Help Noisy/sparkly screen?

Hmmm. I find the Nexus screen quite pleasing in comparison the the SG2. The SG2 colors were way over the top and lack the resolution I am seeing with the Nexus.

Please next to my iPhone 4s, the Nexus looks way better. LOL it also make my iPhone 4s screen look so small!

Yea, I see this effect all the time with terrible screen protectors.

I was gonna ask in that article did it have a screen protector on? Ever since my Droid 1, I dont use them anymore. To me it just takes something away from the screen.

it's not THAT bad in the screenshot in OP. you can see some Pentile there, but it doesn't look like it has that effect as the image above.

i can prob agree greggebhardt is right in that the SGS2 colors on the screen may be over the top. i have yet to put the GNex beside an iPhone though.

icedog said:

Yea, I see this effect all the time with terrible screen protectors.

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Definitely! The steinheil screen protector had this effect on my Droid X. It took some getting use to, I'll tell you that much. It was like a matte finish.

I removed it today.....holy ~~~~ !! What a large difference it made. The screen looks so much sharper and crisp now. Never going back to screen protectors again. What is the point nowadays with Gorilla Glass anyway?

Like with the endless Pentile debates that have been going on since last year.... I'm gonna say depending on ones viewing distance and how good your eyesight is....or just what you are sensitive to, can see real good....

It will either be noticeable (very or barely) or not noticeable. Everyone will have their own take and what they see or dont see. All I know is on my RAZR.....if held a lil closer than I normally use it, and specific instances...I can either barely see it or not see it at all.

Up close....I can see it real good.

If I had to guess, I'd suspect that's a function of the PenTile panel's internal algorithm. Since the panel is made up of consecutive pairs of Red-Green and Blue-Green pixels, it takes a lot of processing across areas of pixels to average out a close enough approximation to what the app or system is trying to display.

On a traditional RGB panel, when a program says "show a Blue pixel at coordinate (100,75)" then that's exactly what you get. But on an RGBG PenTile panel, if a program issues the same command, it lands on a pixel that only has Red and Green subpixels, so it has to borrow some blue from the surrounding Blue-Green pixels.

The above may not explain what's happening in this particular case, but it's possible.

monitron said:

A quick update: Chris Ziegler posted a macro picture of the screen which shows the color noise effect. He assures us that this one is "unretouched." You can see it here. It seems...rather noticeable.

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Oh, I just saw this newest pic. Looks like tiny distortions in the glass, or maybe some humidity issue? It's not evenly distributed noise like the first pic.

I think that's got screen protector or it must be defective unit. There is no such screen shot from other reviewers.

Sandroidfan said:

I think that's got screen protector or it must be defective unit. There is no such screen shot from other reviewers.

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ROTFL, good call. A screen protector would certainly be the Occam's razor explanation.

JWellington said:

Definitely! The steinheil screen protector had this effect on my Droid X. It took some getting use to, I'll tell you that much. It was like a matte finish.

I removed it today.....holy ~~~~ !! What a large difference it made. The screen looks so much sharper and crisp now. Never going back to screen protectors again. What is the point nowadays with Gorilla Glass anyway?

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Indeed, screen protectors are totally a waste of money these days. Even if the glass wasn't as resilient, I would rather have scratches on my screen than that ugly noise!

Pentile Scamtrix is INSTANTLY visible the moment you pick up the phone if you are coming from an iPhone 4 or even the low resolution SGS2.

+5 insightful: Excellent summary monitron. Hope you like the new phone!

Saw a G Nex yesterday. Noticed immediately what The Verge posted about. I noticed that before noticing any possible Pentile issues. Someone else was showing me the phone while they held it.

Its looked sparkly, glittery. Didnt ask the guy if it had a screen protector on it tho.

Joined this forum just to talk about this one issue.

I bought a Galaxy Nexus a couple of days ago and this is just killing me. I think everyone here is missing the point about this noisy screen issue. I notice it when I'm reading the web and it really doesn't bother me at all - it almost looks like the webpage or app has a 'paper' texture to it. Depending on your tastes it could almost be considered aesthetically novel.

The really nasty bit about this is that the black levels are so bad. I read my phone at night in bed before going to sleep and the blacks look just terrible. Here's a picture I took to give everyone an idea of what I'm talking about:

(uggh - new users can't post urls so go to http(colon)(slash)imgur(period)com(slash)wUyOf )

The leftmost phone is my wife's Nexus S. The phone on the right is my old iPhone 4. The one in the middle is my new Galaxy Nexus. These are all displaying what should be a completely black PNG. You'll notice just how un-AMOLED-like the Galaxy Nexus' AMOLED screen is. This noise make the GN's screen's base black level MUCH brighter than the Nexus S's.

Also, it's UGLY! Look at the weird pattern on the screen - that's not a photo artifact - there's actually weird noise splotches on the screen that are VERY noticeable in a dark setting with a dark screen.

VERY disappointed with this phone. The screen was the big selling point, and it turns out that it's VERY flakey. I'm going to exchange it tomorrow for another one. I'll post here and let everyone know whether I just got a bad unit.

tedm said:

The really nasty bit about this is that the black levels are so bad. I read my phone at night in bed before going to sleep and the blacks look just terrible. Here's a picture I took to give everyone an idea of what I'm talking about:

(uggh - new users can't post urls so go to http(colon)(slash)imgur(period)com(slash)wUyOf )

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FYI, the full-size image is here and the splotches are hard to see, as the huge 10MP image has been compressed down to only 86KB.

Suggest you preview another Nexus at the store by asking if there's some dark closet or bathroom you can test it in before going through all the trouble to activate it, switch over your accounts, bring it home, etc. Or maybe bring an opaque bag -- long as they don't think you're stealing it!

I read in bed w/my Rezound and am perfectly happy with it, and its LCD's blacks are probably as awful as the iPhone's there. Hope you end up with a phone that'll make you happy.

Someone in this discussion thread took a much better picture of this problem on his GNex:

http(colon)(slash)(slash)www(period)google(period)com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=3046ef8fbc73788b&hl=en

BlueBiker said:

FYI, the full-size image is here and the splotches are hard to see, as the huge 10MP image has been compressed down to only 86KB.

Suggest you preview another Nexus at the store by asking if there's some dark closet or bathroom you can test it in before going through all the trouble to activate it, switch over your accounts, bring it home, etc. Or maybe bring an opaque bag -- long as they don't think you're stealing it!

I read in bed w/my Rezound and am perfectly happy with it, and its LCD's blacks are probably as awful as the iPhone's there. Hope you end up with a phone that'll make you happy.

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What's so frustrating about this is that this is a fantastic phone with a fantastic OS, otherwise. And the screen, while it has these ugly splotches, still has a pretty good black-level. I think I'm going to take your advice and bring a black plastic bag with me to the store when I exchange it.

tedm said:

Someone in this discussion thread took a much better picture of this problem on his GNex:

http(colon)(slash)(slash)www(period)google(period)com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=3046ef8fbc73788b&hl=en

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Clickables:

The screen of my Galaxy Nexus appears to be grainy in low light/brightness. Is this normal? - Google Mobile Help

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Screen Faults - Sunny Shirazian - Picasa Web Albums

tedm said:

What's so frustrating about this is that this is a fantastic phone with a fantastic OS, otherwise. And the screen, while it has these ugly splotches, still has a pretty good black-level. I think I'm going to take your advice and bring a black plastic bag with me to the store when I exchange it.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a pretty amazing phone in most ways. Hope it works out for you!