I bought two separate Droid Bionic phones new via a vendor on, and fulfilled by, Amazon and it had some display problems. I noticed it in the stock rom, recovery and cyanogenmod. The second had the same problems in the stock room. Both have been returned. Verizon checked that the first phone was clean. I did not bother checking the second. (I had both phones at the same time, so they couldn't have sent me the same phone twice.)
There were two issues. First, there was a faint large rounded rectangle of a slight dimness that was very visible with certain content (some black screens like settings) and hard to see, but definitely still there, with other content (netflix, when sliding the home screen and its background). It did not change between landscape and portrait. This was about half the width (short-side) and three quarters of the height (long side).
The second issue was that in some screens, you could see lines of pixels of slightly varying color. For example, a black screen would have lines of slight color in bands. This was most noticeable in the settings and would rotate with the screen to remain on the bottom of the screen.
Should I try a third from another seller? Or is this a matter of you-get-what-you-pay-for and I should go look for something else?
Related
Does anyone experience a "white shadow" problem on n1's screen?
when i read a document, i notice the margin area is not purely white, but there's "shadow" of text on the right
is this a amoled limitation of is it just me?
I will try to take photo if the explanation is not clear enough
another issue is that i've always found the n1's screen color to have a red hue
same for this, is it just me or do you have similar experiences?
Hey, no red hue but i do sometimes have a 'white shadow effect' which i notice looking at text, such as reading an email [not 100% sure if this is same problem as yours tho].
i was worried that this might be a problem with the screen but its just a fingerprint issue - all you need to do is wipe the screen!!
the finger prints left on the screen were what caused my white shadow, wipe the screen clean and all the text is evenly black.
magic
I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.
I have the odd ghost shadows when reading black text on a white background too.
boxmander said:
I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see this too. I just chalked it up to a byproduct of AMOLED screens or something. Doesn't really bother me and I don't really notice it that much either.
boxmander said:
I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmm that's strange because i do sometimes have exactly the same problem and can see the problem disappear as i wipe the screen. From my limited knowledge about amoled screens it seems unlikely that the pixels could be experiencing some sort of 'come and go' problem such as this. If someone could put up a picture...
Well for the record this is a very minor issue, I like my N1 a lot, its hardly noticeable. However I am interested in investigating it, and attempting to take pictures of the effect was well, less then fruitful.
It turns out my digital camera doesn't take pictures up close that well, its actually pretty terrible. I was trying to get a screen shot app to try to capture it but the ones on the market are only for root users, and I haven't made the plunge into root, yet.
kiddyfurby said:
another issue is that i've always found the n1's screen color to have a red hue
same for this, is it just me or do you have similar experiences?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have this problem and it's very off-putting.
Does anyone know if it's theoretically possible to calibrate the screen à la a computer monitor to reduce this reddish casting? In greyscale photos all shades have a very noticeable pink tone (not photos taken by the phone's camera).
I'm giving this thread a kick, because I also experience this 'problem' of having (faint but clearly visible) ghost lines or 'white shadow' when viewing small text/objects (Nexus One), especially noticeable in the browser. The weird thing is, it completely disappears when switching to landscape mode. Turning the brightness down worsens the phenomenon.
It is also reported at Google's Android support, sadly I can't report the link because of my newbie restrictions I also found one report of the Desire having this problem.
I would ask felow Nexus owners if they want to turn down their brightness and report if they also see this ghosting in portrait view (i.e. when viewing an article on nytimes.com fully zoomed out), so we can conclude if this is an insoluble AMOLED related issue or an actual screen defect of your phone (RMA/waranty-issue).
I have the text ghost image on white background. I thought it was software issue, but since it disappears in landscape view that might mean its a limitation of the pentile sub pixel layout.
I think this should explain it. It's not really the AMOLED, but how the "pixels" are actually laid out.
arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secrets-of-the-nexus-ones-screen-science-color-and-hacks.ars
I read that this issue doesn't occur in the old Dolphin browser. I don't have my phone with me right now. Can someone try it? I doubt it has anything to do with the pentile subpixel arrangement. I mean if the part of the screen is supposed to be white, the pixel should display white, not grey. Probably a software issue, IMO.
I just checked, shadows on both. It's a screen thing.
My bad. You weren't using the Dolphin HD browser, were you?
Thank for your replies I don't think it is the browser though, the same problem persists in Gmail, Adobe PDF Reader and Documents togo, I suggest you use one of these applications to look at small text on low brightness. It might be a little more noticeable in de browser, but looks like it isn't a pure software issue. Can you confirm this finding?
@voiceunebunu: yes, I've read that, but that article concentrates on text fuzziness etc. because of the PenTile arrangement, but does not mention this 'ghosting-like' effect.
Of course this isn't such a 'big deal': I would rather have my screen calibrated so it doesn't show up al reddish and get a better screen view in daylight, but hey, I knew about those problems before I bought the Nexus, but this one seams to be very sparsely documented on the internet.
This effect reminds me of the first, monochrome LCD-displays, which also had this problem (only 100x times worse), especially if they grew older.
Possible work around?
Hi everyone,
I've found a work around for this!
Cyanogen 6 has a feature called "Render effect" and basically, there are options to change what and how colours are displayed.
The last three "calibrated" seem to be for the Nexus specifically. I've used all three and the "calibrated" and "calibrated (cool)" are my favourite. Both slightly change the colour output.
There is a slight yellow tint over whites. For my screen the ghost lines are greatly reduced (it used to be visible with normal size text and exceptionally bad when zoomed out). Now its only slightly visible when zoomed out!
Hope that helps!
I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?
Jac_83 said:
I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to do a screen test. Type in the phone (*#0*#)
okey, what am I looking for in the screentest, I have done that before, as I recall there are just at series of color test, the pattern im speaking of is on the whole screen, almost as if it was low resolution or something, I saw some information on a thread about this, but I cant find it anymore.
Bring it to a service center/phone shop, compare it to whatever display models they have? If you see a difference, you can turn it in on the spot
Jac_83 said:
okey, what am I looking for in the screentest, I have done that before, as I recall there are just at series of color test, the pattern im speaking of is on the whole screen, almost as if it was low resolution or something, I saw some information on a thread about this, but I cant find it anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you do a pic of it?...
Jac_83 said:
I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's called the pentile effect. Just google pentile. Its how it is there is nothing you can be about it, although from a normal distace you can't see it. Its most visible on gray i think.
bcam117 said:
That's called the pentile effect. Just google pentile. Its how it is there is nothing you can be about it, although from a normal distace you can't see it. Its most visible on gray i think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Listen to this guy.
Samsung used a pentile matrix (one pixel now consists of 5 sub pixels - 2 small red, 2 small green and 1 large blue) for some strange reason. I'm only taking a guess here but I figure it has something to do with the way OLED screens degrade. Blue degrades the fastest so I guess it makes sense to have it the largest as it will then have more "say" in the colors that are made. This is the same reason people complain that their screen is blue when it's supposed to be white. It is this same layout that makes the grid pattern and text harder to read than retina displays.
Thank you for the information, I was worried that i had some "resolution" issue. And true enough at normal distance it's no issue. I only noticed it while comparing some stuff to a friends iPhone4.
I have a buddy with a SGS, gonna compare to his "just in case".
I've heard people talk about dithering so I thought I might as well ask, for example while starting the samsung app the blueish background image is indeed dithered on my device, is that normal? Also when playing a video (stock player) the menu where you can scroll consist of lines of gray instead of being smoothly gradient.
i have this gradient issue either. there are steps in color gradient, is this normal??
for example when u look at the grey parts of the battery when ure charging the phone while it's off. or the samsung apps loading screen. and many more...
If you think your screen is not uniform, then you know the way it is not uniform. If you haven't realized such thing, please leave this thread for your sanity :cyclops:
UPDATE:
I have done some research and experiments and came up with this solution. If you suffer from uniformity problems, this might be useful. If you are a developer, please consider building around this idea!
Aim :
To make our screen look perfectly uniform without any tint/temperature problems.
What you need:
Download these from play store:
-Screen Filter
-Gradient Wallpaper
Also on your computer [optional , for fine-tuning] :
-Adobe photoshop
How to
1) Open white/gray solid images to observe your uniformity issues. Take a pen and write down, or even make a simple drawing ( eg. left edge is more yellow and right edge is more blue)
2) Launch gradient wallpaper app. Look at your notes and make a gradient which is exactly the negative of your initial tint (eg. left edge is more blue and right edge is more yellow). Save it.
3) Launch screen filter app. Select the gradient image you saved and load it as a filter. Increase the transparency and calibrate it to your liking.
4) (optional) Use Photoshop for much more flexibility with places of gradients/ shapes etc.
----------------------
Hello everyone,
Nexus 4 is an awesome phone with minor imperfections. One of them is washed out colors which is fixed by many custom kernels.
The other imperfection is light bleeding, which is a hardware issue. However this and similar issues with hardware causes non-uniformity (or unevenness) across the display specially if it is held horizontally on a white/gray backgrounds.
I have used 10-15 different handled device with ips displays and %80 of them had a visible non-uniformity. Some of us might be totally fine with it while some of us like myself might want better calibration.
HERE IS THE REQUEST:
I have tried fauxdisplay/kernel for a week and I can customize my screen pretty much however I want. The problem is this kernel/app applies the rules for all of the pixels. It would me awesome if we could have 'local' calibrations. (people who use photoshop should be familiar with adjustment brush that changes properties of chosen area).
Tell me what you think about this.
Re: [request for developers] Local screen calibration
What do you mean exactly? And why?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Re: [request for developers] Local screen calibration
Why would we want this? I'm not sure I understand what use this would have.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
mark manning said:
Why would we want this? I'm not sure I understand what use this would have.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To fix non uniformities across the screen . For IPS screens, when you tilt left you willsee aa yellow tint on the screen, when you tilt right you will see a blue one. If you are looking directly without tilting, right side will be bluer than left side (like a gradient most visible with gray) To fix this, we can tell our kernel to render left side little bit bluer to reduce the gradient effect.
Hope this is explanatory.
maxwellr said:
To fix non uniformities across the screen . For IPS screens, when you tilt left you willsee aa yellow tint on the screen, when you tilt right you will see a blue one. If you are looking directly without tilting, right side will be bluer than left side (like a gradient most visible with gray) To fix this, we can tell our kernel to render left side little bit bluer to reduce the gradient effect.
Hope this is explanatory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i get what you mean, but im sure its a LOT more work than just that..
on another note, i read that the optimus g rom on the nexus makes the screen look absolutely amazing - im waiting till someone ports the settings for that onto our phone and hope that this calibration issue ends there.. too much time is being wasted on this (for good measure, yes. but still)
Re: [request for developers] Local screen calibration
maxwellr said:
Hello everyone,
Nexus 4 is an awesome phone with minor imperfections. One of them is washed out colors which is fixed by many custom kernels.
The other imperfection is light bleeding, which is a hardware issue. However this and similar issues with hardware causes non-uniformity (or unevenness) across the display specially if it is held horizontally on a white/gray backgrounds.
I have used 10-15 different handled device with ips displays and %80 of them had a visible non-uniformity. Some of us might be totally fine with it while some of us like myself might want better calibration.
HERE IS THE REQUEST:
I have tried fauxdisplay/kernel for a week and I can customize my screen pretty much however I want. The problem is this kernel/app applies the rules for all of the pixels. It would me awesome if we could have 'local' calibrations. (people who use photoshop should be familiar with adjustment brush that changes properties of chosen area).
Tell me what you think about this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are asking too much.
Yes you are. LCD screens cannot have regional calibration.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
richteralan said:
You are asking too much.
Yes you are. LCD screens cannot have regional calibration.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know how current calibrating is done, so I'd be happy if some developer can help me out.
There are possiblities:
software filtering -> gpu-> driver-> screen (slow)
gpu-> graphic matrix-> software calibration -> driver-> screen (fast)
gpu-> graphic matrix-> driver-> calibration within driver with given values -> screen (fastest)
if it is the first one, it can easily be done. You can choose what to do to any individual pixel. For example, It is done when there are pop-up windows. While pop-up is bright and visible, remaining area is darkened/grayed with some software processing. So with root access, a program might make sure that some area of the screen is always dimmer, brighter or more saturated than other, while it is running on background. (like a filter that is always on top. This for sure can be done: look at many apps that you can slide from left anywhere within android and some menu pops up. What if instead of a menu %85 transparent and blue [to fix yellowing] solid color stays there?)
If it is second one, well, then it is hard as it needs a lot of C programming- testing. But it will be faster than first option.
Check the first post for the update!
I bought a cheap replacement screen from Ebay. If you want to know some details, it has the three navigation touch buttons visible in silver color (these are almost invisible on the original) and a blue LED (original: white or RGB), not as bright as the original. Most of the screens I find on AliExpr. or Ebay look like this on the pictures
Question: This replacement screen is missing a few rows of pixels at the top, as you can see from the attached image. Is there a way to ignore these pixels, like set a custom resolution? Configure a "notch" that goes all the way across?
If you know any cheap, good screens, let me know as well. I guess I'll need another one in the future in case I break one again.
I'm considering picking one of these up (refurb) and I've never had a phone with notch or with cameras in the screen area. Front camera has been in the bezel area right above the screen. It looks like the two front cameras on this device are essentially embedded into the screen. Does that mean there is less display areas for notification icons or does the device allow for two rows of notification icons + time/battery display up top?
jazee said:
I'm considering picking one of these up (refurb) and I've never had a phone with notch or with cameras in the screen area. Front camera has been in the bezel area right above the screen. It looks like the two front cameras on this device are essentially embedded into the screen. Does that mean there is less display areas for notification icons or does the device allow for two rows of notification icons + time/battery display up top?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may seen that it would be e problem, i've owned mine for about 4 months bow and its not an issue. The notification bar is thin but still very readable. If you want to customize the notification panel further for space, you'll be able to download (GoodLock and NiceLock depending on your region) to help with that.
S105G said:
It may seen that it would be e problem, i've owned mine for about 4 months bow and its not an issue. The notification bar is thin but still very readable. If you want to customize the notification panel further for space, you'll be able to download (GoodLock and NiceLock depending on your region) to help with that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took a peak at the descriptions of those apps and screen shots and can GoodLock actually modify the top notification status bar on top? I didn't think any app could control the look of that? Those apps seems to have quite a bit of overlap with built-in functions of latest Android 10 + One UI 2.x ? Still might give them a whirl.
SO I've had my S10 5G for about a week now. Right away, I tried the virtual bezel setting that basically black out the top of the screen next to the cameras. I didn't like the look. On my LG V30 the camera was in the bezel and the bezel was very thin so the screen display still appeared to take up most of the glass. With this setting on the Samsung, it's too heavy handed, blacks out a little too much height off the top of the screen so it looks odd with a very tall black bezel on top.
So far, I don't think the reduced space has caused my notification icon bar up top to get overloaded. What I ended up doing though was selecting a wallpaper that the top right corner is dark or almost black. It effectively "hides the cameras" while utilizing the full screen. Of course with apps open that aren't black on top, you see the large camera cutout but it's not really that distracting/terrible looking.
I like that Samsung got a little smarter on the S20 and has a very small single camera cutout in the middle of the screen now. Looks MUCH better. But still, it's only looks. Some may prefer having the dual front cameras, which I think is a nice trade off to having the larger camera cutout on the side instead of the a small single camera in the middle.