S24 Display Quality & AOD Missing Options

[Locoblade]

Hi All

I've just got my S24+ today to upgrade my trusty but ageing S10+ having not strayed from Samsung for almost 10 years. Naturally I was hoping it would be an upgrade in all departments but although on the whole it is, there's several annoying and unexpected downgrades that are making me seriously question whether it's actually worth spending quite a bit of money to change.

Firstly, the screen although pin sharp is really washed out. Even in vivid mode the colours are dull and the blacks are significantly more grey than the S10 screen, and even look washed out when put alongside my wife's budget spec A52! I've played around with brightness and colour tone etc but I can't dial it out, and my cousin who's got an S24 Ultra said exactly the same when comparing it against the S22 it's replacing.

Then there's some bizarre features missing from OneUI 6.1, the ones I've noticed so far are specifically in the Always On Display settings.  I use AOD to display as a bedside clock,  with my S10 and also in OneUI 6.0 / Android 14 on the A52 you can rotate the AOD to landscape orientation and control the brightness, you could even do the latter from the AOD lock screen by tapping twice on the clock to access the brightness slider. In OneUI 6.1 unless I'm missing something it seems all that functionality is missing, the brightness of the AOD is linked to the main screen brightness setting which is far too bright for overnight use, and you can't set it to landscape mode which I'd prefer when on it's horizontal night stand next to the bed. Why this functionality would be omitted I have no idea, but it's really annoying! Please someone enlighten me to some hidden menu somewhere that fixes all these issues?! 🙂

[ricarva]

Just to add my voice to this: my unit is also affected, even if it's one of the milder cases I've seen. 

On Reddit there are many examples of bad displays, and not a single good one; makes me believe that this issue is present on all devices, and either an egregious QA fail at Samsung Display,  or a known tradeoff of some sort and therefore a "feature" of these displays.

[rpride84]

Yeah I have this grainy issue when viewing the phone in the dark as well. S24U

[Members_Xp95Dzt]

I have returned the phone

[GeorgioT]

Return it. These issues are being ignored my samsung 

[vikramshenoy]

In case you are wondering if you have the Grainy display issue or not, and i am sure you do, there's a simple process. Go to settings, and take a screenshot. Then upload it on a drive or anywhere where the image will not be compressed and open it on something that's not an S24U. Maybe a newer One Plus or S23U or lower. You will see the Grey bubbles behind the text are solid in colour, while on the S24U they look much grainier in comparison. 

Similar complication on my S24U. Apart from that
- Washed out display colours, which we know now from a video that multiple other coloured pixels are lighting up such as greens with the red when a solid red colour is opened, etc
- Terrible Cameras. They are very bad. I made a comparison 10T vs S24U video. 
- Crashes here and there, but that's still okay. 

This cannot be a hardware level issue as the Service centre in Mumbai denies any issues and calls it new technology. 

I regret making this purchase

[dubripper]

My phone also has the grain/mura issue. As well as the gradient banding

[PinheadSupreme]

This is a serious problem. I hope Samsung addresses it in a proactive manner. Like replace the defective phone ASAP. Send me a good one and I'll send this defect back in the same box.

[Members_qKb741u]

It's a shame

[userHemIqiThxY]

Mine screen is grainy and I have banding too. Samsung customer support didn't help me.

[Rhinotsoplots]

***PLEASE LIKE/HEART THIS POST IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THE GALAXY S24 WITH THE GRAINY DISPLAY AND/OR COLOR BANDING. THE INTENT OF THIS POST IS TO BRING AWARENESS TO SAMSUNG ABOUT THIS ISSUE***

I believe the Samsung community demands a response for the grainy display issue and color banding issue, and Samsung customer service must not try to brush off the issue by saying this was intentional for "eye comfort," as they have tried to give me and a previous poster on the Samsung Member app the same response.

SAMSUNG, PLEASE HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS RESOLVE THEIR PROBLEM BY EITHER EXTENDING THEIR RETURN WINDOW OR PROVIDING THEM WITH NON-DEFECTIVE S24 REPLACEMENTS AT NO ADDITIONAL COST OR LOSS IN PROMOTIONAL DEALS FOR PEOPLE THAT PRE-ORDERED.

There are many reports on here that have not received the proper attention. The issue is very much real and many people are reporting this issue on multiple websites. DxOMark, a professional electronic reviewing company, has done testing for uniform luminosity on the S24 Ultra display and has shown that it is not as uniform as the S23 Ultra's display. This issue is known as "mura," which can be caused by variations in the manufacturing process or material degradation over time, affecting the display's ability to produce consistent colors and brightness levels across its surface.

I will attach multiple links to videos and websites that discuss this issue affecting many Samsung S24 user's displays. Some people went into depth to look at the screen at a microscopic level and others show this issue at a macro level. I will also attach my photos of the S24 Ultra next to the S23 Ultra at low brightness.

If you have photos or video recordings of your phone having this issue, I invite you to please include them as attachments or links so we have concrete evidence from the community to present to Samsung. You can usually see this issue manifest when your phone is in dark mode and the phone is on low brightness, especially with grey and green backgrounds. Extra dim also makes the grain even more apparent.

In an effort to help Samsung analyze the root of this problem, it may be useful to provide the manufacturing date (found on S24 box) of your device and where it was produced ("Device Info" app can help with this). In my case, my device was manufactured in Vietnam on 1/8/24. Hopefully we see a pattern for affected devices. 

Links:

Poll of users affected by the grainy display issue on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS24/comments/1ac8oxd/people_with_s24_can_you_confirm_if_you_see_a/

S24 Ultra display analyzed and compared to S23 Ultra and iPhone under a 400x optical microscope:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS24Ultra/comments/1ajziic/comment/kpdyqtd/

DxOMark uniformity test of S24 display:

https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-s24-ultra-display-test/

DxOMark uniformity test of S23 display:

https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-s23-ultra-display-test/

Video of S24 Ultra display compared to S23 Ultra and iPhone displays:

https://youtu.be/hK76mmrBkJM?si=NO6_WYDVMjwNktFa

Edit 1: Adding link for a potential relationship with the grain display issue. Video claims to have looked at the S24U under a microscopic and saw that in pure red, green, and blue colors, other colors are being activated (white light leak through). So this could be a graphics driver related issue. While this is related more to the washed out colors of the screen, it could relate the grain.

https://youtu.be/fS0OjQJ8MGE?si=Jq9kGqd2VcBtfius

Personal Phone Issue:

My S24 Ultra grainy display and color banding:

The same 3 color banding spots and mura are consistent in the YouTube video from a reviewer, DxOMark's luminance uniformity test for the S24 Ultra, and my phone.

Personal Device - S24 Ultra Low Brightness, Grey Screen 

Personal Device - S24 Ultra Low Brightness, Green Screen

DxOMark's Luminance Uniformity Test