Ironically, display flicker was a
common complaint for Zune HD's. Supposedly, Microsoft even (supposedly)
acknowledged it as a problem with the OLED screen. (See comments)
Oh please.
It's not ironic in the slightest because it's utterly dissimilar. The Zune HD flicker was true flicker (actually, more of a "scrolling lines of lower luminance" as I recall it) that occurred under complete different conditions. Like most others, I only noticed it when transferring data, i.e. while loading web pages, and it could be all but eliminated by increasing the backlight level, which I would have done anyway. IOW, it was completely unlike what I described for the iPod Touch, which I said "can look like flicker" when inadvertently causing the device to move in space when tapping the screen. The Zune HD display has much, much, much better viewing angles than the Touch. I do not recall ever thinking, "Gee these viewing angles suck!" in the 11 months I owned my Zune HD, but it's something I noticed immediately with the Touch and I continue to notice on an ongoing basis with the Touch. I decided I can live with it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck, because it does. Love the Retina display resolution, and the colors look fine, though. Also, the Touch has yet to let me down on gapless playback, I can create and EDIT playlists on the Touch, iTunes 10 is much faster so far than the Zune software on my large collection, iTunes hasn't yet silently updated hidden metadata, wrecking last-modified dates and forcing larger backups, and iTunes hasn't stupidly married itself to Windows 7 "Libraries". Those are the main reasons I dumped Zune forever and bought my first Apple product since 1994, which, ironically (for real, as we're talking about display issues), was a 17" Apple-branded Trinitron monitor I used with my PCs for the next few years. For these benefits, I can live with the Touch's poor viewing angles. Hopefully they'll fix it next year, and I'll sell it to someone who cares even less about the viewing angles.
Are you talking about backlights being directional? That's the only thing I can think that you're talking about. That's kind of an effect of, well, having backlit portable displays. I don't notice it if I'm just holding and using it normally. I really find it hard to believe you're seeing it in a brightly lit Apple store, especially manifested as anything approaching "flicker."
I'm sure I attracted some attention as I shielded the Touch with my dark clothing and body. But that's OK.
Please note also that I didn't say I saw something resembling flicker in the Apple Store. What I said was, "Whatever the case, every Touch I've seen including the ~ 10 on display at the local Apple Store had the poor viewing angles with extreme sensitivity to minute changes in viewing angle." And that's a fact. As someone who bought a spare NEC 20WMGX2 monitor in mid-2007 when it became clear monitor manufacturers were moving en masse to cheap TN panels for the then-foreseeable future, viewing angle is something I take seriously, and I'm amused I'm being challenged to this extent concerning what I described for the Touch. But hey, I've never heard even a remotely silent refrigerator either, or a quiet stock Nvidia card with a fan, etc. There's no shortage of people who say they have, though.
No doubt it's the same with display issues.
Please try to read and respond more carefully. You perceived irony where there was none, and you've tried to put words in my mouth. If I were to reply to myself, I would sarcastically say, "Did you really expect any different?"
