iPhone 3G S has yellowish tint

Anyone have a week 27 phone and if so - how is it? My brother and I went to swap his phone at Best Buy and they are all week 27 phones. His week 25 has major battery problems and the yellow screen so his will be swapped either way. My phone on the other hand has the yellow screen issue and washed out colors. My problem is I don't want to risk getting an even crappier phone. If there is a chance that the week 27 phones are still bad - I will keep my phone and just say whatever.

I have gone through the same thing... I had opened and checked amongst the display models 3 3GS's in the Apple store and all of them had the yellow tint. The store employees confirmed this but said, well I can't just keep swapping it out for you. They said I should wait a week and come back to see if the LCD maybe needs to be 'burned in' stating that the display models are 'always' on and thus may have gotten brighter. Either way, I have a phone that has a yellowish tint, not horrid, but after opening 3 brand new phones in store, what else can I do?

I wonder if it does have to be burned in to get brighter and whiter???

I've been following this topic around the web for a few weeks now.

When I got my 3GS and heard about this I pulled out my old 1st gen iPhone and compared the screens. My 3GS is definitely "warmer". I recently went in to an Apple store and compared it to the display iPhones to find the same. MY 3GS was warmer than their display models.

Now I wasn't looking for an exchange, although it would have been nice, but what bothered me was the fact that I was treated like a dummy. YOU KNOW that every bleeding salesperson is up on every single issue with the 3GS. They have to be. When I showed the salesperson the difference between their display phones and mine he played dumb and went off to show my phone to someone else only to come back with the story that he just showed it to the manager and they made a comparison to the manager's phone and that the MANAGER'S iPhone was even more yellow cast than mine! He also went on to explain that the problem was that the iPhone is made in different factories and they all use different glass.

Well I suppose that certainly is possible. But that's really poor quality control. Now as I said, I wasn't really looking for a replacement. When you're looking at one screen, white is white. I can live with that. But I have come to expect much more from Mr Jobs and Apple. I expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect when I enter an Apple store. I expect NOT to be treated like a moron, encountered by a staff that denies known issues.

Perhaps in the near future I'll switch back to a Sony PC and a Blackberry.

I think some of them came defective. I just got the iPhone 3GS and it has the "cooler" screen you described, as opposed to my iPod Touch (1st Generation, almost a year old) which displays a yellower screen color. My boyfriend acquired his 3GS about 2 weeks after I got mine and when we compared them next to each other (same brightness level) we could tell the difference, his had the yellowish coloration. I'm surprised to see that this issue is the most common people have been experiencing with the 3GS. Even though I haven't had a single issue with my phone (it is perfect actually) my boyfriend has had way too many. His first 3GS (which he got the same day I did) had an annoying rattling sound when shook (mainly if shook in the vertical direction), he returned it and got this other one that not only has the rattling noise as well but also the screen defect.

Apple -on the other hand- has been pretty helpful and they have said that none of these issues are normal.

I hope this helps.

Message was edited by: anapty

SpurtSpanker wrote:
*Anyone have a week 27 phone and if so - _how is it?_* My brother and I went to swap his phone at Best Buy and they are all week 27 phones. His week 25 has major battery problems and the yellow screen so his will be swapped either way. My phone on the other hand has the yellow screen issue and washed out colors. My problem is I don't want to risk getting an even crappier phone. *_If there is a chance that the week 27 phones are still bad - I will keep my phone and just say whatever._*

I specifically asked for a week higher than my previous week 23's that I had - already aware that week 27 phones had also reported issues - but that was as late as my 3rd replacement could be. I reported earlier that this phone suffered equally as bad as the others that I have had experience with.

It is essentially a lottery as to getting a decent phone that is 'as it should be' -- and the 'week' has little if nothing to do with this IMO. The week is nothing more than what we know, when it was made. The factory and the parts used is the larger concern and for that we seem to have little to no idea how to decide on how to select a unit that has acceptable parts by simply looking at the box serial or parts display.

I would reiterate that if you have a concern over the yellow screen to do much more testing because you will find that RGB values are off the mark more than you will first wish to think; and as a result colours are going to show much less accurately across the board.

I have read people with week 28 phones reporting fewer issues - but this could be nothing more than luck of the draw from those posters.

Regarding my week 27 phone I will be returning it tomorrow for what might be the final time. If the store offer for me to try another (will be seeing the manager) I may well take the chance but otherwise I will be seeking a refund and waiting a few more weeks; or chance a different brand phone.

Having a sub-par display that will be with you for the duration of the life of your phone is not acceptable as far as I am concerned. I appreciate that others will be of the view 'ah well, its only a phone.. i aint comparing it to anything else so I'm fine' -- excellent, but the "Apple Brand" and "Sub-Par" are not words they should be associating themselves with.

Put it this way. I have an iPod Touch that flickers if it goes below half brightness. I have a Macbook Pro that flickers if it goes below a quarter brightness and a 1st generation sharp, beautiful iPhone that I have never had a bit of trouble from. I have used 2nd generation 3G iPhones that have been equally as good in display and also experienced two 3GS units owned by friends that in side by side comparisons are also excellent and what I would consider 'perfect' .. I am not settling for sub-par displays, others might.

We all know Apple are excellent in the first 14 days.. they love you, but after that time having problems will often result in a complete different beast. I am not willing to run the 14 day gauntlet and be stuck.

My iPhone 3GS (Week 26) has the same issue, yellow tint throughout the screen. My mother also got the 3GS (Week 27) and the screen is much better. It's much whiter and there seems to be no yellow tint whatsoever. I even compared mine to the other iPhones at the Apple Store today and most of them didn't have the yellow tint issue. I'm going to set up an appointment for the genius bar and see if they will swap out my phone for another.

I wish there was a way to tell week build externally on the box...

@Yellowphone: Look at the bottom of any Apple iPhone 3G S retail box. Bottom left hand corner look for the text "(S) Serial No. XXXXXXXXXXX". The 4th and 5th digits of that serial number are the week build.

Now if only anyone could find out which factory a given phone was built at by looking at the serial number, then we might find a more clear trend as to where this problem originates...

i hope all you guys have also filled up the online feedback form to Apple.
i did.

Eeps I haven't done this. Thank you for this reminder! Now, would someone please kindly post a URL link here so that slow-minded folks like me don't have to search from here to Kingdom come trying to find out where and how to do this? 😉

there you go:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Thank you for posting that link, I wasn't aware of that.

I purchased an iphone two weeks ago from Sheffield in UK, and like yourselves suffered from the same yellow tint and poor contrast ratios. It took 5 seconds with the genius bar staff for them to agree and offer a refund or a replacement. So I cannot argue against their customer service, just there seriously poor quality control.

I'm going back today, to maybe participate in the iPhone lottery again!

Thats awful to be made to feel that way when you go into a shop.

I have had it it myself when I have gone into Apple for help, some have been great when helping, but I find most of them are so far up themselfs to the point I have bought their smuggness to attention. I even stood their and asked, how can you have a smug smile on your face when your knocking out the cr @p you are.

My motto is, if someone is being helpfull, let them know, just as if someone is being smug, let them know also.

Its not the fact that people have problems with their products that upsets people, its apples dumbness to to play along dumb or oh we have never heard of that. If they just had the b @lls to own up, yeah, where no perfect and nor are some of our products but we are aware of this and that and the other and working on a fix, but the fact they say nothing and act dumb and smug at the same time gets my back up.

For me, thats what makes apple a really awful company towards its customers who spend a **** of a lot of money.

Rant over, im only fed up because I had a poor experience at apple in mk on saturday when the plonker dropped my ipod and then said the damage was already on my screen.

Markie-Poo wrote:
I've been following this topic around the web for a few weeks now.

When I got my 3GS and heard about this I pulled out my old 1st gen iPhone and compared the screens. My 3GS is definitely "warmer". I recently went in to an Apple store and compared it to the display iPhones to find the same. MY 3GS was warmer than their display models.

Now I wasn't looking for an exchange, although it would have been nice, but what bothered me was the fact that I was treated like a dummy. YOU KNOW that every bleeding salesperson is up on every single issue with the 3GS. They have to be. When I showed the salesperson the difference between their display phones and mine he played dumb and went off to show my phone to someone else only to come back with the story that he just showed it to the manager and they made a comparison to the manager's phone and that the MANAGER'S iPhone was even more yellow cast than mine! He also went on to explain that the problem was that the iPhone is made in different factories and they all use different glass.

Well I suppose that certainly is possible. But that's really poor quality control. Now as I said, I wasn't really looking for a replacement. When you're looking at one screen, white is white. I can live with that. But I have come to expect much more from Mr Jobs and Apple. I expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect when I enter an Apple store. I expect NOT to be treated like a moron, encountered by a staff that denies known issues.

Perhaps in the near future I'll switch back to a Sony PC and a Blackberry.

I've done the exchange dance, and now have an iPhone without a yellow or uneven tint.

However, doing a close, as objective-as-I-can-be comparison with my old iPhone 3G, the new one just doesn't have the same "pop."

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.

People have commented that this is likely deliberate for the 3GS, and that my latests screen is as good as it gets for this model. Apple may have made the change intentionally (or it may be a cheaper screen component).

I've given it some time to get used to, even not turning on my 3G for days so that the new screen will seem normal. But it hasn't. I feel less excited about turning on my iPhone and flicking through a web page now.

It's as if they've dulled down the magic...

As this is now no longer a yellow tint issue, is there a discussion going on somewhere about "Why did Apple dull down the vibrant iPhone experience on us?"