iPad Air 2 screen quality

[Otispunkmeyer]

My iPad 4 finally gave up the ghost and presented the other morning with a completely garbled screen.

I was going to trade the thing in, but I was just too slow. I'll flog it for spares or repairs on ebay. I have bought an Air 2 to replace it.

Before I get onto the main point, it really isn't as good as the 4 was. Yes its lighter, but the speaker make the whole thing vibrate and it feels flimsy. The screen doesn't seem to be as good a quality either and you can make ripples in the LCD by lightly pressing on the back!

My main gripe is the duff uniformity of the screen, in my view. I already returned one unit with noticably darker left hand side than the right hand side, but the replacement doesn't seem much better. The darker section just appears to have moved half an inch inward.

Here's a picture:
iPadAir2_2 by Alex Mason, on Flickr

You probably can't see anything at all there but IRL you can notice the difference side to side. To help, here are plots of white level:
iPadAir2_2_SurfacePlot by Alex Mason, on Flickr

Notice there is about 20 levels difference (max level is of course 255 so 20 is nearly 10% difference).

level down the LH side,
iPadAir2_2_LHSide by Alex Mason, on Flickr

down the RH side,
iPadAir2_2_RHSide by Alex Mason, on Flickr

I am going to use it for a bit, see if I stop noticing it. Of course its not an issue unless on a featureless webpage (i.e. pistonheads forums), but our 4 was literally perfect. Reports from the web suggest Air 1 and Air 2 models have this issue and I just can't understand why Apple is constantly plagued by such things. I remember they had all kinds of issues with yellow tints or pink tints on laptop screens. It just seems like a perennial problem.

Am I just being too fking picky?

[ZesPak]

Had something similar on a £200 cell phone. Got a replacement and it was fine. You're not being picky, at that price point the screen should be neigh on perfect.

[leglessAlex]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Am I just being too fking picky?

No. It's a very expensive device (to most people at least, maybe not to a lot of folks on PH) and the screen should be very high quality. I can't say I've ever really noticed it on my Air 2, but I've also never really looked for it. I have noticed how crap the speaker is though, the one on the previous Air was far better.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

The screen on my Air 2 is perfect, and doesn't suffer any rippling if you press the back. So yes, something's wrong with yours.

[Petrol Only]

Something wrong with yours. Shouldn't do that. Get it replaced

[Otispunkmeyer]

Taking it back on Thursday. Just gonna tell them it was surplus to requirements or something. Not interested in having another off them just the refund. Will give the proper apple store a go, but as its a decent trip to Leicester to do that, if that one is duff I'll just knock it on the head and think of something else. Perhaps source another iPad 4 from eBay with a bit more memory.

I did the same plot with the first one I got ( I had a shot of the white screen but I never analysed it). It was pretty bad. Much worse than this one.

This one just looks patchy now round the fringes and the right hand side is brighter and more uniformly lit than the rest of the screen.

I know I shouldn't go to that length, no screen is going to be perfect and I am sure there are flaws in my recording method. But a number of photos on different days/times show the same thing. Plus it does better visualize things.

[J4CKO]

They can get "Porn Burn" apparently, all the pink tones stress the video encoder and overload the screen metatarsals resulting in gravitational flange deviation.