Another Disaster?
Samsung Electronics’ smartphone business depends on the Galaxy S8, but the latest handset has come under fire for a quality issue even before it hits market shelves. As its previous model Galaxy Note 7 battery fires forced the company to discontinue the handset shortly after it was released, Samsung Electronics will be hard hit when the quality problem grows.
Some customers who preordered the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus and had the phone delivered beginning April 13 wrote on online communities and portal sites on April 18 that their new handsets have excessive red tints on the screen.
They said that the red hue seems to be worse in certain areas, especially towards the top and bottom and the sides.
Considering the fact that multiple customers are facing a “red tint” issue with their Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphones, the situation can be magnified significantly. Some Internet users said, “The display on the Galaxy S8 has definitely a reddish tint,” paying attention to Samsung Electronics’ response.
Amid the growing controversy, “Galaxy S8 Red Screen” was one of the top search terms on Naver, South Korea's largest search engine, and Internet users on many online communities sarcastically dubbed the S8 series the “cherry blossom edition” and “red gate.”
Some Internet users also posted how to check whether you have a reddish panel. You can dial *#7353# and choose 8.TSP Dot Mode to test and see if your device also suffers from red discoloration.
This isn’t the first time that consumers have pointed out the reddish tint of the Galaxy phones. The Galaxy Note7, which also had an AMOLED screen, was subject to similar feedback from consumers when it was released in September last year. This is why experts say the color issue is a side effect of AMOLED, or active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, displays.
Unlike liquid-crystal display (LCD) smartphone panels using three subpixels per pixel – red, green and blue, the Galaxy S8’s Super AMOLED panel has the Pentile arrangement using two subpixels – red-green and blue-green. On the AMOLED panel, more than two pixels are required to have full color but this may pose the risk of having a color balance problem.
An official from the industry said, “The Galaxy Note7 also had the red screen issue last year, and this is largely due to the characteristics of Super AMOLED displays. It can be fixed in the phone's settings menu. If the color still appears to be reddish even after the adjustment, it can be a defective product.” Some experts say that the chip which adjusts colors on the screen is the main cause of the issue. They say that the deviation of some chips supplied by specific providers causes red tints on the screen.
In this regard, Samsung Electronics said, “Colors on the screen can vary depending on the angle or the environment. They may appear distorted. This is not a defect but just a matter of settings, something that can be adjusted by the user.”
Apart from the reddish tint issue, Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 is facing complaints from global consumers about the use of its Bixby button being limited only to the operation of voice assistant Bixby.