iPhone 3G S has yellowish tint

{quote:title=lookn4wifi wrote:}
In natural light, on a screen with white background, there is subtle off-white at the bottom 1/2" or so (you really have to go looking for it). In department or Apple store lighting the subtle 1/2" off-white does not exit, only in certain conditions.{quote}

Mine too. It's not good enough though. If you bought a LCD TV with this attribute would you not take it back?

yellowphone said:
"If you bought a LCD TV with this attribute would you not take it back?"

Probably, however the TV would never go outside or display email or web pages, which would prohibit me from ever noticing. When watching video, movies or TV from my iPhone (similar to an LCD TV's use) this attribute isn't apparent.

Ok, well maybe the green dot is a china shipped phone. The first one i got shipped from within the us on the 18th and was suddenly overnighted on apples part. I think all the china based models shipped like monday and apple had to hold em cause they were coming in a day early. It was amazing thing to witness but thats off topic. I forgot to post in my earlier post that my perfect. 3GS screen is a week 28 build.

This is a follow up to a previous reply in this thread.

After my sad experience at my local Apple store, I began comparing my screen to coworker's and friend's screens on iPhones and iPods. Holy S**t!!!! These things are all over the place!!!!

In work I have compared five different devices only to come up with five different color temperatures! **** poor quality control.

Again, I will say, I am not unhappy with my screen. Yes, it is warm, but not unnaturally. I will say one thing though that I have discovered. My screen has a beautiful black. I'm talking black as black can be black. My *1st gen* iPhone has slightly washed out, near charcoal black at full bright. But my new 3GS has beautiful DEEP jet black at full bright.

While I am content with my screen the way it is, just having a warmer color temperature, white is perceived as white. I am still shocked at the lack of consistency and QC by Apple.

I hope somehow you're getting this Steve.

Had my 1st Genius appt today to try to sort out my 3rd new replacement 3G S which had a nice BRIGHT and non-polarized, slightly yellow screen (acceptable to me) but which was all washed out with poor contrast, and as you pegged it, I agree 100%:

+"Though all the colors seem true, their saturation is lower. Blacks seem more like dark charcoal when reading text in web pages (I do a lot of this), and their contrast against white seems lower. Even to the extent that it feels like there is a faint, low-lying fog hanging over the screen."+

So, the Genius listens to my explanation and history of how I got to have that 3rd 3G S and said he was happy to swap screens out for me since it was obviously a big deal for me. I noted 3 things here:

1) He didn't admit there was any problem, just that he noted it was a big deal for me,
2) He was willing to REPLACE the SCREEN, not just swap the phone for a new retail or a refurb,
3) He was very nice and patient and helpful.

So, after he disappeared in the back to personally do the screen swap, I carefully examined the screen, suspicious he might have just called his G/F and pretended to have swapped the screen. Nope, no tricks, he had indeed replaced it.

The washed out crap contrast poor blacks of my former screen were gone - this replaced screen had a deep, rich, high-contrast bright beautiful screen! Except, it was yellower and was polarized, exactly the same deal as what I had started with 4 phones ago!

#1 thing I cannot accept is that polarized screen where it dims to 50% if you don't look at the screen straight on, making it useless for my family to enjoy together.

So I'm basically confirming the trend others have recently noted here:

a) Former excessively yellow screens (some dim, some polarized) in the retail boxes now appear to be mixed with "updated models" having non-polarized screens that are bright, more appropriate warmer tones, but which are washed out with charcoal "blacks".

b) Screen replacements as was done for me can still dive into the old pool of yellow polarized screens.

c) The guy was very nice and offered me basically to keep the new screen, have him go back and put back the original, or return it for a refund.

Completely frustrated and exhausted, I chose to have him give me back the original display as I'd rather (for the moment) have a low-contrast washed out screen than a yellower polarized one.

As with others, I'm very happy with the level of patience and willingness to swap things from the Genius reps, but EXTREMELY UNHAPPY and way past impatient regarding the horrific quality of the current batches of screens.

OH one more thing I should note - if you're going to do any in-store comparisons to the display models, BE SURE to find a couple that you KNOW are good. The guy, as nice as he was, was very wise to take me to a very specific display unit that had a dimmer, yellower, polarized screen with which to compare the replaced screen with. So initially I was like "whoa this is better" then I realized what had happened and moved 3 phones down to the proper displays that were "per spec" in my opinion and then compared those. When he saw I was aware of what "proper spec" was, he offered me the aforementioned 3 choices...

So, they can be nice, but they can also be "wise", so watch out for your best interests there. Now, I guess I'll have to wait until I can find a store with a set of week 28's to try do a return/new purchase within the next 3 weeks. What a horrific mess and headache all this is. 4 bad screens in a row. For peace's sakes I'm glad this happened to mine and not my wife's - hers is PERFECT and she knows it - she flatly refuses to swap hers with any of the 4 I've had.

I have a week 28, this is my 4th replacement. Besides the fact it also has that dreadful high pitched whine, the screen does look a little yellow in the bottom half of the screen. It doesn't look any better or worse than my previous one which was a week 24. I am considering getting a refund and waiting it out a bit.

I've heard a lot of people mention that this yellowish tint screen problem is new and that the Apple experience has gone down with the 3GS because of the screen. In reality, this is not new. Do a search and this whole same discussion also happened in 2007 with the original iPhone and last year with the 3G. There just weren't as many owners at those times. I bought an original iPhone in Oct. 07. It had a beautiful white and bright screen but the battery wouldn't hold a charge. I went in to exchange and got an iPhone with a horrid yellow screen, 4 months after launch. So I did the exchange dance at a few different Apple stores with some nice Genius's and some not so nice Genius's. Finally, my fourth exchange I got one with a white and bright screen again. When all my friends and family got 3Gs last year the screen was noticeably yellower than my original. When I got my 3GS (Wk23) in June it was noticeably yellower than their 3Gs. I exchanged it last week for a Wk27 and although it is better in terms of yellowness and color eveness, it still is a little yellower than I would like. But this seems intentional on Apple's part to some extent.

I hate to get anybody's hopes down but this is not a new issue and waiting a few months for manufacturing to "sort itself out" is probably not going to make a difference. These screens are the same they've been making for years. I don't think anything will improve until Apple acknowledges the problem and holds their suppliers to better quality and/or allows user adjustment of screen settings. I am not hopeful for this either because I think most people will accept the screen and not complain.

Bottomline is it's all up to luck.

If you want to see which factory your iPhone is from enter the serial # here: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html .
I don't know how accurate the site is, however.

Good luck out there.

I don't want to give false hope, however the Apple Store in Los Gatos, CA has 16GB iPhone 3GS models on the floor that do not have the yellow tint screen issue. Almost all the BLACK backed iPhones on the floor are not affected. However, when you look at the WHITE backed iPhones they are affected.

Using my powers of deduction I purchased a 32GB BLACK backed iPhone there, however this did have the yellow tint to the screen. Frustrated, we went through 3 phones, some with low contrast ratios in comparison to others. I finally went home with one that still had a yellow tinge, but good contrast and vibrant colors.

I still might return it as that Calendar icon on my home screen is just SHOUTING YELLOW TINGE at my eyes (even though it’s slight) and I might not be able to stand it more than a day... Honestly this yellow tinge makes tons of iPhones look like they've been sitting in direct sunlight for a few days.

But if you're in the California Los Gatos area you can check out some phones that are not affected, which means it is not truly a designed in look.

Message was edited by: Rwilson00769

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is hope! I had a week 27 that was not yellow, but had really dirty and dingy white screens. I think it was a back lighting issue as no matter what brightness (auto-brightness off) me and my co-worker set on the phone, hers was always whiter and brighter. I went to Apple today and showed them how mine looked to the demo units and they were like, wow that is dim and dirty and exchanged it on the spot.

This new one is a week 28 and is pretty much perfect. The screen, although not as bright as the ones in the store (although pretty close) was way improved over my old week 27 with great colors and white whites, this one is a keeper!

i also have this problem. the screen is yellowy in lower brightness levels. there are also dark streaks/shadows in the back light? at first i thought my screen was dirty but now im sure its backlight issue. i also have the green dot on my box. im really ****** off i just applied best skins ever and i dun want to return this.

+"If you want to see which factory your iPhone is from enter the serial # here: http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html. I don't know how accurate the site is, however."+

Thank you for this info jng65! If that database is correct, then that means every one of the 5 phones we've tried (week 23's and week 26's) were all from Factory 86 in China as all had serial numbers beginning with 86. And each of them had the little green dot on the bottom of the box (including 2 from launch day).

This implies that my area in Southern California (North Orange County, East Los Angeles County) are getting their shipments from that Factory 86 and that factory is producing both perfect (my wife's) and defective non-spec screens (some yellow and dim, some brown and dim, some polarized, some not, some bright with poor contrast ratios and charcoal "blacks").

So again, if that database is correct and this variance is coming from one factory, then this implies that the factory is using screens from many different suppliers (perhaps from different manufacturing centers/sub-suppliers also in China). And that level of detail I don't think we're going to find from a serial number. Was a great idea and great site though, thank you.

So back to the guessing game of being completely unable to predict any good screen by simply looking at the serial number - green dot, factory made, country made, week build all show no correlation as yet that I can see. This really HAS become an iPhone lottery of random luck (and with VERY BAD odds leaning against us). 😟

AntonioMX5 wrote:
So again, if that database is correct and this variance is coming from one factory, then this implies that the factory is using screens from many different suppliers (perhaps from different manufacturing centers/sub-suppliers also in China). And that level of detail I don't think we're going to find from a serial number. Was a great idea and great site though, thank you.

So back to the guessing game of being completely unable to predict any good screen by simply looking at the serial number - green dot, factory made, country made, week build all show no correlation as yet that I can see. This really HAS become an iPhone lottery of random luck (and with VERY BAD odds leaning against us). 😟

Agreed. Mine's from Factory "86" also.

An iPhone Lottery—how very terrible. Apple MUST remedy this. ASAP.

mine is factory 84 and its yellowy from angles right and top. however its not so bad from front view. i see some back lighting issues such as shadows and streaks. im not going to replace it though ill either keep it or return it.

well reading this thread for almost a month now. I found something interesting a number of my friends have ipod touchs so i decided to compare my phone to their ipod touchs and low and behold the ipods have a yellow tint to them. So i decide to go to the 3 apple stores in nyc and it seems almost all the ipod touchs have a slight yellow tint some worse then others its more noticeable at the bottom of the screen. even some 3g iphone in these stores showed a little yellow if you look at them. My phone is week 27 and is almost perfect not as bright as some display models. but have richer colors then the display models at these stores. Ill keep it as i dont want to get something worse as i have seen worse ones in the apple store on display.

hi everyone. i also have been following this thread, pretty much everyday. i got my 3G S last friday, and while i still had my 3G, i compared the two, and yes, the 3G S was definitely on the yellowish side, and the 3G was more in the white/blueish side. of course being ****** off about it, i researched, and that's how i got to this thread. with my curiosity, i compared my 3G S with my friend's, and we exactly have the same shade of yellow (more visible in the Settings app). still not satisfied with my comparison, i went to the local AT&T store in Cerritos, and their iPhone display was slightly more white than mine. spoke with the workers, & like i expected, they acted like they never heard this issue before (or maybe they're not lying, i don't know). but the guy was telling me i couldn't exchange it, because i had it already, and they couldn't order it for me since i have it in my hands already, ***. my intention was not to exchange it, so i really didn't push and ignored his stupidity.

so i guess, my conclusion (finally!!), i'm happy with my 3G S right now. like some people mentioned in this thread, although i prefer the "white/blueish" color of the 3G, the 3G S seems sharper, and the color really pops out. other people noticed this also remembering my 3G, and now looking at my new 3G S. for those still keeping track, i have a "27", in which i read a couple people that had it in this thread, and were very happy with it, so there might be something there. it is 16 gig, and black. i guess what i'm saying is that i'm not exchanging it, in which i'm afraid of risking getting something worse. although i'm curious of the people that claims to have the very yellowish screen. if it's no trouble, can you some of you maybe post photographs here? maybe mine is really good, and i'm just being anal about it. thanks in advance.

although i know this is the wrong thread, but my REAL issue is it's battery life, which i also am researching right now. it seems my 3G lasted way longer than my current phone 😟. any help is appreciated. thanks for being patient. my first post ever ha ha!!