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Comment by shawnz | Hacker News Reader

Cry me a river. That's the price of early adoption. "Retina" displays at sizes larger than 4" have only been available for less than 6 months.

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I think it is valid to point out the flaws of a product which is regarded as market-leading. For example: why aren't other companies offering similar products? Could in part be because of problems such as this.

If we can't be a little honest about a company that is (I believe) bigger than Wal-mart then I don't know what company WOULD be strong enough to withstand mild criticism.

The flaws are real, but they are blown way out of proportion with comments like "Apple doesn't have this technology under control. They screwed up."

I’m sorry, but selling a product with a defect like that is just unacceptable. There are no ifs and buts about that. That’s just how it is.

It would be great if they could fix this issue. I would be overjoyed. However, they seem to be unable to, now even going so far as talking the defect down.

>>I’m sorry, but selling a product with a defect like that is just unacceptable. There are no ifs and buts about that. That’s just how it is.

Unacceptable to who? The products in question are selling by the millions. Clearly, the market finds them very acceptable. In the grand scheme of things, what you think is largely irrelevant.

Unacceptable as in illegal. Selling defect products means the contract of sale is void. At least where I live.

I mean, how deluded can you be to talk down this problem? It’s a defect product, pure and simple.

CRT burn-in never got classified as a "contract of sale voiding defect".

Is the retina display "defect" a significantly different thing? (I can't tell from any of the commentary I've heard whether its a "permanent, irreversible screen change", or a temporary "ghosting" of previous display only persistent over a few second/minute/hours timescale.)

I'm wondering the same thing. From what I see described it's the same kind of thing that some very early LCD screens had 10-15 years ago, and might even be tolerable if you use something like LCDScrub[1] to fight it regularly. Xscreensaver has a work-alike in it's set also that i've used before on some very old screens that had problems.

[1] http://toastycode.com/lcdscrub/

What the hell? How could that be even remotely acceptable? It plainly is not.

I mean, Apple seems to agree, at least for now. Every single Apple employee I talked to immediately recognised it as an obvious and unacceptable defect. (The one employee I showed it to first exclaimed “Holy shit!”, I didn’t even have to say anything beyond “Could you please hide the Safari window?”) And that’s what it is.

Nobody is saying you have to live with it. Of course Apple will exchange it with a new one for free. What you seemed to be saying in your original comment is that there should not be defects, period. Which is pretty much a pipe dream when it comes to any product ever made.

arrrg obviously has an ax to grind about Apple in general or just has some irrational, intense hatred for retina screens. From the replies I've seen, reasonable discussion is out of the question. "Illegal"? Please.

> arrrg obviously has an ax to grind about Apple in general or just has some irrational, intense hatred for retina screens.

That must be why he bought one.

Ignoring the defect screen, I love everything about the machine. I think it’s pretty plainly the best laptop on the planet right now (at least for me personally). I would much rather Apple fix this than having to give back my MBPr. But I can't accept a defect screen. It's quite simple.

What? Phones with 720p displays have been available since last year. I'd say that qualifies as "Retina".

>> "Retina" displays at sizes larger than 4"

I’m not crying. I accept that something like this is a possibility. Fixing it, however, is not my responsibility and I will just declare the sales contract null and void if Apple continues to be unable to fix this issue. It’s quite simple and I have the right.

And it’s a damn shame, actually. In every other respect the MBPr is an awesome machine. (Also, I never had any problems with first gen Apple products. All through the last ten years Apple has been excellent in releasing pretty great first gen models.)

> I will just declare the sales contract null and void if Apple continues to be unable to fix this issue. It’s quite simple and I have the right.

I'm not suggesting that what you say is not true, but I am interested in learning more about what rights you think you have in respect of this issue.

I'm from the UK, and our "Sale of Goods Act" states that goods must be:

  - "as described",
  - "of satisfactory quality", and
  = "fit for purpose" (including any specific purpose that you agreed with the seller)

Of these three tests, the first second one would be sufficient reason to return a device with a faulty display.

Summary of UK law, for those who are interested:

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/underst...

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