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Here is a quick update to Samsung Galaxy SII screen issues story. I’ve been doing some (non-scientific) research by comparing several different devices and found that there is a huge variation in display quality between devices. Generally the older ones bought right after launch tend to have one of the better performing devices. I became aware of the issues when the screen in my SGS2 broke and had to be replaced with a new one.

The issues with the Super Amoled+ displays used in these phones are many. A good screen is very bright while maintaining excellent performance in darker areas – meaning it can separate the dark grays from the blacks even down to the darkest levels. A bad screen just shows mainly solid black where there should be a whole scale of incrementally darkening grays. In real life this means that all your movies with darker scenes are mostly black. Also with the auto-brightness enabled the screen drops way too dark when in a dark room. It’s not an issue with the light sensor but with the screen itself. Also when examining the many of the screens closely it turns out that a lot of the screens look grainy – especially when displaying different solid grays. This does not happen in a ‘normal’ quality screen.

The reason I’m trying make a noise about this is that the screen is one of the main selling points with this device. This is an issue that is hard to explain to the Samsung service people – especially if they compare your device with an ‘identical’ device and this other device is one with a faulty screen.

Personally I just want my phone to be as good as it was when I first got. I just fear that if our RMA demand goes through with Samsung they’ll just send me a brand new device with a screen that’s even darker the current one.

More info and example photos in the previous post

The image used to test the black levels can be found here: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php