iPhone 3G S has yellowish tint

Micah D. wrote:
Wait a second... are you saying that people without these problems comprise "...some lucky few..."? That means you think that the MAJORITY of 3gs phones have these problems?

Yes, that's what I'm saying (at least regarding 32GB blacks). From my personal experience, only 1 in 5 of these have screens anywhere near comparable to the Apple Store display phones. 4 new 3G S's in a row were clearly out of spec for me - even my wife could see this quite easily. And others have seen a worse ratio than 1 in 5.

Why so few are posting? Simple. Few compare their 3G S with the Apple Store display phones LOOKING for screen quality differences as it is not natural to presume a brand new $699 phone might be off in this manner. Standing alone, each phone usually looks "fine" to the average person. Heck, just look what the "Geniuses" are saying with regard to clearly OFF phones. "They're in spec" they say, until someone puts one side by side with a display phone.

Of the subset of people that do happen, by whatever means, learn that their phone is "off", not everyone cares so much about this. If the phone has a signal, makes calls, and plays their games fine, then for most, that's plenty good enough. After all, it is "only a phone", right?

Most open-minded people would likely agree that for every individual posting here regarding a problem with their screen quality, at least 100x more have had the problem but didn't know where to go or didn't want to go through the trouble whining about something that others see as only a picky cosmetic issue.

I do agree that reading this thread CAN, in theory, skew reality, as mainly people having problems come to post here. Of course, there are the fanboys that come on and try to argue against others having legitimate problems, as if it actually helps to blindly defend a corporation like Apple that is not standing by its product and further inflame the insult and injury victims have suffered with regard to their "mere phones" which only cost $699. I also agree that expecting to get large LCD screen sRGB display quality is not realistic, nor really appropriate.

Just as you claim you've seen X number of 3G S's in a row that were "fine" to your eye and how (to you) there is really a very tiny percentage of a problem, mainly due to the inherent statistical fact that "some" will inevitably be defective in some manner, others like me have had such different experiences that something is not right here. Is it due to, what, having a more discerning eye, and lacking some loyalty bias defending a company blindly, with a foaming mouth and waving an Apple flag, that fate deals me with 4 bad screens in a row? And for others, 5 in a row (or more) - how can this be?

We just happen to live in "trash dump" areas where the bad production runs end up going? I doubt it. Rest of the customers opened their boxes next to me and smiled nice and big as they started playing with their new phone, happy as happy can be, not having any idea what's going on with their screen which I could see was heavily polarized or excessively yellow. What some don't know doesn't really hurt them is what this boils down to, and for those with a discerning eye, or where knowledge = power (more realistically, sadly, knowledge here = suffering), well, we have to deal with losing money and going through a lot of trouble to get satisfaction.

Frankly I wish I was one of the oblivious masses that just doesn't know and/or doesn't care. But when my own wife who can't tell the difference between 480i and 1080p tells me that she finds it insulting that I would ask her to swap her phone with mine, when my previous 3G S's were clearly "ugly" to even her untrained and forgiving eye, something is amiss...

I'm just glad the HUGE headache and expensive trouble I went through is finally over with this 5th phone, as are others who finally got satisfaction after having several defective in a row. Not everyone looks hard enough to see reality, and not everyone who can see reality even want to see it (insert "Fanboys" here). Seeing reality surely has not been easy, or cheap.

Thanks Antonio
I'm trying to not obsess over the scratches... My screen would never have such things! Anyway the display is much better, and u can't see them unless you hold it at an angle in direct sunlight.... But my worry is that this screen does exhibit some yellow tint towards the bottom that I did not see on the display model.. The genius told me that if I ever need to swap my phone to tell the To keep the old screen. Wish I'd thought of that soon enough on my first swap... Too bad I had my spouse swap itfor me initially or I would have caught it right then

for all u out there needing a phone replacement, if ur screen display is good ask them to keep your screen when u swap out your unit...

Here's a link to my post on HoFo [ Howard Forums ] with pictures comparing the 3rd 3GS I had with the 4th [most recent - best one I have today ]

http://www.howardforums.com/showpost.php?p=12873413&postcount=96

Adding to this thread my whole experience with this issue. I just bought a 3GS yesterday, took it home and realized that when there's a large area of light gray or white on the screen, it appeared yellow. I loaded a blank page in Safari and put it next to my old 3G and the difference was like night and day.

I took the phone back to the Apple Store (the one in San Francisco), and showed it to a girl at the counter. She claimed she had no idea what I was talking about, and said they looked exactly the same to her. She showed it to another guy who worked there, and he said right away, one is more yellow than the other. I'm not sure why, but after that she kept showing it to more Apple Store employees, including her manager, and they all said that the two screens were the same.

I showed the two phones to a couple people beforehand and they said they saw a huge difference. I'm not sure whether the Apple Store employees were lying to try to get me to quit complaining and go home with a defective product, or whether they really didn't see a difference. It seems suspicious to me.

They let me do the exchange, and sure enough the next phone had the yellow screen. I compared my screen to the one of a display model like some other posters here had done, and the floor model had a perfect screen on it. The girl who did the reactivation told me that this was the first time she ever heard of the problem. I think that's pretty suspicious too, but maybe lots of people are buying this phone not knowing that the screen should look much better than it does.

I called Apple Support this morning and told him about my experience and this thread, and he said that he's been working for Apple for a long time and never heard anything about this issue. He also said that he stays out of the Apple forums because "people will post anything." So a thread with 800+ posts could be the work of people who are just making this issue up?

I want to avoid dealing with a "Genius" because I'm sure I'll be told my phone is "within spec" like the other posters here. Obviously there's a lot of people angry about this issue, and there's no doubt Apple knows about it, but they've done a great job of sweeping it under the rug. The issue's been getting zero coverage from what I gather, and the only places people are talking about it are forum threads like this one.

I'm pretty pessimistic about the whole thing at this point, and I might just ask for a full refund. There's no doubt Apple just wants to stonewall anyone reporting this issue, and they must be cutting costs on factory production and quality control. The whole thing has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and I can't see Apple getting this fixed for months down the line, if ever.

tldr; Got 2 yellow screen 3GS phones, Apple employees deny there's a problem, and I'm leaning towards returning it and going back to the 3G.

mattmartinez wrote:
He also said that he stays out of the Apple forums because "people will post anything."

Good judgment on his part, unless Apple specifically has assigned him to read what's posted in these forums. Given there are 16 iPhone forums, reading the messages would take a good size team all day -- and that's without supplying answers!

Phil

I wouldn't expect him to read all the iPhone forums, or even a single one. I was just noting his dismissive attitude when I told him that so many people were complaining about this issue in the Apple forums.

Edit: just wanted to add, the phone support guy told me to try a factory reset. I knew this wouldn't make a difference since it seems to be a hardware issue, but I did it anyway just to be sure. The reset just finished a minute ago and the screen is still completely yellow.

I'm really not trying to get anyone's hair up on end as I said before.

Will someone PLEASE clarify when you say that your screen is "yellow". I mean is it literally banana yellow with no hope of ever being perceived as white? Or is it just warm toned? Is it the whole screen or just a portion? Is it REALLY noticeable or just barely perceptible?

Is it possible that some of you are so insanely anal? I mean really, going through five iPhone replacements? THIS IS A CELL PHONE!!!!!

The other day I posted about this and how I found myself testing my iPhone with tests designed for LCD monitors. It's insane.

My PowerBook G4's screen is warmer than my iPhone 3GS at it's factory LCD setting and my iPhone 3GS is a bit warmer than most of the display phones at my local Apple store. Two of my co-worker's iPhone 3G's are warmer than mine! Other co-worker's iPods are warmer or differ in contrast. MY original 1st gen iPhone has a cooler blue cast to it. BUT ALL OF THEM LOOK FINE BY THEMSELVES!!!

Blue cast is not necessarily "normal". It may be only that you prefer it.

White is white if you're only looking at one phone my friends.

I just got back from AT&T and that was a waste of time. They said to call apple and I told them I had done that 3 days ago and haven't gotten a return call. They said they would call so I let him. The chick at apple said it was supposed to be like that so they woulndt replace it. So I decieded to return the phone to AT&T but the guy at the store said it wasn't in "like new condition" because of the screen so I hAd to get a manager to come over and she said the same thing and to call apple back. He called apple again and they said they would have to submit a ticket and call me back. So apple says it's normal but AT&T won't take it back because it's defective. And the closest apple store is 2 1/2 hours away.
I checked 9 different display models in 3 different stores and they all are bright white. I'm thinking about just returning it after it gets replaced and not messing with apple anymore cause this is crazy. I just want a pretty screen like everybody else why does it have to be this difficult.

Mattmartinez... Take your phone back before it's too late

It's really offensive to me as a long time paying Apple customer to be told that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to the screen being yellow. I had to go through 5 replacements and my current one still has nicotine stain yellow on the bottom half of the screen, but each replacement was a dehumanizing experience of being told that I didn't know what I was talking about by the SAME Genius who replaced my phone previously.

I work repairing hardware all day (Mac's too!) and it was scathing to be told each time that I was basically out of my mind for having such a complaint about the inconsistency between 3GS screens. I would love to continue to support Apple by being a loyal customer, but they are making it very hard to trust them when it comes to quality control. I understand the user base for this family of devices is quite large, but honesty and continuity with customers will result in better sales, even if it means more returned/recalled units in the short term.

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/small/

Does anyone have a 3GS that displays all of twelve squares of the contrast test? I can only see the bottom two rows, the 3G of a friend of mine shows all of the squares.

I do have an issue with Apple regarding their current, miserable quality control. This is what you get with lax Chinese manufacturers and the failure of Apple to keep a tighter rein on them. I have sent off my feedback to them on this. It's obvious that they are aware of the issue. If anyone feels that every ****** iPhone in the world should have the same color temperature, its me.

But.....I am not going to obsess over the fact that my 3GS screen has a warmer cast than my old 1st gen iPhone. I'm also not going to pay attention to online tests. OK, my old 1st gen with the cool toned screen just barely picks up the top row of the contrast test while my new 3GS picks up the last block of the top row. But you know what? I DON'T CARE!!!! THIS IS A CELL PHONE!!!!!! NOT A ****** sRGB MONITOR!!!!! I BOUGHT THIS TO HAVE FUN!!! AND YOU KNOW WHAT!!??? I'M HAVING FUN WITH A WARM TONED IPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!

OK....you have a screen where on portion is noticeably different than the other? You have a gripe and it should be remedied for you.

You have a warm tone screen with great blacks and popping colors? LIVE WITH IT!

Please stop obsessing with this. I know for fact that some of you were perfectly content with your phones before you saw this thread and you then realized that there was a minor difference in color temp between your phone and whatever. It's not worth the gamble. There is no published or set standard for the iPhone's screen color temperature. But I agree that there should be. There is nothing anywhere that states that an iPhone should have a cool color temperature or a warm temperature.

ThisIsANewID wrote:
Does anyone have a 3GS that displays all of twelve squares of the contrast test? I can only see the bottom two rows, the 3G of a friend of mine shows all of the squares.

Ah, you're referring to the "new and improved" 3GS display. I can only see the bottom 2 rows as well. This would be a non-issue and I wouldn't press on it at all since it is only a lower-res display and doesn't claim to be a full-size sRGB computer monitor. That is, if it weren't for the fact that the older and supposedly less sophisticated 3G's can display all the squares (and aren't pee-stained).

Let me see if I get this right. According to Apple and the Fanboys:

"It's supposed to look like that",
"It's within spec",
"It looks fine to me",
"They all look like that",
"I can't see any difference",
"You're out of your mind",
"This is the first time I've ever heard of this issue",
"Complaints? What complaints?",
"I have no idea what you're talking about",
"Why are you trying to stir up trouble? Do you work for Palm or something?"
"You're totally anal and imagining something that you would never have noticed if it weren't for this biased thread",

...and so on, and so forth, etc. Did I miss any?

Antonio,

I never said that people were "imagining" anything.

We're all Fanboys whether you know it or not.

This thread is outrageously biased.

I will say it again......white is white. Cool tone or warm tone. It's still percieved as white. Also again, I'm not any happier than you or others about this. There should be a standard of color temp for this screen. I don't care if it's warm or cool. They should all be the same, but I'm not going to obsess on this because when I look at my iPhone, the white is white, even if it's warm tone....it's still white.

*Yellow/Dim or Not ? Decide for yourself..*

*Both are the Black 16GB 3GS, and Both have Brightness set to MAX with AutoBrightness OFF*