refurbished iPhones (5K) are yellow tinted. Some (61) are too. Unfortunately if you live in the US, you will be getting a warmer tinted screen.
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Blue Tint vs Yellow Tint Iphone 4 Screen - Short Review/Comparison (Shocker Alert)
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refurbished iPhones (5K) are yellow tinted. Some (61) are too. Unfortunately if you live in the US, you will be getting a warmer tinted screen.
(I live in the UK)
So if I send my replacement back all I'm going to get is another yellow tinted one?
Why are all the refurbs yellow?
Im not sure about the UK. Ive heard a ton of people getting a normal screen as a replacement.
Call Applecare and tell them all this. Ask for a senior advisor...advanced replacement, ect. They will take care of you.
Mine Too...
Smokers Tint!
Apple just replaced my almost 1 year old iPhone4 with a replacement hardware due to the audio going dead through every output. My original screen was flawless and the rest of the phone was fully operable. I am completely thankful for Apple having replaced it but I happened to get the yellow tint "warmer" screen too - 5k serial number. It's been 24 hours and I notice it every time I pick it up! I'm wanting to call the Apple Store and ask them to recover my old screen and replace it. LOL, I know that's a bit much but i have thought it.
I'm sure I'll get use to it but mail, safari and a couple other apps I regularly use have white backgrounds. sigh. Colors are a bit more vibrant, I guess...
I will say that when I brought it home from the store the tint was a bit more yellow but after I restored it from a backup it seemed to whiten up a bit. Is there a color profile file somewhere that can be manipulated to whiten up the smokers tint?
Smokers Tint!
Apple just replaced my almost 1 year old iPhone4 with a replacement hardware due to the audio going dead through every output. My original screen was flawless and the rest of the phone was fully operable. I am completely thankful for Apple having replaced it but I happened to get the yellow tint "warmer" screen too - 5k serial number. It's been 24 hours and I notice it every time I pick it up! I'm wanting to call the Apple Store and ask them to recover my old screen and replace it. LOL, I know that's a bit much but i have thought it.
I'm sure I'll get use to it but mail, safari and a couple other apps I regularly use have white backgrounds. sigh. Colors are a bit more vibrant, I guess...
I will say that when I brought it home from the store the tint was a bit more yellow but after I restored it from a backup it seemed to whiten up a bit. Is there a color profile file somewhere that can be manipulated to whiten up the smokers tint?
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My first replacement a few weeks ago had a yellowish tint. It wasn't so bad, I got used to it. But that phone developed a problem with the home button and Verizon sent me another replacement. This one has no yellow tint at all. Much happier now. Not all the replacements have yellow tint as some people are claiming.
After all this trouble and bickering I finally have 2 Iphones side by side in the comfort of my home to compare.
1x 16gb Iphone 4 week 44 (Blue Tint) (My girlfriend)
1x 32gb Iphone 4 week 36 (Yellow Tint) (Mine)
Set both to max brightness:
Blue Tint:
- appears brighter
- more "White" when on the brightness screen settings
- when tilted to its side and there were no apparent "Light Bleed"
Yellow Tint:
- appears less bright
- less "White"
- when tilted LED backlit can be seen. However, only when looking at this extreme angle. Less extreme angle this is not an issue and should not be of a concern for both Screen Tints
Here's a thread describing what I mean by "tilted to side":
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1030940/
Here is what's really surprising
Colors:
Many look at the white screen and think the Blue Tint is a superior screen to the "Yellow Screen" but I exclusively own only IPS screens for my desktop, TV, and laptop and have compare many screens for color reproduction as well as the famous IPS viewing angles.
To do this comparison, the wallpaper settings was use for the many photos as well as Iphone dead pixel test for solid one color (black, red, blue, etc...). The lights was turned off so to get the full effects of the comparison.
Result:
Wow...the yellow screen reproduced color very accurate like an IPS screen should. Blacks look black, yellows are yellows, etc..., pictures are detailed and color accurate.
Blue Tint screen is a tiny bit of a disappointment. Colors look a little washed out. Blacks appear to have tint of gray. Color reproduction was off and not as accurate as the yellow screen. Only the blank white screen appears to be more vibrant but I suspect this is due to its unnatural color reproduction of "White".
Conclusion:
The "Yellow Tint" many of you have complained about (including myself) is not an issue but in actuality a blessing. The "Yellow Tint" has superior color reproduction...Whites, blacks, red, yellow, etc...you name it. However, on initial encounter the "Blue Tint" will appear whiter, brighter, and is reminiscent of TN screen technology and will offer an instant gratification that it is a superior screen but in fact the opposite. However, those who appreciate brightness more than color accuracy should be content with the "Blue Tint" while those who are more picture/graphical directed should opt for the "Yellow Tint". Either screen will be fine for Smart Phone operations but I prefer the "Yellow Tint" and my GF likes the "Whiter-Blue Tint"...Win Win.
PS: I will have pictures up once I can get my hands on a camera so you all can see both screens side by side.
Shocker Alert?
I got my iPhone 4 replaced on Wednesday (it was a new one, not a 5K one) and I too have the yellow tint screen. Even though my previous iPhone had a blue tinted screen, I'm kinda digging the yellow tint. The colors seem to pop out more on this one rather than the blue one. The blue tint does make the colors more vivid, but the yellow tint makes the colors pop. I originally was gonna get it checked out with a genius, but now I'm thinking about cancelling the appointment and sticking with it.
Alright so for the two of you that care, I went ahead and kept the appointment and went to the genius. I showed the dude my yellow tinted iPhone to my brother's iPhone who has the blue tint. They went ahead and replaced it but with a refurbished one this time. But the one they gave me I think is better I think. The screen is better quality and more on the neutral side than yellow or blue. Overall I'm glad I swapped it out.
Nice to see long time users on here finally seeing it too.
Really is a huge shame about these yellow phones
I just got a replacement, and I'm thinking of getting it exchanged again. The first one had an extreme yellow tint to it, then they replaced it with one that wasn't so bad....until I compared it to my other friends. I can't seem to get over this, but I feel like I'm being extremely annoying/rude if I book a genius bar appointment and make them open several boxes until I get the right color screen. What should I do?
Perhaps you should stop making a mountain out of a molehill. Stop comparing it to everyone else's device.
I don't know or care if my iPhone is yellow, blue, purple, green, or fluorescent beige. It doesn't affect how I view it and it looks perfectly fine.
I don't know or care if my iPhone is yellow, blue, purple, green, or fluorescent beige. It doesn't affect how I view it and it looks perfectly fine.
That may be true for YOU. We all paid a lot of money for these phones, so some of us actually care about what we pay for, and we pay for quality, consistency, and reliability.
The Apple Quality Assurance Department must have forgotten how much people pay for these devices, or fail to take random samplings of manufactured panels from the variety of LCD panel manufacturers that Apple uses.
Either way, it's a quality control issue Apple can't seem to isolate and mitigate.
Totally your opinion.
Now think of it this way. Look at the iPhone replacements compared to the displays. Now why is it that EVERY display is the SAME EXACT tint and the replacements are so much different??
EVERY single iPod Touch and iPhone in the Apple Store is tinted blue. EVERY single one of them. If your display is tinted yellow, it is CLEARLY faulty. I personally don't care enough to make a genius open like 40 boxes to find a perfect one, but it is annoying to have a gross yellow tint to the screen, I would know because mine is tinted slightly yellow. Also, I don't need some bullsh** excuse as to why it's that color. Glue is still drying? Give me a break. When using LED backlighting and rush manufacturing, stuff like this is going to happen.
If it bothers you so much and you take it to get it replaced only to have the genius tell you that, that's normal, just drag him over to one of the displays in the store and then ask why they're all tinted blue and you have a dirty teabag yellow. I'm sure you'll get a solid replacement.
Like I said it is very annoying to have washed out whites on your display, it isn't suppose to be like that, and I don't care if professionally calibrated monitors are that color. The iPhone isn't suppose to have that color. Just look at the ones in the store.
If it bothers you so much and you take it to get it replaced only to have the genius tell you that, that's normal, just drag him over to one of the displays in the store and then ask why they're all tinted blue and you have a dirty teabag yellow. I'm sure you'll get a solid replacement.
Like I said it is very annoying to have washed out whites on your display, it isn't suppose to be like that, and I don't care if professionally calibrated monitors are that color. The iPhone isn't suppose to have that color. Just look at the ones in the store.
Measured color temps with Colorimeter
On verge of returning my iPhone 4s for the "yellow tint" issue, I wanted to actually know what the color temperature was for both my original iPhone 4 and the 4s. Using a Spyder 3 colorimeter along with software (from datacolor.com) I measured the values.
Using a [flashlight] app on both iPhones, I could set a full screen of pure white and adjust brightness to any value 1-100% in 1% increments. The SpyderElite software includes a colorimeter function that usually is used to take spot readings on computer monitor, but can take real time readings of any screen the device is placed on.
Bear in mind most photographers (and software for monitor calibration) suggest or defaults to a color temperature of 6500 degrees Kelvin, which is considered close to the value of "daylight" when correlating to monitor screens. Also, many (or most) digital cameras are standardized to this value (for their screen displays), and the sRGB standard, commonly used for images on the Internet (and usually now embedded in JPG files from most digital cameras,) stipulate 6500 K for display device's color temperature setting. The lower the Kelvin temperature, the warmer (more yellow or red) the color, the higher the value, the cooler (more blue) the color.
The values I measured are as follows:
Brightness ____Color temperature
100%_________9,027 K
75%__________8,877 K
50%__________8,751 K
25%__________8,859 K
Brightness ____Color temperature
100%_________7,152 K
75%__________7,076 K
50%__________7,052 K
25%__________6,989 K
Personal preferences, of course, dictate how we "like" to see our colors, but certainly in my case, I became accustomed to what turned out to be a far cooler and "bluer" color temperature than I would have expected on the original iPhone 4, which made the 4s seem so much more "yellow" in comparison. The measurements bear this out. However, I now find myself wondering if I had started out with the warmer screen of the 4s to begin with, whether a new phone with a much bluer color temperature might be just as annoying (at least initially.)
Human eyes and our brains do accommodate the ambient color temperature of light so that "white" still is perceived to be white, even when it actually can vary greatly in color temperature. Having just performed my measurements, I am reevaluating whether the iPhone 4s "yellow" screen is really a 'defect' for me, or whether perhaps it's actually better because it renders images closer to the photographic and sRGB "standard" than the original iPhone 4. I still don't know what I actually prefer, but I hope by providing actual measurements, this issue can be better understood and discussed qualitatively.
On verge of returning my iPhone 4s for the "yellow tint" issue, I wanted to actually know what the color temperature was for both my original iPhone 4 and the 4s. Using a Spyder 3 colorimeter along with software (from datacolor.com) I measured the values.
Using a [flashlight] app on both iPhones, I could set a full screen of pure white and adjust brightness to any value 1-100% in 1% increments. The SpyderElite software includes a colorimeter function that usually is used to take spot readings on computer monitor, but can take real time readings of any screen the device is placed on.
Bear in mind most photographers (and software for monitor calibration) suggest or defaults to a color temperature of 6500 degrees Kelvin, which is considered close to the value of "daylight" when correlating to monitor screens. Also, many (or most) digital cameras are standardized to this value (for their screen displays), and the sRGB standard, commonly used for images on the Internet (and usually now embedded in JPG files from most digital cameras,) stipulate 6500 K for display device's color temperature setting. The lower the Kelvin temperature, the warmer (more yellow or red) the color, the higher the value, the cooler (more blue) the color.
The values I measured are as follows:
iPhone 4
screen
Brightness ____Color temperature
100%_________9,027 K
75%__________8,877 K
50%__________8,751 K
25%__________8,859 K
iPhone 4s
screen
Brightness ____Color temperature
100%_________7,152 K
75%__________7,076 K
50%__________7,052 K
25%__________6,989 K
Personal preferences, of course, dictate how we "like" to see our colors, but certainly in my case, I became accustomed to what turned out to be a far cooler and "bluer" color temperature than I would have expected on the original iPhone 4, which made the 4s seem so much more "yellow" in comparison. The measurements bear this out. However, I now find myself wondering if I had started out with the warmer screen of the 4s to begin with, whether a new phone with a much bluer color temperature might be just as annoying (at least initially.)
Human eyes and our brains do accommodate the ambient color temperature of light so that "white" still is perceived to be white, even when it actually can vary greatly in color temperature. Having just performed my measurements, I am reevaluating whether the iPhone 4s "yellow" screen is really a 'defect' for me, or whether perhaps it's actually better because it renders images closer to the photographic and sRGB "standard" than the original iPhone 4. I still don't know what I actually prefer, but I hope by providing actual measurements, this issue can be better understood and discussed qualitatively.
You've obviously never worked for a well known company that has an extremely high reputation for great customer service
Great research and overview on this whole issue! I too have the so called "yellow" hue on my iPhone 4S but I've grown to it I guess. It does seem to reproduce colors more accurately than the other 4/4S I've compared it to but I should also note that my 4S isn't too yellow either.
I guess it all comes down to your preference and what color temperature you prefer. In my case I preferred the cooler hue but this slightly yellow hue ain't too bad either.
Fantastic research with the colorimeter!
It confirms something I've noticed which is that the cool white-bluish screens look quite blue after working with the warmer yellowish ones. Plus, put them side by side and the whitish-blue ones can look markedly blue!
If you still have the colorimeter, I'm wondering if you won't find different results depending on external lighting conditions. For example, under incandescent vs. natural lighting. I've often noticed the yellowish one doing better under different conditions.
Also, it'd be interesting to see what the results were like--not for purely white screen--but for, say, a Huffington Post news story, that includes black text.
I've ended up agreeing with you on the photographs--can look more pure in the warmer screen-- however, hold the iPhone up against the actual item--and the photo looks yellower!
Now, a major factor in all this is people's eyes. Those with aging eyes (any middle-aged person or older) are likely to have some incipient cataracts and focusing issues. The cataracts make things yellower-- so I'd imagine that a whiter-blue screen could offset some of that.
All of this changes as well with brightness level of the screen.
I used an iPod Touch for years, with a whitish-blue screen and so prefer that on the iPhone. But I really think that one can get used the warmer screen and even like it--and find that the whitish-blue screens are then outrageously blue!
It confirms something I've noticed which is that the cool white-bluish screens look quite blue after working with the warmer yellowish ones. Plus, put them side by side and the whitish-blue ones can look markedly blue!
If you still have the colorimeter, I'm wondering if you won't find different results depending on external lighting conditions. For example, under incandescent vs. natural lighting. I've often noticed the yellowish one doing better under different conditions.
Also, it'd be interesting to see what the results were like--not for purely white screen--but for, say, a Huffington Post news story, that includes black text.
I've ended up agreeing with you on the photographs--can look more pure in the warmer screen-- however, hold the iPhone up against the actual item--and the photo looks yellower!
Now, a major factor in all this is people's eyes. Those with aging eyes (any middle-aged person or older) are likely to have some incipient cataracts and focusing issues. The cataracts make things yellower-- so I'd imagine that a whiter-blue screen could offset some of that.
All of this changes as well with brightness level of the screen.
I used an iPod Touch for years, with a whitish-blue screen and so prefer that on the iPhone. But I really think that one can get used the warmer screen and even like it--and find that the whitish-blue screens are then outrageously blue!
My first iphone 4s was a teeeeny bit more yellow than my current one. my current one I wouldn't classify as blue by any means... but there was a slight difference between the two.
Would I have ever known otherwise? no. Would I have cared? Some people are way too picky.
Would I have ever known otherwise? no. Would I have cared? Some people are way too picky.
I purchased an iPhone 4 through Verizon back in August. Decided to switch carriers and just received a refurbished iPhone 4 through AT&T. Both were black, 16gb. When I turned on the newest phone it looked weird to me. It looked whitewashed, not so much yellow I guess, just dull. I compared the two phones side by side and there is a very big noticeable difference. To me the first phone had deeper colors, the blue definitely bluer. I have photos I took in the Petrified Forest National park, and on the newest phone they look like crap. For me to notice the difference immediately and before comparing the phones together says something. I'm not super tech savvy. I do wonder if the screen color will change with use over time. Like it would need to be broken in? I'm curious if anyone who had noticed a difference waited before they brought it back.
When buying anything Apple you come to expect the best quality. It's pretty disappointing seeing the inconsistency. I don't pay top dollar for a phone and service just to say "Hey, I'll just learn to deal with it" If you're not happy with anything by all means don't settle! If you feel that it's "just a phone" then why don't you just get a Blackberry..or even better, a cheap Motorola.
When buying anything Apple you come to expect the best quality. It's pretty disappointing seeing the inconsistency. I don't pay top dollar for a phone and service just to say "Hey, I'll just learn to deal with it" If you're not happy with anything by all means don't settle! If you feel that it's "just a phone" then why don't you just get a Blackberry..or even better, a cheap Motorola.
I am waiting for the jailbreak because there is a color profile program that will fix this
http://modmyi.com/content/6490-review-change-color-profile-your-idevice-display.html
any day now
not sure if it will fix it like my old iphone 4 screen just hopping for better than what it is, I personally think the 4 screen is far superior than my 4S, viewing angles and looking at it threw polarized sunglasses suck on the 4S and perfect on the 4 (well maybe not suck but just not as good)
http://modmyi.com/content/6490-review-change-color-profile-your-idevice-display.html
any day now
not sure if it will fix it like my old iphone 4 screen just hopping for better than what it is, I personally think the 4 screen is far superior than my 4S, viewing angles and looking at it threw polarized sunglasses suck on the 4S and perfect on the 4 (well maybe not suck but just not as good)
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Have had 4 iPhone 4S's. One of them was yellow. I got them to exchange it and luckily the last was not, it was a ever so slight blue, much better than the nicotine stained yellow.
Left is stained. I don't care if some people are annoyed that I don't like the yellow screens. Good, have your yellow and smile at it all day.
Left is stained. I don't care if some people are annoyed that I don't like the yellow screens. Good, have your yellow and smile at it all day.
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store or phone and sent it to you? New or refurb?
Thats what mine looks like and I'm not a happy camper at all with it