacBook Air Displays

adamengst writes "Numerous users have been complaining about grey lines that muddy the crispness of the displays of the recently updated MacBook Air. Doug McLean explains the problem in TidBITS, along with what Apple appears to be doing about it."

Comments

"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, is this an audiophile forum now? I can only assume the lines fluff up the felty softness too.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Lumpy]

The problem is that these users are not conditioning their laptop displays before use. It's well known you need to play a very diverse video before any actual use so that the screen is "exercised" and ready for use. they get stiff after sitting off for a while.

Also using directional USB cables as well as cleaning the keyboard with a gold based cleaning solution will help enhance the crispness of the display.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[ckthorp]

They just need more burn-in time, like audiophile speakers and headphones. The users need to display vibrant oilpan-like colors for a few hundred hours to ensure that the pixels are transitioning with optimal clarity and efficiency.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[LMacG]

Also, marking around the edge of the display with a green felt-tip pen will keep all the pixels in proper alignment.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[AdamPee]

You can't start out with too diverse video, your computer could pull a driver. Instead, start off gently, something like a screensaver, and move on to something a little more rigorous as it warms up.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[morgan_greywolf]

Don't forget to get the directional USB cables with the gold connectors. But I hear that one company is making USB cables with platinum connectors and 10 gauge wire that cost $600 each!!! I'm going to try some of those next!

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Lumpy]

Gold is passe now.

Platinum coated Low Oxygen titanium with iridium tips are what is needed now.

Also be sure that your Ethernet cables are of quality. http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp# is the only cable that is worthwhile for any performance computing.

using a lesser cable will cause muddyness.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[skulgnome]

For an Apple fan, Macbook displays cannot be mentioned without speaking of "the crispness of". They've spent so much time gobbling that stuff up that they unconsciously repeat the marketing mantras. Marketingspeak on the brain.

Way back when the Amiga was still a barely viable platform, there used to be fanaticism... but it was absolutely nothing like what Apple fans perpetuate now. This stuff is more like pod people from the film.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the 'diverse video' I watch actually tends to induce stiffness.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[elrous0]

My wife flipped out and left me when I bought those instead of paying the mortgage last month. Too bad for her that she's not here to enjoy the cleanest USB signal I've ever seen!

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get stiff after playing my diverse videos for a while. Then my right arm gets exercised.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[morgan_greywolf]

OMFG, make it stop! That's a $499 shielded twisted pair cable. I'm sorry, but as far as data loss goes, I've pumped GigE and even 10GigE to the limit through ordinary, bargain basement unshielded CAT 5e and CAT 6 cables respectively with 0 data loss. Even ordinary STP cables aren't that expensive if you really need it.

These cables are ridiculous.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[DrinkDr.Pepper]

For just $49.99 (+S&H) I will send you my patented green felt-tip pen pixel alignment tool. It's alcohol-free ink is designed maximize the pixel aligning properties associated with green felt-tip pens.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[V!NCENT]

You, sir, have a very good memmory...

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

Having a high-quality cable made sense in the days of Analog audio, because a poor-quality cable could distort the sound, but in this new era of Digital audio (1's and 0's) there's no longer any need. "The AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction" is just nonsense. The nuances come from the computer DAC chip's ability to turn 1's and 0's into sound, and that's where audiophiles should spend their money, not on a $500 gold-plated cable.

Fools and their money are easily parted.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

Actually it's more like a church revival meeting.

"WE know the truth. WE have the answer. While 'they' wander in darkness, WE have found the light! Can I get an Amen brothers?" "Amen!"
"We don't have to worry about viruses. We don't have to worry about drivers. We have the crispest displays in the industry. We have the best-built computers in the world. Am I right brothers?"
"Yes sir!"
"Praise be to Apple!"
"And the Macintosh!"

Actually this kinda reminds me circa 1990 with my Commodore Amiga. Fortunately I went off to college and now I'm a bleeding-heart liberal just like all the other students. The answer lies not in cold steel and plastic, but in the ever-loving arms of Brother Government. Mmmm-hmmm.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Registered Coward v2]

Gold is passe now.

Platinum coated Low Oxygen titanium with iridium tips are what is needed now.

Also be sure that your Ethernet cables are of quality. http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp# is the only cable that is worthwhile for any performance computing.

using a lesser cable will cause muddyness.

Agreed. It is also very important to ensure you use teh uni-directional Ethernet cable properly. It uses a special extruding and annealing process to line up all the electronic data pipes properly so that you get maximum data throughput in the download direction while limiting upstream traffic within ISP limits. If you install it backwards, as one of my cow orkers did, you'll severely limit your connection speeds since you are now throttling the download speed. His connection went from 2400 baud dialup speeds to past T1 after I simply reversed the cable. Don't bother to buy any of the special oxygen blocking gels that people tout for covering the connectors to prevent corrosion and maximize conductivity. They actually are harmful - you need a little bi-metallic corrosion between the connectors to ensure a nice, tight electrical bond; that's why your speeds go up after you've warmed up the cable and let it break in. I never disconnect my Ethernet cable from my MacBook for that very reason. I always disconnect at my router and carefully wrap the cable around my MacBook for travel. I hope this helps. HAND.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad for her, she is not going to enjoy the benefits of mortgage bailout you gonna get :)

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

She's enjoying my cable now.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[paazin]

Thank you, Captain Obvious, for that enlightening post.

He added to the discussion explaining something for those who aren't familiar with the issue

And unlike you, he got +1 Karma point for it.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[value_added]

using a lesser cable will cause muddyness

Not to be confused with warmth, of course.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

>>>Thank you, Captain Obvious, for that enlightening post.

That's alright. Captain Obvious trumps Seaman Asshole.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

>>>If you install it backwards, as one of my cow-orkers did, you'll severely limit your connection speeds

Wow. I flipped my telephone line around this morning, and my modem speed increased from 14k to 53k! I've had my line backwards for the last twenty years. I feel so dumb. Maybe if I hadn't wasted my youth orking cows I'd have noticed this flaw earlier.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[stewbacca]

$3 HDMI cables at amazon.com. Best $3 I ever spent! For the going price at Best Buy you can buy 30 of the no-name brand.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/denon_cable/

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Lumpy]

dude you're not looking closely.

it's only 4 wires! not even a full 8 wire pack. only the orange and blue pairs are in that cable.

It's the ultimate scam.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[_Sprocket_]

The nuances come from the computer DAC chip's ability to turn 1's and 0's into sound, and that's where audiophiles should spend their money, not on a $500 gold-plated cable.

I believe you missed this particularly helpful feature:

Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer.

Your 1's and 0's aren't getting anywhere without some directional markings to let them know which way they're going. Of course, Denon made a mistake by showing the directional marking (a double-sided arrow) in their product picture. Now all manner of hardware hackers will be simply using a magic marker to apply this wonderful feature to their bargain-basement cables. It won't work quite as well as the professional screen-printed version Denon provides. But then that level of quality is beyond the hardware hacker.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[dentree4]

Radio Shack'll have them "half off".. Problem is, gold connectors or even platinum connectors are as good as copper as far as a digital signal is concerned.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[James_Duncan8181]

"OMFG, make it stop! That's a $499 shielded twisted pair cable. I'm sorry, but as far as data loss goes, I've pumped GigE and even 10GigE to the limit through ordinary, bargain basement unshielded CAT 5e and CAT 6 cables respectively with 0 data loss. Even ordinary STP cables aren't that expensive if you really need it." ...and still with a plastic tab that will inevitably snap off. Quality work(!).

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[PRMan]

And as soon as Monster gets done suing mini-golf courses, they'll be providing one for only $159.99.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[javajawa]

Hrm... not sure if you're trying to point something out, or trying to be funny.

Only two sets are required for Ethernet, not that $499 cables are required for ethernet.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Neoprofin]

Sadly it's too short and broken somewhere in the middle from years of abuse.

Nothing we can't fix with a little solder and maybe clipping the end off to patch it in.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[A440Hz]

I bet these folks having problems aren't using the recommended cone points on the bottom of their MacBooks. The cone points reduce vibrations, which in turn, result in more pure electron flow and computations which have more fidelity and life. 1s and 0s take on new oneness and zeroness that was heretofore only available on the largest supercomputers. Oh, and the grey lines go away, too.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[DittoBox]

Agreed. I spent good money on decent analog speakers and a decent audio card, and picked up (really, really) nice 15' TRS cables from Monoprice for a whole 10USD.

I can hear a difference if the DACs are crap, or the speakers are crap, or the analog cabling is *really* crap.

But you can use crappy RCA cable for SPDIF and never have any issues. Why spend thousands on cables for digital? It makes no sense!

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! Them farms done gone hi tek!

But what is a "cow orker"?

I know what a cow is but not an orker.

I never even stopped to think what happens if you hook a milking machine up backwards. Maybe the pokes that do that are the orkers?

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[jo42]

I almost bought an Apple laptop awhile back. Then I looked at the resolution of the displays and how much $$$$ Apple wanted for each model versus that spec. Ended up buying a Dell with a 1680 by 1050 with a faster processor, more memory and bigger hard drive than the faggy-arsed Mac model.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[AioKits]

Thank you Captain Obvious, I now have something to retort with at a later date!

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[sexconker]

But it's 1.5 miles long.
"Length: 1.5m"

Unless...

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[sexconker]

If the signal directional markings are on the connector, then it's even more lulworthy.

As pictured, it looks like this.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

woosh?

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[sexconker]

Damn, should've read the whole post above me, and should've escaped my dealies. <---->

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[hjf]

you need all 4 pairs for gigabit ethernet.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[floodo1]

Well if you're trasmitting digital without any sort of error correction, say SPDIF over copper, then the quality of the cable does matter. Noise WILL cause a change in the received data, and your equipment won't know any better.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[sexconker]

No, they're worse.

The gold/etc plating over the aluminum/tin/wax connectors just adds one more layer of crap, and one (or two depending on the other end) more interface change(s) for your signal to get through.

Keep it all the same metal and you'll get a better signal.

Of course .01% better as measured physically, and about .0000000001% better in actual use.

But hey - my solid gold wires are worth it. You'll need to buy a solid gold NIC and router from me to see the benefit though. You may need to rewire your house, too.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Vancorps]

You mean only four wires are required for 10/100 Ethernet. POE and GIGe both require all the wires in a standard Cat5e or Cat6 cable. They also don't tolerate interference over distance as well.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[default luser]

Well if you're trasmitting digital without any sort of error correction, say SPDIF over copper, then the quality of the cable does matter. Noise WILL cause a change in the received data, and your equipment won't know any better.

Yeah. Get back to me when you find a DATA-GRADE cable that's so crappy it can't transmit data at 1.5 Mbps. I think you'd have to fall back to doorbell wiring and get yourself some Cat 1.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[sdpuppy]

Bravo! That was really very good. You've got the talk down pat.

Maybe you should get a part time writing up the blurbs for overpriced cable...

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[piltdownman84]

Very true, I remember when I bought my TV the sales guy was adamant that I needed to buy a $90 high end HDMI cable. I ended up buying a 'cheap' $20 one and in his words he was "disgusted that someone would spend so much money on a TV and then ruin the quality by cheapen out on the cable". The scary thing was he seemed to believe it. I have since bought even less expansive HDMI cables for two other devices and there is no noticeable differences.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

No but you'll be able to HEAR the errors - just as I can hear when my DTV signal is about to disappear due to interference/noise. In any case you don't need a $500 cable. A $5 cable will work just fine to preserve the "HI" and "LO" states which digital uses.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Achromatic1978]

Which is ironic, given that most Macbooks have lower display options than pretty much any other notebook out there - come on, 1440x900 on a 15.4" screen on a "Pro" laptop? The only way 'crisp' could be applied there is as a synonym for 'blocky sharp edges from visible pixels'. Bleh.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

I would have called the manager right then and there. There's no call for salespeople to treat customers like shit.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[operagost]

There's too much oxygen in the Air's air. You have to use the $1,024 SuperOxyLow cables to bleed it off.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[operagost]

... but Major Dick owns them both.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Mister Whirly]

Really? A salesperson who works on commission recommended you buy the much more expensive product rather than the cheap one? Gadzooks! That sounds almost *gasp* unethical! And from a salesman! They are usually the bastion of ethics and morals.

I like how at Best Buy the salespeople will tell you "We don't get commission." But I can guarantee you they get a bonus for selling the bogus "product protection service" crap. I have never seen more aggressive techniques to get you to buy the coverage. One time I was buying a $20 product, and was asked if I wanted to buy "protection" for it. Just for laughs I asked how much it would be. "$19.99 for 2 years" was the answer. I laughed in his face and told him if it broke anytime in the next 2 years, i would just come back and buy a brand new one for the same price, without the hassle of having to return the item and wait for them to decide to send me a new one. Or if in broke in 3-4 years, I would have already spent $40 on it and would have to spend another $20 to replace it. Now which plan sounds better?

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[rootofevil]

no, they dont. thats the sick part. all that junk they push on you, and the only people getting anything close to 'commission' are the managers and to a lesser degree department supervisiors. they get monthly bonuses based on revenue, but no commission at all.

so all that pushing they do is just dedication to do what the company says. you know who else did that?

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Mister Whirly]

Funny. I knew a guy who worked for Best Buy and he said the only bonuses they got from sales were the extended protection stuff they sold. This was years ago, maybe they have changed. But I doubt it, considering I have never had any pressure to buy anything from them, except those service contracts.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[IronChef]

Don't fall for that gold-infused keyboard cleaner bullshit. Nothing is more important than the pH of the cleaner, which should match that of the primordial seas.

If your keyboard is too acidic vowels will suffer from a lack of sensitivity, making a left circle-strafe difficult.

For this reason, I wear museum artifact restoration style cotton gloves whenever I use my keyboard, to keep my keyboard free of any possible pH imbalance.

That and a green sharpie are all you need and anyone who says otherwise is selling you snake oil.

Wait, what were we talking about?

Excuse me, I need to go break in some ethernet cables.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[treeves]

...all of which leads to Private Agony.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[MikeBabcock]

You know that most speakers are still using analog connections to the amplifier, right? Just checking.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Mozk]

Same with me, but at Nebraska Furniture Mart (which is much larger and more high-tech than it sounds). They tried to sell me an old Monster HDMI 1.2 cable, which had been obsolete for two years at the time the TV was purchased. Other than that and not knowing what YPbPr was, he was a nice guy. We both complained about how idiotic it is for a store demonstrating the greatness of HD TVs to have multiple TVs tuned to a 1080i channel running through split coaxial cables (without even an amplifier) from a single cable box.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Mike Buddha]

Wrong. Gold makes it sound better.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Khyber]

What's sad is I tried to submit this cable as a story to Slashdot a while back. Too bad it never got accepted because we certainly would've torn that company a new one for such a patent lie in advertising.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Lost Engineer]

I had the same thing happen to me: at Radio shack. Man have they gone downhill. Oh and their cheapest cable was $50.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Zencyde]

Don't buy from him. I'll sell you a better one for $199.99 with free shipping. Trust me, the more expensive something is, the better it is.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Zencyde]

*crosses fingers* Please don't pull a Godwin... Please don't pull a Godwin.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[piltdownman84]

No, the scary part was I truly believe that he thought the cable was better. It didn't seem like the guy was trying to screw me, but more so that he was so brainwashed himself that he believed I needed the high end cable.


I do feel somewhat bad for the salespeople that have to ask about warranty on ever item. I just recently got a PS3 at EB and the girl had to ask me for every item if I wanted the warranty. After I declined it on the console and the first remote control I said I don't want a warranty on anything, but she said it was store policy that she had to ask for every item and she would get in trouble if she didn't ask, so she had to ask on three more controllers, and a remote control.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[winkydink]

You misspelled semen.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Zencyde]

Coworkers are people you grow to hate after working at a specific location for too long.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Ihmhi]

Maybe this will get rid of all that weird pixellation I get when I download stuff on the Internet. It's not even on the whole picture, only certain parts! Obviously it's due to an unclear signal.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Bugs42]

Really? A salesperson who works on commission recommended you buy the much more expensive product rather than the cheap one? Gadzooks! That sounds almost *gasp* unethical! And from a salesman! They are usually the bastion of ethics and morals.

Oddly enough, there ARE decent salespeople out there. A few months back I went to Fry's to get an HDMI cable - they had two available, a 6' cable for $20 and a 6' cable for $50. I asked the salesman if there was any difference, and he told me flat out "None at all. For digital signals, the quality's identical. All you're paying for is the brand."
It was one of the VERY few times I found a salesman who didn't try to upsell me. Creeped me the fuck out.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my solid state labs in college was baking some YBCO superconducter pellets. We ground some metal into a powder, then put it into a tiny platinum crucible to bake in a kiln.

The crucible was this tiny little, beat up looking cup that was so soft it felt like a few stacked layers of aluminum foil. Basically, it looked like a bit of scrap metal. My prof said "careful with that, those cost like $900". Then, in chem class, we had platinum anodes, which looked like a bit of straightened paper clip that were like $30 apiece. Gotta love precious metals.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Evil Pete]

Free shipping! Can't beat that. But I need a holder for the pen, do you have any for more than $199 ... cause anything under that would just ruin the Feng Shui of my pixels.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[poached]

I just don't understand - why hasn't someone taken these monster cable people to court over false advertising?

all google searches reveal how Monster is suit-happy against others, but not how someone has sued them already.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[RockWolf]

I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.

And never has your sig been more appropriate...

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Evil Pete]

It uses a special extruding and annealing process to line up all the electronic data pipes properly

OHH! You mean wires. Does this have to be done at a solar sunspot minimum to prevent unwanted magnetic storms causing the misalignment of the metallic crystal structure? You know it is important.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Tacvek]

For what it is worth, I;ve herd that the Denon Link feature of dennon-devices, is an alalog transport system, that happens to use Ethernet-style cabling. Because it is analog, signal quality is important, and thus a very cheap cable would indeed cause "muddyness", although the cable they are selling is overkill even for analog signals, is overpriced, and has some really questionable features (directional arrows).

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[TechwoIf]

At least they got one part right, "to eliminate data loss caused by noise". The digital single is still analog, it just carries data instead of an analog. That single is still suspect to noise that can cause data loss. On most system, you can't tell due to hardware handling it properly and tries to compensate for it. For digital interconnect cables, the 50 cent ones are bad due to no shielding and poor quality control, the $1 to $10 ones are best, $10 and up is just wasting your money unless its a very long run, like 100 feet or so.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[laptop006]

"POE and GIGe both require all the wires in a standard Cat5e or Cat6 cable"

PoE doesn't. Only midspan PoE with 100Mbit ethernet does, switch-based PoE (usually) uses the data pairs in 100Mbit, and in gig-e it's moot as all four pairs are data.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

Do they have any other choice but to push the Extended Warranty/Protection Agreement? I don't about Best Buy but when I worked at Sears if you didn't hit 30% sales of the EW/PA, the managers would give you a stern talking and make you sit in a room for a day doing nothing (read: boring as hell). It's negative reinforcement: "Sell the PAs or go to jail for a day."

I got out of Sears as fast as I could. I like selling but I don't like pushing people to buy extended warranties. It's a waste of money.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[theaveng]

Like phonographs.

Audiophiles will argue strenuously that phonographs have more "warmth" by which they actually mean "analog distorton" and "epak rolloff". I think it's funny how people will so easily embrace a flawed sound and call it superior. Sound is not supposed to be distorted - just go listen to a live orchestra sometime. It's crisp and clear.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[poopdeville]

Having a high-quality cable made sense in the days of Analog audio, because a poor-quality cable could distort the sound

A broken cable could. Lamp cord is good enough for speakers. If you want to spend money on an audio stack, spend it on things that will make a difference: the room, speakers, turntable/stylus, amplifier, more-or-less in that order.

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Meski]

Ask the salesman if the arrow represents conventional current, or electron flow. (they could answer yes, of course :)

Re:"Muddy the crispness"?

[Kooty-Sentinel]

Have you SEEN the new MacBook Pro screens? I recently switched to a Mac - and I am still amazed at how crisp it is. It probably has something to do with the LED backlighting.

The MacBook looks really nice too - apparently the screens are different quality though. I'm far from a Apple fanboy btw.

First gray line

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a bug, it's a special effect. Suck it up, fanboys!

I don't think these gey lines are a big problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple users are to fuzzy usually.
It does matter if the desktop is stable and not grey lines on the the display. If you use your laptop on a plane, in the train, on a conference, on a toilet or in a cafe, the light conditins are very badly and therefore you don't see the grey lines.

Suprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is using low quality displays! [/sarcasm]
No seriously in all laptop reviews I have read so far the testers complained about the displays. So not really suprising news

Re:Suprise...

[tsa]

I agree. My MacBook Pro has a really crappy display for such an expensive laptop IMO. From whichever angle I look at it, I never see the whole screen in the same brightness.

Re:Suprise...

[Khyber]

that's because (with the exception of LED backlit panels) the cathode tube for backlighting is in the bottom of the LCD screen.

Re:Suprise...

[tsa]

My MBP is quite old, so it has a cathode tube-lit screen which is badly designed then :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Smart!

[blind biker]

Cool transparency effect, without any CPU cycles involved! I am not a Mac user, but this brilliant trick makes me want to... uh...

Re:Smart!

[theaveng]

...enjoy some solo sex?

Re:Smart!

[blind biker]

No. More like stay even more indifferent to Apple hardware.

Projecting on others your own vices says everything about you and nothing about them.

Macrap

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlucky, thats what you happens when you buy toys.

tag: appleispants

[apathy maybe]

tag: appleispants

'Cause apple is pants.

Anyway, it sounds like a clear case of bad hardware, and thus should be replaced. Obviously still in the warranty period, 'cause the items are barely a few months old.

Though, actually, the article talks about updating firmware. Odd.

Actually, the entire article doesn't say much at all.

Re:tag: appleispants

[jeffasselin]

Ok, I get to ask this question now: WTF does this "pants" meme means?

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

"x is pants" is a British phrase meaning "x is rubbish".

Re:tag: appleispants

[TheRaven64]

Note this only makes sense in English. In American, the phrase means 'x is trousers,' which is quite nonsensical.

Re:tag: appleispants

[foo fighter]

And "x is rubbish" is a British phrase meaning "x sucks".

Re:tag: appleispants

[ArhcAngel]

x is rubbish

I disagree. I don't think that OS X is rubbish at all.

Re:tag: appleispants

[muellerr1]

I think the translation for 'pants' into Yankee is 'underwear' in which case it's a little less nonsensical. I believe 'trousers' is Brit for the Yankee 'pants'.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Lemming Mark]

Note this only makes sense in English. In American, the phrase means 'x is trousers,' which is quite nonsensical.

Nope, it's not English versus American. You're thinking of British versus American. In the English dialect, the correct phrase would be "jolly bad show, old chap" or the alternate form "cor blimey, guv'nor, one is not amused".

Re:tag: appleispants

[blincoln]

In American, the phrase means 'x is trousers,' which is quite nonsensical.

Is it any more nonsensical than British peoples' apparent distaste for undergarments?

Re:tag: appleispants

[d3ac0n]

Actually, you have that precisely backwards.

in American English: Pants = Trousers or Slacks

in British English: Pants = Underpants. It's also where the word "panties" (aka: women's underwear) comes from.

So in America, "Underpants" became "Underwear". In Britain, "Underpants" became "pants"

In Soviet Russia.... well, I have no idea what they call their underclothes, but I'm sure it has something to do with the underclothes wearing YOU. Or something like that.

Re:tag: appleispants

[AndrewNeo]

No, no, he must have been talking about XFree86.

Re:tag: appleispants

[bilbravo]

I'm American... if someone says 'pants' I think they are referring to (generically) long-legged clothing you wear on the lower-half of your body (as opposed to shorts, which only come down to the knee at most). More specifically, 'pants' would refresh to dress-slacks.

If someone was referring to the garments I wear under my 'pants', that would be 'underwear'. So, saying something is 'pants' doesn't make any sense to an American. As the parent to your post said, pants = trousers. You're going right back to the original definition, which doesn't make sense to an American! :-)

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just the Yankees who call it underwear. Those of us in the southern and western parts of the country use that term as well.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Freultwah]

In Soviet Russia.... well, I have no idea what they call their underclothes, but I'm sure it has something to do with the underclothes wearing YOU. Or something like that.

This is "trusiki" or "trusary" for you. And sometimes they do end up wearing you.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

XFree86 may be bad but the modern X11 implementation (Xorg) rocks. It's OS X (and everything Apple or Microsoft) that sucks.

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

Whereas "x sucks" is a British phrase suggesting "x gets into your pants."

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

In Modern English, one would throw in a few "faakin caarnt" as well, or risk not being understood.

Re:tag: appleispants

[AKAImBatman]

In Soviet Russia.... well, I have no idea what they call their underclothes, but I'm sure it has something to do with the underclothes wearing YOU. Or something like that.

After WWII, Russia ended up with tons of German clothes as part of the spoils of war. Not being familiar with the styles of clothing worn in Germany, many women were seen using German undergarments as evening gowns. (e.g. going to the Opera, a ball, or a fancy party) For the most part no one noticed the difference, but those that were more familiar with German life were amused to no end.

Re:tag: appleispants

[drquoz]

It basically means it's lame. The tag became popular a few months ago when there was a humorous Slashdot story about some guy who changed his password at the Lloyd bank website to "lloydispants" and one of the site admins changed it to "noitsnot".

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

The X Windows Disaster!

ajax has declared on the list that Xorg development involves lipstick on pigs. (Obviously Sarah Palin is one of the XFree86 recalcitrants.)

Some of the stuff Xorg does is truly frightening. e.g. you know how it tries to autoconfigure as much as possible, so you won't need an xorg.conf? It does that by poking and prodding at the video card iteratively trying to reverse-engineer what the heck it is ... it works, but "elegant"'s not in it.

Re:tag: appleispants

[stewbacca]

It means, "I'm the typical slashdot hack who isn't nearly as clever as I think, so I'll just post some stupid meme to sound intelligent".

Re:tag: appleispants

[DaFallus]

Actually, he said exactly what you said although you did a better job of explaining it.

Translate British "pants" to American "pants" = underwear
Translate British "trousers" to American "trousers" = pants

Re:tag: appleispants

[Neoprofin]

Silly rabbit, Yankee only refers to northerners if you're from south or the west, if you're from accross the pond it means American and if you're from the Mid-west it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Psychopath]

In California it means an evil baseball team.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Culture20]

And sometimes they do end up wearing you.

Only if edible.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting for a chance to point this out for some time.

I was brought up in the UK, and when I was a kid the word "pants" always had what you call the American definition -- the long pieces of fabric that go around our legs.

We have a variety of nicknames for underpants, but pants wasn't one of them.

Take the phrase "Pull your pants down".

That means to pull your trousers down.

Or the phrase: "He had his pants around his ankles"

Again, this refers to trousers, not underwear.

I really don't know where this new definition of the word came from, and it irritates me a LOT -- especially Comic Relief a few years ago, that said something like, "Poverty is pants".

Pants = trousers.
Underpants = underpants.

I was brought up in Manchester, if that helps. Maybe it's a local thing.

Re:tag: appleispants

[sbillard]

Ahhh! Well that is .... underwhelming.
I had assumed it was derived from the Simpsons. I believe it is the Canyonero episode, with Krusty playing the part of a George Carlin-type comic. Homer is in the audience and shouts: "Don't you hate pants??!?!?".

So, saying "x is pants", means you hate "x".
But you had to burst my bubble. Bah! the heck with you guys, you're all pants. I'm sticking with my interpretation.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

if you're from the Mid-west it doesn't mean a damn thing.

I'm from the Midwest you insensitive clod!

In the Midwest, we think of the Yankees as the people who freed us from the British. It's a historical term.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just come back from Cambodia, where women wear pajamas - they are a cheap matching outfit.

And most Cambodians are very conservative about dress - unlike the western tourists who the Cambodians find very offensive.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Neoprofin]

Do you have a lot of opportunity to talk to historical figures in your day to day life, because we're talking about modern conversational usage here.

I'm from Wisconsin and have been called a Yankee by people in NC and TX, most likely because I "talk too fast".

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

> In Soviet Russia.... well, I have no idea what they call their underclothes

In the eastern block there was a joke about soviet women needing official employer's verification that they work with ladders or other high places, before they were allowed to buy panties...

Bra was not available, because that was deemed a sexual object, an icon of imperialist immorality...

Stockings out of stock because all the fibres were used to make a huge braking parachute for the soviet's 57 megaton very large airdrop H-bomb experiment...

Welcome to the USSR, country of the working classes!

Re:tag: appleispants

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Wisconsin and have been called a Yankee by people in NC and TX, most likely because I "talk too fast".

That's correct, because you are from north of the Red River.

The ones from the Northeast are damnyankees.

Re:tag: appleispants

[jeffasselin]

I remember that story, but I don't think I read the comments on it.

Thanks to everyone who answered my slightly-offtopic question.

Re:tag: appleispants

[muellerr1]

Mod parent -1, Lacks Reading Comprehension.

Re:tag: appleispants

[soliptic]

In Modern English, one would throw in a few "faakin caarnt" as well, or risk not being understood

'Modern' blud? What you chattin bout bruv, you iz chatting bare shit, getmi! Blap blap! "faakin caarnt", wot u sum 90s Guy Ritchie manz dem or wot? in deez endz we talk like some bare Pakistani via Jamaica via SMS type shit, seen! nahmean? Not dat cockney shit bruv, innit.

Re:tag: appleispants

[iteyoidar]

In America, trousers are basically a more comical version of pants. If you're just wearing them, then they're probably pants. If they catch on fire or try to walk off by themselves, then you have a pair of trousers.

Re:tag: appleispants

[melikamp]

Can you say "x is bloody pants"?

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

Only once a month.

Re:tag: appleispants

[Doggabone]

In Modern English, one would throw in a few "faakin caarnt" as well, or risk not being understood.

In Modern English, one would stop the world and melt with you.

Re:tag: appleispants

[David Gerard]

*applause*

No surprise

[Mad Merlin]

LCD panel quality in general has been on the slide for a couple years now. Pretty much every LCD sold today has a trashy TN panel (6-bit colour and awful viewing angles), instead of mostly just the cheap ones like a couple years ago.

Re:No surprise

[Constantine XVI]

LED-lit.  The display itself is LCD.

Re:No surprise

[TheRaven64]

A little while back the HD in my MacBook Pro died (shortly after completing the first full backup I'd done in almost a year, which was pretty incredible timing). While it was off being repaired, I switched back to my old PowerBook. The resolution of the screen was slightly lower, but the difference was amazing. With the PB I have massive viewing angles - unless I'm off at such a wide angle that the screen is almost a sliver, the image is still clear. With the MBP it starts to go as soon as I'm not flat-on to the display. You'd have thought that the 'pro' lines would still have decent technology, but maybe no one's making it anymore (and the newer ones have those horrible glossy screens, so I won't be getting one of them). If it wasn't for the fact that LaTeX documents that build in 10 seconds on the MBP take over a minute on the PowerBook, I'd be tempted to switch back to it.

Re:No surprise

[Mr. Underbridge]

If it wasn't for the fact that LaTeX documents that build in 10 seconds on the MBP take over a minute on the PowerBook, I'd be tempted to switch back to it.

You're not compiling the whole document every time, are you? I wrote my Ph.D. thesis (couple hundred pages with lots o' figures) in LaTeX on a Powerbook 1.25 GHz, and it certainly took me about a minute if I rebuilt the whole thing. However, if I recall I broke it up so it compiled in chunks and only rebuilt sections whose source had changed. I believe I was compiling each chapter in about 5-10 seconds, and the whole thing in about a minute if I wiped all the object files.

Been a few years, though.

Re:No surprise

[theaveng]

Your description reminds me of my old Windows 98 Compaq Presario laptop. Absolutely terrible display, because it's impossible to see the entire image at once... even just 1 degree off perpendicular and the image fades. As a result I can see either the top half or the bottom half of the screen, but not all at the same time. Junk.

IMHO they should forget LCDs and use Plasma displays instead. Almost as bright and colorful as a CRT (big and bulky but still the best display ever made; plus it can handle multiple resolutions).

Re:No surprise

[Kankraka]

I'm not even a mac fanboy, and I've noticed this. My old G3 wallstreet 14.1 inch only did 1024x768, but holy -crap- was it crisp, had a wide viewing angle, and with a nice even brightness. I miss that machine.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still using my Wallstreet.

I upgraded it though. It used to be a 266Mhz/128MB/4GB. Now, it's 500Mhz/384MB/30GB+20GB. Oh, and I'm running 10.4 on it. (XPostFacto is the bomb!)

Too bad I have no USB ports, no working WiFi, and a 10MB half-duplex ethernet...

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, I just installed a Linksys 54G WiFi card. It worked...

Re:No surprise

[legirons]

A little while back the HD in my MacBook Pro died (shortly after completing the first full backup I'd done in almost a year, which was pretty incredible timing).

So after running the HD continuously for a while to transfer data off it, the HD wore out? Coincidence!

Re:No surprise

[tsa]

Ha, so I'm not the only one who noticed. I got strange looks when I said that my iBook had a much better screen than my MBP, but luckily there are more people who think Apple's old laptops had better screens than the new ones.

Re:No surprise

[drinkypoo]

This is the first thing that made me happy I got my nw9440 and not a MBP, for which I have been wishing ever since I started having problems with THIS particular system... but I have a panel with the same specs (more or less) as a first-gen MBP and I have great side viewing. I'd still trade for a MBP in a minute though, just to get away from nVidia's poorly-supported-in-Linux-QuadroFX1500M graphics.

Re:No surprise

[TheRaven64]

It was about a week later, but all of the work I'd done in the week was in svn so the only thing I lost was a few outgoing mails (incoming ones stay on the server for a bit). If the drive had died a week earlier, I'd have lost a good 8 months of stuff.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Pretty much every manufacturer has a dirt-cheap range using TN panels, a cheap range still using TN panels but providing adjustable height etc, and an expensive range using something better (PVA, MVA, very occasionally some sort of IPS).

I didn't have any problems getting an IPS display once I'd done the research and figured out that's what I wanted. I had to pay quite a lot of money for it, but it wasn't ridiculously expensive.

The exception of course is that all active-matrix laptop displays have always been TN film. You have never been able to get a laptop with anything better. So it's no surprise that Macbooks have sucky screens, because all laptops do.

Re:No surprise

[Khyber]

Guess what your HP nw9440 can do?

Swap out graphics cards. There's an MXM slot inside that holds your graphics card.

I used to be the lead commercial-line repair tech. I loved those models (minus the disassembly, which is far more complicated than the DV line excepting the DV8000 series,) because of the upgradable card.

Seriously, take it apart. The CPU and GPU share the same heatsink/heatpipe so you'll have to deal with that but otherwise it's not so bad nor is it particularly difficult.

Re:No surprise

[Tweenk]

I second that. I have a relatively old TC1100, and its LCD quality is incredible. 180* viewing angle in both directions, legible in direct sunlight, perfect color balance. And it's far from new, I'm the second owner. Compared to it, new Amilos and Thinkpads are mediocre. Plus, it has a Wacom digitizer, so it can function as a poor man's Cintiq. The screen surface is hardened glass so it's very scratch-resistant. The only drawback is its slightly underpowered CPU (1,1 GHz Pentium M), but I don't notice it unless I'm rendering multi-megapixel PNGs from Inkscape or compiling large projects.

Re:No surprise

[drinkypoo]

Guess what your HP nw9440 can do? Swap out graphics cards. There's an MXM slot inside that holds your graphics card.

not according to mxm-upgrade.com. It's an almost-MXM slot.

This machine has been an unmitigated piece of shit, and if you love them, I hate you. HPQ fucked up the EDID and has been completely, utterly, and totally incompetent about supporting everything about this laptop. Whoever decided to use the same model number for about eight different part numbers should be shot in the head, today, not tomorrow. This machine can overheat itself just sitting at a boot prompt - but it doesn't shut down, it thermally throttles itself so it becomes unresponsive, then you turn it off with the power switch, then it won't turn on until it sits there passively cooling for a while.

This laptop is the biggest piece of shit I've ever owned, and I'll be exceptionally happy when I have moved on.

With that said, if you know where I can get the QuadroFX1500M 512MB module that was installed in the Core 2 Duo models (mine is a Core Duo) then maybe I'll try that. But I can probably only get one as a pull, and there are precious few of those out there on the market. I got mine a week or so after they hit the market, and my 3-year service plan is JUST NOW about to expire. Being a business-class system, I'd bet a lot of people got the 3-year contract, and a lot of other people even paid to have them fixed.

My motherboard is getting replaced on monday, hope that solves my chronic dvd-rom-ejects-for-no-particular-reason-when-the-laptop-is-touched bug.

If you meet the guy who designed this thing, kick him in the balls for me.

P.S. I hope that HP goes out of business very soon now. I am never buying anything else from them. I should have realized they were bastards when they all but stopped selling duplex units.

P.P.S. My iPaq H2215 is a piece of crap too.

Re:No surprise

[Khyber]

You likely got the first-gen model. The second-gen engineering revision fixed the thermal module issues. Wasn't a motherboard problem.

The DVD Ejecting was caused by faulty mounting case that wouldn't secure properly, again first-gen.

I sit here on my DV9825 (consumer-end) and don't have a problem. I did with the first generation, which had the shit nvidia geforce 8 with faulty die packaging, but after that was replaced everything has been a breeze. I'm actually warming up to Vista, even. This machine runs it like nobody's business.

Re:No surprise

[Khyber]

Forgot to mention your favorite site with millions of typos can't even tell the difference between different-gen MXM slots. the 9420/9440s have an MXM slot and HP's parts inventory lists the cards for it as such, MXM Type-II.

These guys confuse wit the newer Type-III MXM format.

IOW, they're total morons and I'd not be visiting that site any more.

Re:No surprise

[drinkypoo]

Well, thanks for the guidance. I hope that you are no longer covered by NDA or anything, because if the eject problem comes back again I'm going to sue HP (my warranty will have expired by then) :P

Re:No surprise

[Khyber]

I've been out of NDA for well over two years.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

A little while back the HD in my MacBook Pro died (shortly after completing the first full backup I'd done in almost a year, which was pretty incredible timing)

Dude. Get Leopard. Use Time Machine. Make a full backup every hour.

Re:No surprise

[DirePickle]

Conversely, I have an original TiBook, and its LCD is absolute garbage compared to what you can get these days. From what everyone says, the LCD in my T61P is supposed to be pretty crappy, but it's about a thousand times nicer than the TiBook's LCD.

It's all how you look at it

[iamdrscience]

I for one, think that a few grey lines make a display look distinguished.

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Rude Turnip]

Clearly, they are speed lines to make the Mac even snappier!

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Yvan256]

You, sir, are obviously not a Mac user.

"Snappier" is a term which is reserved for talking about Safari, after an update (no matter if it's faster or not).

ex: Wow, Safari 4.0 is snappier!

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Registered Coward v2]

I for one, think that a few grey lines make a display look distinguished.

True. It least their displays aren't going bald like the PC guy.

Re:It's all how you look at it

[theaveng]

I suspect the 20-something women of the world would disagree. Nobody wants an old machine when they can get some young stud with no grays.

Re:It's all how you look at it

[je ne sais quoi]

No, you can use for the point releases for the OS and the finder too. For example: "Apple just released OS 10.4.x and even though the patch notes say there were only unrelated security and bug fixes, the finder feels snappier!" This is attributable to well-documented ability of the chips in Apple computers to overclock themselves by sensing the level of smug satisfaction and air of superiority of the user. :)

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one, think that a few grey lines make a display look distinguished.

Mac has a new ad coming out that refers to them as "Pin Striped Displays" and they are considering charging more for the option.

Re:It's all how you look at it

[melikamp]

I totally agree. From TFA:

There have been slight variations in the description of the issue, but most accounts agree the lines are grey or white, horizontal or slightly angled, granulated or pixelated in appearance, and are very subtle. Overall the lines are said to give the screen the appearance of a piece of parchment or recycled paper.

Clearly, it is just another stroke of Steve's genius: adding a classy and subtle texture to an otherwise flat and boring screen. The very next major release will include an option for switching between Ancient Parchment, Shiny Chrome, and Hairy Carpet themes.

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Yvan256]

Geeze, who the hell modded my comment "insightful"?!

Re:It's all how you look at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe /discuss

Re:Step 1: Deny everything

[Svippy]

Step 2: Start another ad with an undergrad making fun of his computer science professor.

Step 3: Profit!?

Is it...

[Gundamdriver]

a feature?

Not just for the new ones...

[JoeMerchant]

Only tangentially related:

I've had an intermittent graphics card problem with an '06 MacBookPro for a while now... it leads to occasional system freeze, maybe once a day, sometimes recently a lot more. One warning that a freeze may be imminent is the appearance of thin horizontal light blue lines during what appear to be block-copys of graphics (like scrolling a browser page) - freezes often come during intense operations like a Genie style minimize, but even turning all these off, the freezes still come. There are scattered reports of similar problems, mostly when new, and my experience tracks with these (more frequent when external monitor is connected, etc.)

Bottom line - I didn't pay the 15% AppleCare tax, so I'm SOL in terms of support from Apple, they haven't admitted to anything systemic, though it obviously is at least somewhat reproduceable. What I'd really like them to do is publish a kind of tech bulletin telling how to correct the problem if you have it, but I suppose that might take business away from their Genius bars (nearest one being 2 hours drive from here.)

If they wanted a reputation as a truly awesome company, they would develop and release that kind of info instead of suppressing it to affect the (false, and repugnant) air of perfection.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[David Gerard]

The answer is to buy a new MacBook like a good consumer. Ask Steve! He can display your captured and tormented soul perfectly on the new MacBook Air. If you can't, you just need more Apple products and probably a tattoo.

I'm trying to imagine what a Google laptop would look like. Tasteful understated text ads subliminally woven into the display, probably. Free but doesn't have a hard disk.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[RMH101]

Woah there. Want the good news or the bad news? Bad news: if you've got an Nvidia GPU, your MBP's fvcked. The GPU's almost certainly one of the very, very large number Nvidia managed to screw up. The ball array soldering is faulty, and it isn't fixable.

Good news: Apple have acknowledged this as an issue and are fixing out of warranty. See http://apcmag.com/apple_acknowledges_macbook_pro_graphics_glitch_offers_fix.htm for details.

Mine's in the faulty date of manufacture range so I'm just waiting to get hit with it too. Ric

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[JoeMerchant]

A thousand thanks... (actually, more like 2400 thanks if I was going to replace with a similar product).

Next gut wrenching life decision, during what 6-12 week period do I wish to sacrifice access to my laptop to take advantage of this "free" repair? (just hip-shooting on the repair time, but actual experience with a MacPro repair at the local shop was longer....)

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[JoeMerchant]

Double bummer:

First: the free repair offer only extended for 2 years from original purchase, and I find out about it here today, 30 months after original purchase, when I have been having the problem for the last 12 months (though, actually, only really badly for the last 6 months.)

Second: I have the ATY,RadeonX1600 graphics.

No more stress over when to send the thing in for repair, though. I'm just muddling through using the MBP less and less while a $400 Dell-Vista box picks up the things it can't do, like drive the 24" monitor on my desktop, play Pandora music, and run a web browser without (as much) fear of crashing - oh yeah, that Vista box goes black on me about once a week or so, but half the time it recovers within a few minutes, half the time not... ain't technology grand?

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[gEvil (beta)]

Next gut wrenching life decision, during what 6-12 week period do I wish to sacrifice access to my laptop to take advantage of this "free" repair? (just hip-shooting on the repair time, but actual experience with a MacPro repair at the local shop was longer....)

Well, the good news is that if you actually have the repair done by Apple, you'll probably only be out a laptop for a week or two (maybe less). They overnight a shipping container to you, which then usually is overnighted back to them. Basically, on the shipping end, they're really really quick. I'd avoid your local repair shop if possible and go with a repair directly from Apple. I had an old iBook that I had to send to them a number of times (it was one of those issues that they only acknowledged 1-1/2 years after I finally got my machine fixed for real). Though it took multiple repairs to actually get it fixed, each time it went away I was only without it for a few days.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[spiffyman]

Sorry to hear about your problems. Given your comments below, it looks like your MBP is completely effed. I would look into getting a new mobo (I don't think you can replace the GPU on those boxes) and finding a good guide (look around here). Otherwise, sell it to an enthusiast when it dies.

I had something similar happen with an iBook G4 many moons ago, and it taught me a very important lesson: buy the damn warranty, especially with a laptop. I've done it with every laptop I've bought since then, Apple or not, and it's absolutely worth it.

If it seems like it costs too much, there are two things to do:

1. Consider whether you need the laptop you're buying - would that last $200 be better spent on the warranty?
2. Remember that much of the time you're able to purchase the warranty up to a year after the purchase of the machine. This means you can distribute the cost of the warranty. Often it makes sense to go ahead and make the purchase and then buy the warranty 6 months later.

The one thing that's really not an option is to just bank on your laptop living through your use of it. You'll stress it, abuse it, maybe drop it one day - and you need some kind of support when that happens.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same problems with my '06 MBP. I use smcFanControl to keep my fans at 2K RPM and that has significantly reduced the number of freezes.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[SanityInAnarchy]

I had something similar happen with an iBook G4 many moons ago, and it taught me a very important lesson: buy the damn warranty, especially with a laptop. I've done it with every laptop I've bought since then, Apple or not, and it's absolutely worth it.

I thought so, too -- then found out it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

Apple overnighted me a box, which was cool. I sent my Powerbook back. They took one look at it and said that since there was physical damage (a dent from dropping it a year prior to the display failing here), and because of this, any repairs were out of warranty. Furthermore, since my problem involved the display -- most likely the backlight was burnt out -- they would charge me the cost of repairing the entire laptop -- more than it was worth, at the time.

Contrast this to Dell -- my optical drive stopped working, so they sent someone to my house. First time, they sent him with the wrong drive. Second time, there was a hole right through the box and the drive. Third time, it worked... So, it took forever, but the good news is, they sent someone to my house, and didn't ask many questions about the condition of the laptop itself.

If I ever bought another Mac -- and I probably won't -- I would definitely not pay for the warranty.

The one thing that's really not an option is to just bank on your laptop living through your use of it.

I pretty much assume that when my laptop dies out of warranty, it's an excuse for an upgrade.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[lysergic.acid]

who the hell are you people who are constantly having hardware issues (and just put up with it)?

if my video card or sound card breaks, and there's no way to fix it, i replace it. if my system is acting strange and affecting my productivity, i troubleshoot the problem and resolve the issue, or reformat and do a fresh install when necessary. there's no reason to put up with a system that is constantly crashing or that "goes black once a week." it's not a problem with technology; it's a problem of, either having the incredibly bad luck of consistently buying defective hardware, or simply being too undiscerning when shopping for a computer.

honestly, this idea that computers can never work properly for long periods of time is incredibly misguided. in my experience the only people who resign themselves to a fate of having a computer that never functions properly are generally people who aren't very computer savvy. otherwise, it shouldn't take more than 2-3 weeks to troubleshoot a problem and get it resolved one way or another. and you shouldn't be having computer problems all the time.

heck, even the computers i have to fix at work usually stay fixed for at least 3-4 months. and only very rarely do hardware problems crop up (maybe once every 1~2 years one of the 5 computers in the office will need something replaced). and we don't even get manufacturer warranties. honestly, there's no reason to settle for a less than fully functional system. after all, you paid good money for it. so fix it yourself, or find someone who can.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[JoeMerchant]

Yep, it does feel like a good thing - definite peace of mind, especially on laptops, but unless the warranty is being sold at a loss, it really is a sucker's game in the long run.

I prefer to take my lumps in the rare cases that an extended warranty would matter, rather than fighting to get the repair done on a machine that's getting out of date anyway. It's just kind of ironic that the first machine where this would matter is an (insert halo here) Apple, I've got an old WindowsME notebook that still works as well as it ever did, except for the brick that used to be the battery, and even that was lasting nicely until we added a WiFi card.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your shift key's broken, please get it fixed.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[JoeMerchant]

For me, it's cost-benefit. The MacBookPro is bitch-worthy because it's reaching that nuisance cost exceeding cost of replacement threshold (5 minutes per day vs cost of whatever replaces it).

Fixing the Vista box just isn't worth it at this stage, I lose about 3-5 minutes a week to its flakiness - I could spend several hours with Dell for a 50% chance that they might do something about it with a further 50% chance that whatever they do won't really work. Add to that the risk that my system setup might be hosed during the repair attempts and we're risking maybe 100 hours of re-setup against the possible repair; and, no, I don't trust (Windows based whole system) backup software to function properly, either - there's a time investment in doing that properly and a further chance that it still doesn't work even if you did it properly. There's the other possible solution of plumping out $400 for another box that might work right, but even with that option, there's several hours invested in transferring the system over, and a strong chance of new and worse weirdness than I've presently got.

The worst option of all is investing the time and effort required to learn and keep current in PC technology sufficiently to diagnose and cost-efficiently fix all little nuisances that crop up. Five minutes a week is small beer compared to that treadmill.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[Creepy Crawler]

And you seem not to terribly smart. _I_ would have claimed shipping damages and demand that your shipping insurance cover it and I have a working laptop as per waranty.

Then again.. Try not dropping your laptops. It's not good for them.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[drinkypoo]

who the hell are you people who are constantly having hardware issues (and just put up with it)?

The user said that Apple would not fix the problem. We're talking about laptops here, the user can't just slap in another graphics card. You are (-1, notfuckingpayingattention)

honestly, there's no reason to settle for a less than fully functional system. after all, you paid good money for it. so fix it yourself, or find someone who can.

I found someone who can, they're called the manufacturer. Unfortunately, sometimes they sell you a piece of shit and refuse to fix it, just like Apple did with the Rev. 1 Blue and White G3 IDE controller problem. They deleted the TIL document when they were rolling the TIL into the KB (TIL numbers both before and after are in the KB, but not the document in question - at least, not any more) to hide the fact that they told people experiencing UDMA data corruption on B&W Rev.1 G3 to either purchase FWB toolkit and turn the disk down to PIO mode (compromising performance) or to purchase a PCI IDE controller. That's right, the document said "we screwed up, but we don't care, go spend some money" which helps to explain why Apple excised it. And they haven't put it back, because no one cares but me :P (every time I bring this up, a bunch of fanbois tell me I'm a liar, but none of them have actually upgraded the hard disk in a Rev.1 B&W G3, so they are not interesting.)

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[toddestan]

There's a good chance it's just getting too hot. Apple likes to run their computers way too hot, and reliablity suffers. You could take it apart and try removing the excess thermal grease Apple put into many of the laptops of your vintage. Or get one of those laptop cooling pads with the fans in them to try to keep it cool. Or simply do your best to blow the dust out of it (that could be why it's getting worse over time, as the fans get more and more clogged). Or go into the power settings and see if it lets you clock down the processer and see if that helps.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[Kattspya]

Troubleshoot this then. A computer works fine when running, at one time going 60+ days without a reboot. That same computer will not boot from a power down. It locks up before or slightly after the POST, sometimes it complains about CMOS checksum and sometimes it doesn't. A few times it was possible to start it with 15-20 retries but most often not. The only way to get it to reliably start was to power it off and yank the power cable and leave it that way for a few hours. Restarting after a successful boot always works. The RAM, GPU, DVD-drive and power supply worked flawlessly in another computer. The motherboard was sent to the vendor who ran 3dmark on it for 24 hours without problem.

Re:Not just for the new ones...

[Repugnant_Shit]

Do not buy Apple's warranty. Get it from somewhere else if possible. I have had nothing but problems, even with the extended AppleCare warranty. It isn't like Dell's next-business-day-everything-but-theft-and-fire. If you spill soda on your MBP, you're fucked. If you spill it on a Latitude, you're covered. I love my MBP to death, but by heaven Apple's warranties are the worse (and this is with business computers, not home machines).

I had the same problem on a thinkpad

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same kind of grey lined textured look on a thinkpad and came up with a test image that made the issue more obvious. I was never able to get satisfaction.

Look at the bottom of this page:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Intel_Graphics_Media_Accelerator_950

Macbook air constantly broken by design

[MemoryDragon]

DonÂt get me wrong die macbook air has so many things done right, but I get the feeling that it was released prematurely. I am not sure how it is with the current ones.
But I have one of the first generation, and you cannot run more than 10 minutes on 60% processor load after then the speed drops significantly due to excessive heat.

Which means since I mostly use ot for development I reach this stage after a few hours of work.
I called apple about this, and the support seemed to be rather dumb regarding this issue! Searching on the net revealed that others have the same problem. I assume this is a broken by design issue, since the heathing itself might be a problem in this formfactor.

Well maybe this problem is resolved with the current generation but seeing that they now have another problem with the otherwise excellent display.

Well to sum it up, if they aluminium macbooks would have been out back then I would have opted for a macbook instead of the air, but for now I live witht it and a handful of hacks installed to make the heating/venting issues more bearable!

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[kannibal_klown]

Which means since I mostly use ot for development I reach this stage after a few hours of work.

You see, that's what I don't get. No offense, but was the Air really the best machine for development?

I thought it was a neat little laptop, but I avoided it specifically because of my machine needs: a programmer's rig.

Now if I wanted a small laptop that I carried around with me to do minor things then I might consider it as it looks like it might travel better, but it would be a secondary machine to my coding rig (be it a MB Pro or a Desktop)..

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I dunno - I used a small 13 inch laptop for development work and flew weekly with it and it was great. Powerful enough to work on properly and I could use its discrete GPU for gaming whilst sat bored in the hotel or watch DVDs in the evenings with the built in drive. Errr... but I'm sure Saint Steve would just buy you that hotel so you didn't pay through the nose for a live stream or 5GB movie via iTunes!

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[mario_grgic]

The new aluminum Macbook is a better Macbook Air. Seriously, it is almost as sturdy, it has DVD burner, better CPU, more and easily accessible ports, and stereo speakers (although totally useless on both models).

It's not as light, but it's not much heavier either.

On the other hand, my Macbook has no heat issues, it's actually amazingly cool for normal use.

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[TheRaven64]

Google for 'fan control'. I had a fan control utility for my PowerBook that some apple techs accidentally left on the machine after a repair, which let me manually activate the fans, and there's a nicer one for Intel machines that lets you define the fan speed to temperature relation. When the MacBook Pros were released these values were wrong. The fans would not kick in early enough and the machine would become unstable. Tweaking them a bit made the machine a bit louder and shortened the battery life slightly, but stopped it crashing (the CPU was fine, but the memory chips got too hot). A subsequent update fixed the problem and I don't have the fan control or temperature monitor utilities installed anymore.

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[MemoryDragon]

In my case it was, i am constantly on the road due to being in a consulting business, and dragging around something more heavy is a major pain. Add to that the OSX is pure unix, and the formfactor of the air is close to being rugged, and you get the perfect roadwarrior machine. Not everyone who has to travel a lot is a salesman, I am sort of a wandering developer :-)

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[MemoryDragon]

Actually I still have those things installed problem is that if you push the machine towards heavy load which happens if you do development no fan control can help the machine becomes hot. But fan control programs can at least help to keep the problem at bay.
The entire macbook air design is an excellent idea but broken by design, probably if I had the choice nowadays I would opt for the macbook instead, which is the better air than the air :-)

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[Anonymous Coward]

Fan control is the OS reading the chipset sensors. It's been around for many years. So apple is still playing catch up to linux and windows, and requires 3rd party utilities?

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[TheRaven64]

The OS reads the chipset sensors and sets the fan speed based on the value. This has been standard since the later PowerPC Macs. The fan control utility allows the user to define the relation between temperature and fan speed.

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[Anonymous Coward]

Run a benchmark...

You will see the machine is a lot slower than the Powerbooks when they where just introduced (and all the geeks benchmarked them).

There are now three! wait-states for every memory cycle.

This is what your BIOS update did to make the system stable without generating more noise. Memory access is 33% slower than the machine you bought.

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[geekoid]

Getting an AIR for development is just stu ^H^H^H Ignorant.
I still think it was designed to target up and coming women executives.

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[Anonymous Coward]

My shiny new Dell Mini 9 is the best MacBook Air ever. This thing has 3 USB ports, feels faster, and still has video out and headphone/mic jacks. I've also got the bluetooth and webcam built-in and iChat works great. Hell, my card reader even works. And yes, I'm running 10.5.5 on it. At a $500 price point, I can buy one and still have change for a whole 'nuther MacBook...

Re:Macbook air constantly broken by design

[mario_grgic]

Well let's see
Macboo vs Dell
13'' screen vs 8.9 '' screen
2.0 GHz CPU vs 1.6 GHz
1066 MHz FSB vs 533 MHz FSB
Up to 4 GB RAM (2 standard) vs up to 1 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M vs Intel GMA 950
built in stereo speakers vs one external speaker
11a/b/g/n vs 11a/b/g
160 GB HDD standard (SSD Option) vs up to 16 GB SSD
Built in dual layer DVD burner vs no CD/DVD ROM
built in Gigabit vs 100 Mbit adapter
Full sized keyboard vs small keyboard
Built in mini display port vs 15 pin VGA
aluminum case vs plastic

they both have USB 2.0 ports, audio in/out, bluetooth.

So, yeah, they are not even comparable. Macbook outclasses it quite a bit.

Dithering

[AC-x]

The picture posted of the problem looks like the dithering's gone wrong and it's just showing lines rather then the usual checkerboard pattern

Re:Dithering

[black_lbi]

Dithering you say ... so does this mean that the Macbook Air has a 6-bit panel? I would really have expected more in terms of quality, and a 6-bit panel can't be called that.
What's the use of LED back-lighting, color reproduction will be poor anyway ...

Re:Dithering

[Haeleth]

Dithering you say ... so does this mean that the Macbook Air has a 6-bit panel?

Yes, just like every other laptop on the market (apart from the OLPC).

Better panels draw more power.

After careful study.....

[rockout]

In my statistical study of one sample unit (mine), I've had my eye on the display since April, and I have no complaints with it.

However, I do notice that it takes longer to find wireless networks than my old PowerBook used to. Not sure why this is.

Re:After careful study.....

[rockout]

Well, now that I've RTFA (what's wrong with me?!?) and even TFS more closely, I see it's only an issue on the newer MacBook Air. A rare instance of the early adopters actually being slightly better off.

Re:After careful study.....

[Anonymous Coward]

In my statistical study of one sample unit (mine), I've had my eye on the display since April, and I have no complaints with it.

Since this affects the _recently updated_ MacBook Airs, the fact that your April unit is unaffected is sort of expected.

Re:After careful study.....

[localman]

I've had the same MacBook Pro for two years. When I upgraded to 10.5 I started having lots of wireless connection issues... slow and lots of connection timeout errors. Now at 10.5, it's mostly fixed, but still spottier than under 10.4, which was basically flawless as far as wireless was concerned.

Just adding to your sample data ;)

Re:After careful study.....

[localman]

er, "at 10.5.5 it's mostly fixed". There we go.

joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

is it me or is this website a joke website, like the onion?

from the looks of the image, it looks like one of the STANDARD MAC OSX desktop images.

when i read the topic, i was thinking horizontal banding that occurs on some older LCD's when you move them and the chassis flexes a little bit.

Quit Complaining!

[decalod85]

My Mac SE from 1988 had all grey lines! You kids and your 'color' monitors...

Re:Quit Complaining!

[samwichse]

If I remember correctly, you wouldn't have seen any grey lines at all on an SE... its display was 1-bit!

Sam

Yes, such behaviour would bother me...

[Tastecicles]

...considering I now use LCD wherever a visual display unit is required, I'm very fussy about the flaws I allow. I sent some Samsung panels back and had them replaced because two of them had ghost patches. One had a bug (a real bug!) sandwiched in between the LCD layer and the backplane. Yet another had a partially detached backplane (which resulted in uneven lighting). No good to me at all. I can deal with one or two hot or dead pixels, unless it's on a panel I use to do serious work on (read: graphics-intensive stuff) where the panel has to be pixel perfect and the backlight has to be even and of the right colour temperature. As for Apple's not very new problems: yes, their panel quality has suffered a huge amount over the years. I have a G3 Lombard with a perfect panel (no hot/dead pixels and the light is even), and a G4 iBook with a panel which has dark corners and four hot pixels right in the middle of the panel. Not hugely offputting unless I try and watch a DVD... and now the Airs have panel problems? Hardly surprising... tho don't try and pick one up by the top edge of the screen, I heard of a guy who couldn't wait to get home from the Apple dealer over here and took his MBA out of the box as he left the shop... snapped the notebook in half. ...sort of put me off from buying one...

Re:Yes, such behaviour would bother me...

[ryansherwood]

I think this is the least of apple's problems. You seen these Phystar systems?? I'm tempted to trade my old MacBook in for some magic beans and buy one of those!

Re:Step 1: Deny everything

[Farmer Pete]

Wow, you totally got this one wrong. You missed the very vital step (see below)

Step 1: Make expensive laptops with a shitty display.
Step 2: Start another ad with an undergrad making fun of his computer science professor.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!

This effect has been explained in C't recently

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is in German and not freely available online, so I'll summarize it: The problem is in the display electronics. To prevent the liquid crystals from polarizing themselves (sort of a burn in effect), the polarity of the voltage is reversed after each frame. If the center voltage is not exactly between the low and high voltage, then the pixel is brighter or darker, depending on the current polarity of the control voltage. The display drives the lines with alternating polarity, so this deviation causes an alternating pattern of slightly darker and slightly lighter lines.

Re:This effect has been explained in C't recently

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears to be a calibration issue. Here is press release about a chip which obviates manual calibration: http://www.electronicspecifier.com/Industry-News/VCom-calibrator-reduces-manufacturing-costs-in-TFTLCDs.asp

Re:This effect has been explained in C't recently

[je ne sais quoi]

That sounds like a likely possibility. Seems like if it's a calibration issue, you wouldn't have to replace the display, but you would have to recalibrate it. In the FTA, they suggest that:

Theories about the lines are scant, but the main ones attribute them to the new anti-glare coating or the new Nvidia graphic chips. Many users seem suspicious, though hopeful, that a firmware update will resolve the problem.

The anti-glare coating idea is bollocks I think, because if it's a coating it would wear out in circular patterns like spots, not horizontal lines. If it's NVidia's fault it'll be a bad year for them with their crummy vista drivers having come out as well.

Re:This effect has been explained in C't recently

[YesIAmAScript]

You're talking about frame inversion. Many LCDs use line inversion (row inversion) actually. The voltages are altered (not always reversed) every line.

http://www.techmind.org/lcd/

One thing you also should have mentioned is that the amount of twist (the brightness of the pixel, roughly) is determined only by the difference in voltages between the vertical and horizontal gridlines and not the polarity. As such, swapping the voltages between the two doesn't change the brightness if it is done correctly, negating both voltages doesn't either, since neither of these operations changes the difference in voltages between the two gridlines.

Re:This effect has been explained in C't recently

[Anonymous Coward]

One kind of coating layer used in LCDs looks a little like that, but the pattern is much fainter, finer (2 or 3 lines per pixel) and it's found only in touchscreens, because of it's durability. There is no reason Apple would use it there, and the grid is aligned with pixel lines, so I guess it's LCD driver miscalibration issue others mentioned, but technically it's possible.

Re:This effect has been explained in C't recently

[Tweenk]

I'm experiencing a similar issue on a TC1100 when I leave the display on the GDM login prompt, the edges of the screen become gray and look "burnt out". This slowly disappears upon logging in. Not sure what's causing this.

another 'blog' advertising via slashdot...

[Animaether]

submitted by somebody at a blog, a vague summary about a 'story' at... that same blog!
Maybe it's not a blog - sure reads like one.

"Numerous users have been complaining about grey lines that muddy the crispness of the displays of the recently updated MacBook Air."
That line in the summary -is- the 'story'.

"Doug McLean explains the problem in [the advertised blog]"
No he doesn't. He just recaps what the supposed problem would be in some detail with an example image. Kudos for the image, but there's no explanation of the problem - what causes it, why it's only apparently in late 2008 models, etc. etc. you know.. explanation - whatsoever. There's wild guessing as to what's causing it...
"Theories about the lines are scant, but the main ones attribute them to the new anti-glare coating or the new Nvidia graphic chips. Many users seem suspicious, though hopeful, that a firmware update will resolve the problem."
But that alone should make you quirk an eyebrow... I do hope those 'many users' are on the side of 'the new Nvidia graphic chips [are the cause]", as I've got no hope whatsoever for those who think that a firmware update would fix an anti-glare coating.

"along with what Apple appears to be doing about it."
Well I guess including that information in the summary would mean even less people would click on the 'story', but the answer is "we don't know". As usual, with Apple, I know, but from the 'story'...
1. "Apple has issued no official statement on the matter"
2. "we hope Apple [...] takes [...] steps to resolve it"
i.e. "we don't know what Apple appears to be doing about it"

What Grey Lines?

[camperdave]

Okay, I've looked at the picture, and I can't see any grey lines. Well, technically I can see lots of grey lines, they make up the background of the menu bar at the top of the screen. And I also see a bunch of grey lines making up the "swoosh" which looks to me like part of the desktop wallpaper. Anyone got a better picture?

Re:What Grey Lines?

[rockout]

If you click on the pic, a larger version comes up and you can see the lines on that one.

Re:What Grey Lines?

[Anonymous Coward]

The desktop wallpaper on mac is made up of blue, the lines they speak of are the grey lines in the picture. The background is supposed to look something like this: http://www.slideshare.net/templateswise/mac-blue/

As someone said earlier, "it looks like the dithering is messed up," but my guess is that it is a video problem as this is what my former HP laptop does just before the screen dies.

Re:What Grey Lines?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to squint pretty hard to see them. I don't know that I'd notice if I had one.

Re:What Grey Lines?

[camperdave]

Let me reiterate:

I've looked at the picture, and I can't see any grey lines apart from the menu bar and the "swoosh" on the wallpaper. So, does anyone have a better picture? Posting a screenshot is not going to show dead pixels or burn-in, or any artifacts or side effects caused by technical glitches in the video display hardware.

Re:What Grey Lines?

[Khyber]

the grey lines are horizontal.

I'm willing to bet this is a cable issue, most likely the ribbon cable connected to the display itself is slightly off in the socket, easily caused by flexing the screen by opening the laptop improperly.

Not fair

[elrous0]

You PC-using commoners just don't understand good design ascetics. We hipsters who are better than you understand that the gray lines are a design choice, not a flaw.

Re:Not fair

[maxume]

Given Apple's rather sparse industrial design tendencies, that's an awesome typo.

Re:Not fair

[value_added]

You PC-using commoners just don't understand good design ascetics.

Some days, there just aren't enough words ...

Re:Not fair

[extrasolar]

Design asceticism? Must I also fast?

Double Standard.

[jellomizer]

I am wondering if we are giving Apple a double standard here. I think right now the MacBook Air is the only Ultra lightweight and Thin laptop that performs as well as a Mid to upper mid level PC. These lines while an issue, the question is do other laptops that use these displays have the same problem.

Re:Double Standard.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd dispute the whole "only Ultra lightweight and Thin laptop that performs as well as a Mid to Upper Mid level PC" thing. Compare it to machines like the Vaio Z/TT/TX; Voodoo Envy; Thinkpad X300; Samsung but I forget which model. Is the Air comparable to those feature rich toys?

But regardless of if it does or not, and this counts for those other machines I've listed too, I think for £1.5k I'd want my frikkin' machine to not come with these blemishes at all!

Re:Double Standard.

[Farmer Pete]

Um, the Lenovo X300/301 is an example of an ultra thin laptop done well. The MacBook Air is an example of someone wanting to make the thinnest laptop possible, damn the repercussions.

Re:Double Standard.

[MemoryDragon]

I am wondering if we are giving Apple a double standard here. I think right now the MacBook Air is the only Ultra lightweight and Thin laptop that performs as well as a Mid to upper mid level PC.

Better replace that with it performs as well as an upper to mid level pc until the thing becomes warm then the processor is powered down to reduce heat...
Which appens always if you give it more load!

More you need to do

[gsgriffin]

All FanBoys also know that you must love on your machine. Unlike PC varieties that don't need to burn in a laptop display like a transmission on a new car (from 20 years ago), you need to love your machine.

-Stroke the keys lightly as if to say, I love and want everyone to see me holding your hand as I walk down the street.
-Offer the CD/DVD to the machine with both hands. Don't force it in, be very gentle the first time. It needs to loosen up a little before you start inserting them more aggressively.
-Speak lovinging. With your enthusiasm of buying an overpriced, sexy trophy computer, you might be tempted to do a cool dance and yell and scream. This can produce flying spit that may land on the keyboard and render it soft and cushy feel.
-Carry with a keyboard pad. Never close the lid without putting a soft pad over the keyboard. The display and keys with chafe. Don't use powder to reduce chafing.

Re:More you need to do

[theaveng]

>>>Don't force it in, be very gentle the first time. It needs to loosen up a little before you start inserting aggressively

Thanks you.

This is the sort of thing they don't teach in sex ed.

Re:More you need to do

[gsgriffin]

There more in my statement, if you read carefully. Sex and Macs go hand in hand...or hand in...

There's always HP DreamColor

[aqui]

HP came out with a new LCD display and (also in notebook form) that displays billions of colors.

This beats even apples cinelerra displays:
http://www.macobserver.com/review/2008/06/17.1.shtml

HP press release (on the notebook):
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080811xa.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Many people don't know about it yet but it appears to be making waves..

Possibly apple is getting to comfortable with it's new marketshare.

Personally I will be looking at the displays as an alternative, when I buy yet a bigger monitor...

(disclosure: I work for EDS an HP company, as a consultant)

Re:There's always HP DreamColor

[AvitarX]

Aren't Apples displays solidly mediocre?

Maybe on the better side, but not as good as Eizo for example?

Re:There's always HP DreamColor

[sexconker]

If you accept 6 bit color as mediocre, sure.

With Apple, get the second latest thing

[amazeofdeath]

New product lines from Apple almost always seem to have teething problems, this has been especially true with the laptops. I always recommend waiting till the first revision of the products appear and let others take care of the "beta" testing, of course my recommendations aren't usually followed by those who just need to get whatever new bling Apple has put out...

Re:With Apple, get the second latest thing

[rockout]

It would appear that this theory, in this case, is nothing more than the urban geek legend that many accuse it of being. It's mentioned in TFS that this problem is occurring on the recent revision of the MacBook Air - the first revision. I bought one in April, and am very happy with my choice of laptop, and it's given me no problems.

As for your derisive "new bling" comment, I was in need of a new laptop (my old one was an ancient PowerBook G4), and I travel a lot, and I don't need an optical drive on my laptop - so the Air was almost as if I'd custom-ordered exactly what I wanted, and Apple delivered it.

And again, it's worked as well as any Mac product I've ever owned.

Premium laptop?

[Hurricane78]

[...] and result in a disappointing display, particularly for a premium laptop.

Since when is the MacBook Air a premium laptop? It sure has a premium price. And it looks stylish. But that's it.
You know what else is like that? An expensive whore "girlfriend". ;) (Apple fans, stay with me! :)

I think Apple has done some cool things. But this (or the iPhone) is not one of them.
The 18 bit display was the first hint.

It's more a EEE PC concurrent. Which means that it's useless for real full use, because of its slowness and lack of features (one example being Firewire).
This is fully ok, if the laptop is really cheap. Unfortunately, that's where the MacBook Air fails. It's not cheap. It's really expensive (compared to the real market. Not to other overprices Apple products.)

I really wonder, how cool Apple's products would be, if they had concurrency in their own domain. If for example MacOS XI would have a HAL that would allow other companys to do the same with their systems. They would have to look good and have more features to have a chance, so Apple would have to add even more, thereby lowering the price to a realistic market level.

Re:Premium laptop?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

You're really comparing the MacBook air to an EEE PC? The MacBook air has a large display and a full-size keyboard, if nothing else.

Re:Premium laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also comparing the MacBook Air to an expensive whore. Come on, the guy is obviously trolling.

Re:Premium laptop?

[mr_matticus]

The 18 bit display was the first hint.

Hint of what? That it's a notebook? Yes.

No LCD panel manufacturer currently ships 24-bit notebook panels.

Re:Premium laptop?

[hotdiggitydawg]

The 18 bit display was the first hint.

You're giving the display 16 bits too much credit.

Re:Premium laptop?

[Hurricane78]

Am I? I specifically added the

;) (Apple fans, stay with me! :)

to show that it was (at least partially) meant as a joke. :)
And a pretty good one actually. :P

I like good products. It does not matter where they come from, as long as the morality of the company is at least halfway ok.
But some products... well... read this for a whole lot of fun. :D

Re:Premium laptop?

[Hurricane78]

Bullshit. Even MacBook Pros ship with a 24-bit panel. There even was a story here on Slashdot about this.

Re:Premium laptop?

[Hurricane78]

Maybe you should open it first. It's not monochrome. ;)

Re:Premium laptop?

[hotdiggitydawg]

Whoosh!

Re:Premium laptop?

[Haeleth]

[citation needed]

A brief google shows nobody supporting your claim, and lots of people claiming that MacBook Pros ship with 6-bit panels (or 18-bit if you prefer).

Re:Premium laptop?

[mr_matticus]

No. Like all notebooks, the panels in MacBook Pros are 6-bit. The story on Slashdot here was about some idiots discovering this fact and raising hell, claiming that the millions of colors come from dithering. Unfortunately, they never bothered to look at the competition.

There is no such assertion in any Slashdot story I can find. Feel free to post a link to the story you misunderstand, though.

The reality distortion field is broken

[Anonymous Coward]

First their was the moobooks, the bad batteries, random shutdowns, warping plastic, the DRM, the lack of replaceable batteries, the restrictiive app store, steve jobs health scares etc.

Despite their "switch" and "I'm a mac" adverts, apple still have less than 5% market share, even with switching to intel and having windows compatiblity

Face it, the 2009 mac world will be a disaster. All it will be is a crappy beta of "snow" leopard, intel atom based mac minis, I7 mac pros and imacs, all with built in DRM.

Fuck Apple, and fuck mac zealots along with linux zealots and all "open sores" zealots too.

What Apple appears to be doing about it

[Alzheimers]

What Apple appears to be doing about it

Re:Step 1: Deny everything

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong as well. Step 3 shouldn't even be mentioned:
Step 1: Make expensive laptops with a shitty display.
Step 2: Start another ad with an undergrad making fun of his computer science professor.
Step 4: Profit!

Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The picture in the article is of Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) OS.

Not one Macbook Air has ever shipped with Tiger, as it was introduced after the introduction of leopard.

Re:Lies

[v1]

A co-worker just pointed that out to me. I've looked around and I can't find a way to change the Leopard Apple to blue as it appears in Tiger... fraud?

I DID look at our Air here, and it does appear to have something going on though. It's a very fine very short horizontal streaking, very much having the random subtle look of parchment paper. The lines are NOT continuous left to right, if you hold it on edge and look from left to right you don't see anything. (and with the image the article provided, that would make it painfully obvious) The streaks are like ripples in the surface of the glossy coat on the screen. I think that's how the clearcoat is made.

It's very hard to see but is noticeable, for me easier to see with a solid color (lighter color or white) solid desktop picture.

I wonder if they were unable to get a good picture of the effect, and just rummaged around for a picture that sort of showed the same kind of thing? I'd still call that a fraud - if you can't get a good picture of something, you don't just go find something else about the same and call it that.

If that's what this is, just the way the glossy coat affects the image, then there's no firmware update going to fix that. It's part of the manufacturing process. And considering how incredibly subtle the effect is, I rather doubt Apple is going to "repair" it.

Re:Step 1: Deny everything

[evilbessie]

Step 3 (which really should be step 1) is 'Be Apple', there really are no unknowns in this equasion.

Say what?

[argent]

I think right now the MacBook Air is the only Ultra lightweight and Thin laptop that performs as well as a Mid to upper mid level PC.

The MacBook Air is specced similarly to the Macbook at the time of its introduction, or the contemporary Mac mini, with a mediocre processor and a significantly below-par GPU. It's nowhere near a "mid to upper mid level PC", it's smack dab in the center of "entry level".

Macbook Pros still broken

[argent]

When the MacBook Pros were released these values were wrong. The fans would not kick in early enough and the machine would become unstable. Tweaking them a bit made the machine a bit louder and shortened the battery life slightly, but stopped it crashing (the CPU was fine, but the memory chips got too hot). A subsequent update fixed the problem and I don't have the fan control or temperature monitor utilities installed anymore.

You must have a more recent Macbook Pro than me. I have to remove the battery to keep it from overheating with more than about 50% total CPU use (100% of one core or 50% of both cores) even with fan control utilities.

See this temperature graph.

Re:Macbook Pros still broken

[TheRaven64]

I'm using one of the first generation Core 2 MBPs. If you have a Core 1 then, yes, I am.

Re:Macbook Pros still broken

[argent]

Yes, I'm using the second generation of Core Duo Macbook Pros. They have significant heat problems and improving the fan thresholds doesn't help. I can easily believe that the Macbook Air has similar problems.

Apple only uses 6-bit

[Anonymous Coward]

They were sued about this, so rather than change to 8-bit panels, they simply tell you that it can display "thousands" of colors now rather than "millions" as they did before.

Re:Apple only uses 6-bit

[Haeleth]

This is not entirely true. For example, Apple's cinema displays are 8-bit panels.

It's also not just an Apple thing; if you buy a computer from absolutely anyone, and don't go out of your way to make sure you're getting an expensive monitor, you'll end up with a 6-bit panel. Most people don't care. Gamers even prefer 6-bit panels, because they have better black levels and faster response times.

That's not a macbook air

[Anonymous Coward]

The picture in the article did not come from a machine affected by the problem the article describes.

First off, those aren't horizontal lines in the display.

Second, that picture is from a machine running OSX 10.4 (Tiger). You can tell because the apple in the upper left is blue. In Leopard (10.5), it's black.

The Macbook Air is ONLY available with Leopard. The older version of the OS doesn't have the drivers for the Air's hardware and will not install.

Therefor, the pic may be showing some sort of video distortion, but not what's being described in the article.

Re:That's not a macbook air

[dentree4]

yeah, as the other ac post saying the exact same thing says (that was me, I just made this account...) I think that this is a tiger computer being run through Apple Remote Desktop. The simple fact of running over a VNC server can and will cause a display to look like that.

...from apple bugzilla site

[mriya3]

bug #5464349

Description:
I get strange grey lines on the screen on my macbook air

idared.braeburn@support.apple.com ---2008-12-05 15:02:20 --- Comment #1
Changed status: NEW -> CONFIRMED

renette.cox@support.apple.com ---2008-12-05 13:05:25 --- Comment #2
The desktop cannot be displayed without grey lines because Steve thinks grey lines are cool. Could you please try not to think too different?

suntan.gravenstein@support.apple.com ---2008-12-05 15:02:20 --- Comment #3
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug #1 "Users may think differently from Steve" ***

renette.cox@support.apple.com ---2008-12-05 16:32:25 --- Comment #4
Hey suntan, for bug #1 we already have a patch "555-censor-messages-from-forums.patch"

granny.smith@support.apple.com ---2008-12-05 18:02:20 --- Comment #5
Changed status: NEW -> WONTFIX

Re:INFORMATIVE???

[Mods]

Why, hello Clue!

Return envelope...

[thewils]

I guess the Macbook Air is easy to return in that Manila Envelope, right?

Re:Return envelope...

[dentree4]

They should use manilla envelopes for shipping! Of course, nobody reads the fragile logo, and Homeland would shit a brick

Privacy feature?

[wsanders]

Isn't that touted as a privacy feature? You want wide angle viewing in your HDTV, but at the airport you don't want the guy sitting next to you to see everything on your screen.

New Macbook Air lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has responded to this issue by announcing new lines of Macbook Air with pink, aqua, and green lines in addition to the classic grey.

I'm not sure if you're being facetious, but...

[StreetStealth]

I've had exactly the same experience as the GP, going from an old PowerBook with a stunning (if a bit dim) screen to a MacBook Pro with a bright but hard-to-align screen.

From off angle, you can still make out text just fine, but you literally have about one to two degrees in which to hold your head where the panel shows the backlight evenly. Just slightly off to the top or bottom and that white page turns into a big, blue gradient.

No security advantage, all annoyance.

Good ol' displays

[AlpineR]

I made the same transition from Powerbook to MacBook Pro. I quickly sold the Powerbook so I haven't had the reversion comparison, but I can believe it. I find there's barely enough viewing angle to get both eyes to see the same colors. Trying to show stuff to somebody over my shoulder is a disappointment.

Even worse is the glare-enhancing screens on the new MacBooks. My sister just got one as a new Mac convert and she was stunned at how much more pleasant my old matte screen is.

less hardware with my software?

[jDeepbeep]

For as long as Apple insists on the hardware + software model, they can expect to be taken to task for each and every hardware quality issue that pops up.

But how many issues will it take until they consider a different approach?

And what's up with Apple saying a firmware update will provide the fix? Is this a firmware issue?

Please advise.

Not a bug

[StikyPad]

That's not a bug, it's the new pinstripe feature.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

My working theory on this is that, yet again, Apple stuck some like an 18-bit display on there and relied on dithering to pretend it's 24-bit (for Mac users 16-bit is "thousands of colors", 24-bit "millions")... they've done that on a lot of models. But it appears the display is not using an intelligent dithering algorithm (which avoids banding and the like.)

          One good reason not to buy a Mac -- if I'm paying some premium price, I don't want a cut-rate display.

Time for an eye check?

[rubah]

I don't know what I'm looking for and nothing is particularly obvious. Is it the line behind the menu bar?

Sometimes when I look at my MBP screen really hard I start to imagine I can see every little crystal suddenly freeze up and nucleate :O

I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

...welcome our new "Grey Lines" overlords.

Some Lenovo laptops have same line issue

[penguinchris]

Others have noted that everyone is using poor quality displays, not just Apple, but I haven't seen anyone that mentioned that other laptops DO have the issue on display here.

I bought a Lenovo T61 in March and it had this same line problem. I went online and found others with the same issue (among other problems with the screen - it is just poor quality in general.)

I managed to get the screen replaced with one from a different manufacturer. A representative from Lenovo was participating in the discussion on notebookforums.com, where people were reporting issues with Lenovo laptop screens, and I sent my system in so that he could look at it himself. He acknowledged that it was bad and managed to get the repair guys to put in a different screen, but I don't think they're really doing anything to address the problem, like trying to get screen manufacturers to come up with better screens. Most people just don't care, unfortunately, especially with Thinkpads, which are aimed towards business not graphics.

So the result is that I have a different screen, from a different manufacturer (I believe it's currently an LG, while the original was from Samsung.) It has slight better viewing angles, but most importantly, the gray lines are gone.

Why are the lines such an issue? They really screw up photos and graphics. For the Macbook Pro, used by many photo and graphics "pros", that's a real serious issue. It's hard to capture how bad it really is, but here are some photos I took illustrating the issue:

http://mail.rochester.edu/~chacker/t61lcd.jpg
http://mail.rochester.edu/~chacker/t61lcd2.jpg

(I should note that the two screens shown are different sizes, but have the same resolution of 1680x1050, which is why the pixel size is different.)

For normal use, browsing Slashdot and writing TPS reports, or whatever, it is noticeable but you get used to it and it's not a problem. If you're doing photo editing, or even just looking at photos online, it is a HUGE annoyance. I was going to return the computer if I couldn't get it fixed because it was such a problem. Bad viewing angles and low brightness I can deal with, but these lines I really couldn't. The screens used in Thinkpads are supposedly 8-bit, so I don't think this is a dithering issue as speculated in other comments (I could be wrong and I'm not sure how that works specifically, that's just my feeling.)

In 18 months, they admit issues?

[Eganicus]

So, avoid refurb, or any nVidia GPU? Hello integrated graphics!