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mariotr87

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 12, 2011
196
25
Hi guys.

I got an iPhone 4s (64GB, factory unlocked, so it's not cheap...) a couple of weeks ago but I wasn't happy with the front facing camera (sometimes it goes crazy and starts doing strange things, flickering, etc. It's not that common though, but there it is). So they sent me a brand new one, which I got today.

The first thing that I noticed is a couple of small scratches on the band. Annoying, but if everything else is fine...
When I turn on the device I notice that the screen is slightly warmer than mine which by the way is warmer than my iPod's. Too much yellowish I'd say.
But then I saw this, and I put it back in the box...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557201/IMG_0100.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557201/IMG_0097.jpg

The first one is the old iPhone, and the second the new one. There's a strange white band throughout the whole screen where the white "Dropbox" letters are.
The thing is that I can see bands like that one wherever are white letters. Thus, usually the screen is covered by those bands.

I don't know if it's a common issue or not but there you go. I think I won't ask for another replacement and I'm gonna stick with mine. If in the future the front camera issue turns out to be much of a problem then I'll contact Apple. For now, I'm tired of calls, tired of waiting, etc. I must say that the customer service is brilliant, but seriously, they should fix these manufacturing problems. After seeing this one I even feel lucky with mine.
 
The front camera flickering is just a the phone's sensor getting confused by exposures. Usually it happens when you're backlit (i.e. there's a light behind you while you FaceTime etc). I've had several iPhone 4S replacements for different reasons (power button impossible to press, buzzing earpiece etc), and all of them have had a flickering front-camera at SOME point during FaceTime calls, including my latest iPhone 4S, a week 39.

I really don't think there's anything wrong with your original 4S from your description, although the bug is annoying. It certainly wasn't there on my iPhone 4, though the optics for the front camera may have changed manufacturer etc, which is why it's now happening.

Either way, not very impressive, is it?
 
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Doing a Google image search for "dropBox Logo" seems to make me think the white banding is part of their logo image, not a screen effect.

I also searched out some other white on blue logo's (Bluetooth, HP) and couldn't see the effect on my 4S.

Have you tried looking at that logo (as a jpeg) on your PC's screen?
 
here is a screenshot of Dropbox loading up on my iPhone.

img0009v.png
 
The front camera flickering is just a the phone's sensor getting confused by exposures. Usually it happens when you're backlit (i.e. there's a light behind you while you FaceTime etc). I've had several iPhone 4S replacements for different reasons (power button impossible to press, buzzing earpiece etc), and all of them have had a flickering front-camera at SOME point during FaceTime calls, including my latest iPhone 4S, a week 39.

I really don't think there's anything wrong with your original 4S from your description, although the bug is annoying. It certainly wasn't there on my iPhone 4, though the optics for the front camera may have changed manufacturer etc, which is why it's now happening.

Either way, not very impressive, is it?

That's very interesting, I wouldn't have asked for a replacement if I had known that before. But thanks, because now I'm less confused about what to do, I think I'll keep the original iPhone. It's not only flickering though, sometimes it also goes completely dark (you can barely see anything) and you have to hung up and facetime again to fix this, but I guess It's due to the same bug.(have you experienced this?)

Regarding the dropbox logo, it's not the logo. I'll post a couple of pictures of different situations later. It happens with anything white that you have on screen, and I was wondering if anyone has noticed that (my original iPhone 4s doesn't seem to have this problem).

----------

here is a screenshot of Dropbox loading up on my iPhone.

img0009v.png

The screenshot looks great on my laptop, an so does on my original iPhone 4s. But it shows the white band on the replacement one, so there is a problem with this iPhone.
 
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