Apple Hit with Lawsuit Over Retina Display Ghosting

Lawsuit claims Apple is tricking customers into buying laptops with defective displaysApple is facing a class action lawsuit in California from Beau Hodges over complaints that Retina MacBook Pro displays from LG suffer from image ghosting issues. He states in the lawsuit that Apple hasn't made an effort to let consumers know that the LG-supplied displays are inferior to displays the company buys from Samsung, leaving buyers to find out which part they have only after buying a new laptop.

The lawsuit states,

The performance disparity between the LG version and the Samsung version is particularly troubling given that Apple represents the MacBook Pro with retina display as a single, unitary product, described as the highest quality notebook display on the market.

Apple buys its laptop Retina displays from both LG and Samsung and, at least in theory, there shouldn't be a difference in the parts. Some users have, however, complained that the see image ghosting in their screens and in those cases the displays have come from LG.

Mr. Hodges' lawsuit claimed Apple is aware of the issue, but isn't taking any steps to let potential buyers know there is a difference in display quality depending on which company supplies the part.

Users have been complaining about the image ghosting issue on Apple's forums for months with many saying that Apple swapped out their defective laptops without any hassle, indicating that the company is working with customers to resolve the display issue. The company has also released several updates to improve video performance on the Retina MacBook Pro, including an SMC firmware update that rolled out just yesterday.

Those efforts aren't enough, according to Mr. Hodges, so he filed his lawsuit against the company in hopes of getting some sort of remedy. Apple has not commented on the lawsuit.

[Thanks to Law360 for the heads up]