I just got my iPhone 3G S today and noticed that it has a distinctly yellowish tint to the screen. Doesn't matter what app I am using, and I've tried adjusting the brightness with no success.
Sp1d3rz said:
"First thing i noticed on the box was a little green dot. So to google. From what i gathered it was not unlike the dot on the charger last year. Apperently small hardware changes had been made and they signify that by the green dot. Also my original shipped from the us, this one from china."
My first 3GS (16 gig black) was ordered on June 8, shipped from China and delivered on launch day. It was serial number xxx21. The box (I still have) has a green dot sicker on the backside bottom right just above the recycle symbol. The screen on this phone was yellow.
Buried deep in this thread is a comment I made about the yellow screen not being an issue for me. However, I compared my screen to 3G models and an iPhone Classic, and decided to have a Genius look at it. He replaced my 3GS (June 23) with a white box replacement, stating the replacement was brand new.
My 2nd 3GS is serial number xxx24. The screen on my replacement is not yellow like the first and as far as I can tell the colors are not washed out like others have described (I have black not charcoal font). 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.
I re-compared my second phone to the devices I compared the first phone to. The whites on mine looked more true to white than some of theirs, which looked blue or pink in some cases.
The Apple Store Concierge, Manager and Genius were really helpful the day they made the swap.
{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.
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.
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.
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!
