The Brightness Gradient Issue DOES EXIST With The 24" iMacs.

Question

Four years ago I bought a hefty G4 eMac and a few months later the G5 iMac was introduced.
I was impressed and vowed I would get one the following year, but as each new version was introduced I put it off, waiting for an even better model.
I spend most of my time on the FCE forum but regularly visited this one to read about the various problems people were experiencing.
The G5s were prone to overheating, dead or stuck pixels have always been around, and latterly with the aluminium iMacs we have had the gradient issues.
All my life I have gone for the cheapest item that would do the job, but with the introduction of this latest version I decided to get the "best".
I bought it last Wednesday and was duly impressed.
To my relief it appeared to run cool and the screen did not seem to have any of the problems I had read about ........... though I did not examine it minutely.
Suddenly, yesterday (Sunday) I noticed that the "wallpaper" photo on the screen looked distinctly brighter on the left.
I put a uniform grey card on and there was no doubt ! I altered backgrounds and even moved my head to view from numerous (unnatural!) angles but the left side was undoubtedly brighter.
Writing this letter, the difference is very obvious.
What is more I don't need to test the whole monitor. Viewing a photo that is less than half the screen's width shows a brighter left side.
This leaves me with 2 questions which now I can never definitely resolve :-
1. Has the screen been like this for the past 4 days and has my vision suddenly become more discriminating ?
OR
2. Has the screen suddenly deteriorated (and will it continue to deteriorate) ?
I have a nasty feeling it could be number 2 as I had looked at identical pictures in two windows of FCP (side by side), a couple of days ago, and noted that they were of equal brightness! Not so now.
I mainly use FCE/FCP and Photoshop, but being an amateur, I am not too fussy about the exact shade of a colour. So long as what I am watching is bright and sharp, I am usually content.
However, I must say that my current emotion is one of disappointment.
Ian.

Answer 1

That's very comforting George.
As you can guess, I was expecting it but thought I had escaped !