Hi all,
I wanted to make a small contribution to this thread and also have it serve as a warning of sorts for those who are picky like me.
Long story short, I've switched my new iPhone for retail exchanges 7 times already for a myriad of reasons. The underlining reason was the screen being yellow/green hue/tinted but as more were open, other issues were tacked on (loose home button, major scratches out of the box, severe LCD bleeding from the top). I had given up at this point but decided to try one more time after watching the giants win the world series and I finally got a winner.
My warning: For those of you in the bay area(or otherwise probably), watch out for the 78-86 factory build in the week 43/44 period. They all use an inferior LCD panel. It's ridiculously apparent. Make sure you check your phone with the floor samples before leaving... NOT ONE phone at each of the 4 stores in the bay area have a yellow screen as a demo unit(thats more than 40 "clear phones"). Make sure you state this fact if you happen to open one with a yellow screen. The screen brightness / colors are so off on these inferior panels that it borders on false advertising when you compare the two phones together side by side.
Tell tale signs of a bad screen (all the yellow ones have these issues, I'm sure of it):
1.) White looks yellow, blue looks green no matter what you are looking at. You can use other iphones to compare blue stuff like the appstore icon or just grab your macbook and load the same images. I suggest using the wallpaper that looks like a shore wave (blue) to compare. I also suggest using http://www.theipadguide.com/content/ipad-dead-pixel-test-how/7171269 to save the color images and compare.
2.) All bad screens have blotchy light bleeding when you look at the top of the screen from the bottom up at a tilted back angle. What I mean is you will see a wave of light bleeds. The good screens on the floor samples and in the hands of luckier users do NOT have any light bleed whatsoever. Use the white screen or even the settings menu, tilt the phone backwards, and look at the seem of the top part of the LCD. You can't miss it if you have it... and once you see it, you can't unsee it. You'll notice your top bar displaying uneven colors due to the light bleeding through in wave form.
3.) All bad screens have uneven coloring, most likely due to the severe light bleeding mentioned above. You can instantly notice it if you take your phone and go to the settings->brightness menu. Since there are no buttons/bars to distract you, you can see the striped background and clearly see the color difference from top to bottom (bottom right usually being really yellow/dark).
I finally got a phone that resembles the floor sample (and other friend's phones who purchased at launch). The "good" screens seem a bit more red in general, but the luminance is much higher and light bleed on the edges is nonexistent. The interesting thing is... you can see a good panel vs a bad panel before you even turn on the phone. The panels just have a different hue even when OFF! Anyway... happy hunting and hope none of you have or get yellow screens... and if you do, don't settle for it. Make no mistake, the yellow ones ARE inferior... If all the yellow ones didn't exhibit light bleeding and uneven screen lighting, I would just say it's panel variance. That simply isn't the case though...
Edit: the winning phone is a 7U factory week 42 purchased from palo alto.
I wanted to make a small contribution to this thread and also have it serve as a warning of sorts for those who are picky like me.
Long story short, I've switched my new iPhone for retail exchanges 7 times already for a myriad of reasons. The underlining reason was the screen being yellow/green hue/tinted but as more were open, other issues were tacked on (loose home button, major scratches out of the box, severe LCD bleeding from the top). I had given up at this point but decided to try one more time after watching the giants win the world series and I finally got a winner.
My warning: For those of you in the bay area(or otherwise probably), watch out for the 78-86 factory build in the week 43/44 period. They all use an inferior LCD panel. It's ridiculously apparent. Make sure you check your phone with the floor samples before leaving... NOT ONE phone at each of the 4 stores in the bay area have a yellow screen as a demo unit(thats more than 40 "clear phones"). Make sure you state this fact if you happen to open one with a yellow screen. The screen brightness / colors are so off on these inferior panels that it borders on false advertising when you compare the two phones together side by side.
Tell tale signs of a bad screen (all the yellow ones have these issues, I'm sure of it):
1.) White looks yellow, blue looks green no matter what you are looking at. You can use other iphones to compare blue stuff like the appstore icon or just grab your macbook and load the same images. I suggest using the wallpaper that looks like a shore wave (blue) to compare. I also suggest using http://www.theipadguide.com/content/ipad-dead-pixel-test-how/7171269 to save the color images and compare.
2.) All bad screens have blotchy light bleeding when you look at the top of the screen from the bottom up at a tilted back angle. What I mean is you will see a wave of light bleeds. The good screens on the floor samples and in the hands of luckier users do NOT have any light bleed whatsoever. Use the white screen or even the settings menu, tilt the phone backwards, and look at the seem of the top part of the LCD. You can't miss it if you have it... and once you see it, you can't unsee it. You'll notice your top bar displaying uneven colors due to the light bleeding through in wave form.
3.) All bad screens have uneven coloring, most likely due to the severe light bleeding mentioned above. You can instantly notice it if you take your phone and go to the settings->brightness menu. Since there are no buttons/bars to distract you, you can see the striped background and clearly see the color difference from top to bottom (bottom right usually being really yellow/dark).
I finally got a phone that resembles the floor sample (and other friend's phones who purchased at launch). The "good" screens seem a bit more red in general, but the luminance is much higher and light bleed on the edges is nonexistent. The interesting thing is... you can see a good panel vs a bad panel before you even turn on the phone. The panels just have a different hue even when OFF! Anyway... happy hunting and hope none of you have or get yellow screens... and if you do, don't settle for it. Make no mistake, the yellow ones ARE inferior... If all the yellow ones didn't exhibit light bleeding and uneven screen lighting, I would just say it's panel variance. That simply isn't the case though...
Edit: the winning phone is a 7U factory week 42 purchased from palo alto.
x2....
