Black background is anoying! - Galaxy Note II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I really dont understand why samsung uses black backgrounds with grey text as their default and only theme.
I dont know if anyone has mentioned it. but its rediculously terrible to read text on the note when you are outside this way.
Email is by far the worst. even with all battery and background savings off and brightness set to max its almost impossible to see the dark grey email list on a black background when you are outside. New emails dont have a color but are white... so its also impossbile to see if you have new emails when you are outside.
How in the hell could samsung came up with this theme. the blue and black first of all is very ugly and its far from user friendly.
Before my note 2 i had an One X from HTC. i changed to the note because of the very good battery usage time. The One X has white backgrounds for all menus, email and sms. wich makes it perfectly readable even outside. also new emails have a blue color while readed emails are black.
I dont understand why samsung has choosen this stupid color themes for their flagships.
And yes you can invert the colors. but its insane how the rest will look if you enable the inverted colors. Its just stupid!

sygys said:
I really dont understand why samsung uses black backgrounds with grey text as their default and only theme.
I dont know if anyone has mentioned it. but its rediculously terrible to read text on the note when you are outside this way.
Email is by far the worst. even with all battery and background savings off and brightness set to max its almost impossible to see the dark grey email list on a black background when you are outside. New emails dont have a color but are white... so its also impossbile to see if you have new emails when you are outside.
How in the hell could samsung came up with this theme. the blue and black first of all is very ugly and its far from user friendly.
Before my note 2 i had an One X from HTC. i changed to the note because of the very good battery usage time. The One X has white backgrounds for all menus, email and sms. wich makes it perfectly readable even outside. also new emails have a blue color while readed emails are black.
I dont understand why samsung has choosen this stupid color themes for their flagships.
And yes you can invert the colors. but its insane how the rest will look if you enable the inverted colors. Its just stupid!
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Black colors use less battery.
It's ironic that you switched to Samsung because of the good battery time.

You really think thats ironic?
I think its ironic that HTC has removed the "screen on time" from the battery management tool as from update 4.1. because that way people cant see that their one X has a use time of less then 3 hours.
Also the Phone can heat up to about 60 degrees celcius when playing a game, in wich the screen gets so hot it starts to burn on your finger tips. battery drains from 100 to 0 in less then 30 minutes.
Well this irony is the reason i switched to the note 2. Now i get 8+ hours of use time or around 4 to 6 hours with a total of 24 hours standby.
How ironic you think it is... its allot better!
Black maybe less power consuming but the few minutes you use the email app is nothing compared to the hours you spend browsing the web with a white background. And yet i still can browse the internet for 6 hours on a charge.
So as smart as you think you are, i dont think this white background while reading a few emails will deplete your battery hours faster. But still its terrible anoying that email and sms is just unreadble outside. They should atleast add a function so people can choose for themselves wich background they prefer.
Its really not that strange i think!

Hi
In the web browser you can get black background with white text and then get incredible battery life even if you briwse a lot.
Go accessibilty option and activate the "reversed mode"
Enjoy.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

The problem isn't with black screen, but the incredibly stupid grey color fonts though. If you're rooted, obviously flash away some good roms that settles it for you. Annoying but nothing you can't get rid of.
Have you tried negative screen mode when you're out?

You could try K-9 Mail to get rid of the grey font in the Samsung Mail app.
@sygys
I didn't want to provoke you. Cool down.

Related

Red pixels

If you look at the red in the calendar, google mail and call history icons in all programs, does the red look dotty (cant think of a better word to use) compared to the other colours.
jgaskham said:
If you look at the red in the calendar, google mail and call history icons in all programs, does the red look dotty (cant think of a better word to use) compared to the other colours.
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If you are talking about the little red calendar icon, then Yes, I think it does look a little pixelated. I think this is due to the high contrast of the colours.
It doesn't bother me though.
On Desire's AMOLED Pentile screen there is only 25% red dots out of total number, while on regular LED screen there is 33% of red dots. When only red color is displayed more then 75% of screen is black and less then 25% emits light (because there is gap around every sub-pixel which doesn't emit light anyway), which makes small red dots surrounded with lot of black.
Yeah i can see what you mean in this picture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nexus_one_screen_microscope.jpg
was mainly asking to see if my display was faulty.

XDA forum dark theme needed!

Many of us are rocking AMOLED displays on our devices now, and there's no telling how many hours of battery life I've burnt up viewing the forums here with their light yellow/white backgrounds. Please throw together a dark theme for us so we can double our battery life and spend twice as much time here!
Black and dark grey background elements with grey or red text would be awesome. Visually, I prefer the current themes, but it would make a big difference for all of us with AMOLED displays, since a black pixel isn't burning any energy, but a white pixel is burning as much as possible (unlike LCDs where the backlight is on no matter what color is displayed.) Also, my girlfriend will greatly appreciate it when I'm browsing late at night in bed.
Also, please send me a PM when this is implemented so I can change it ASAP. Thanks, and I'll definitely donate if this happens!
There is a black theme for the app, switch to it from settings, and you can find themed apks with many colors
Correct, if your on an Android device, the XDA app can be set to a dark theme.
Just open the app, tap Menu key > More > Settings > Display Style. Change that from Light to Dark. Thats it!
Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but mine (XDA Pro app) doesn't have that setting.
Under Display Style, I only have the options:
XDA Premium
Simple
XDA Free
Am I missing something?
I tried updating, but I'm currently on newest, and a re-install didn't fix anything.
Making it darker would be terrific, but I'm not sure I want to install a themed APK just for that. I enjoy the market updating things too much to try and keep track of one more thing manually.
I got some time to try and play with the settings for a bit, and the setting labeled as "Simple" is a dark display, and the other two have varying levels of brightness.
Other than that, I did not have time to do an in-depth comparison of the differences.

Why can't the settings menu and other UI be in black instead of white?

Is there any way to change this? I mean having a white background on phone contact when dialing or when going to change some setting or whatever isn't exactly 'battery friendly'.
I remember the very old HTC UI back in the Diamond days being black, why cant we have it in black today? Or at least the option to change it to black.
If there is an obvious way to do this already then I apologize ahead.
Cheers
you can always theme it yourself
hello00 said:
you can always theme it yourself
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Didnt think of that, but still I think alot of the Sense stuff are on the One X are unecessary.
Will check it out, thanks!
white is acctualy more battery friendly on a LCD screen.
With much black you need to increase brightness to have higher contrast, making battery life worse.
What you are saying are correct - if you have a oled screen like the one on one S or sgs2. But the specific color on one x doesn't affect battery, the brightness does.

Display getting darker when scrolling

Hello!
I recently got the Arc S and I love it, but there's something about the screen that freaks me out. It's hard to describe, but let me try.
When I scroll through menus, objects get darker while they move. Most notibly when there's white text on black background. I don't know many of you know it, but it's like applying the "inner shadow" filter to the fonts in photoshop.
I made a video to demonstrate that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVRTmsr6Ppg
Hopefully you can see the effect on the text, but it's very noticable that the lines between the items disappear while scrolling.
While on a grey background, text appears yellowish while scrolling.
I get a similar effect when I scroll through pictures.
Other than that, the screen is perfectly fine. I have a Neo V here with the same rom and kernel and there is nothing like that.
Or is this just normal screen behaviour I have to get used to?
What rom are you on?
Sent from my LT15i using birds.
if you look clearly at the screen, it is not getting darker! just the lines between the selectable touch fields are getting darker. dont know why but this problem is on all roms i have tested. it happens at small text and very small lines (1-2 pixel lines i think)
@TheHaso
Super Jelly Bean, Slim Bean, Ultimate HD.. It doesn't seem to matter.
@om22
So you think this is a software issue?
I noticed when I scroll through small turqoise text, it clearly gets darker and shifts into a more blue-ish tone.
neo2k12 said:
@TheHaso
Super Jelly Bean, Slim Bean, Ultimate HD.. It doesn't seem to matter.
@om22
So you think this is a software issue?
I noticed when I scroll through small turqoise text, it clearly gets darker and shifts into a more blue-ish tone.
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no i think this is normal on tn-panel lcd screens (our arc/s). just a dark blurring effect i think.
If you want to get some information about TN displays vs IPS etc just follow the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display#Twisted_nematic_.28TN.29
it's normal. only the lines get darker and not the text. this is how android makes it. try to increase the brightness and you will see that the lines gets a little darker.
But this effect does not happen at all on the Neo V.
And of course the text is getting darker, too. As I said, on black background a turquoise text shifts to blue while scrolling.
neo2k12 said:
But this effect does not happen at all on the Neo V.
And of course the text is getting darker, too. As I said, on black background a turquoise text shifts to blue while scrolling.
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maybe because the neo v has built in another display? Our display also is very blurry in my opinion (high response time)

Night mode isn't as dark

Lying in bed last night I turned on Night Mode. I noticed when I pulled down the notification shade, the top portion was still dimly back lit, so I could see the camera cutout and the edges of the screen, no matter how much I dim the backlight.
Well tonight I fired up my Note 9, put it on Night Mode and pulled down the notification shade, and no matter how bright or dim I have the screen, the top part is BLACK. no light. You can't see where the screen ends and the frame begins.
This isn't a huge deal except for battery savings. When an AMOLED screen is true black, those prices shut off. But since the night mode on the N10+ isn't true black those pixels are still lit up and using power.
When viewing video in Netflix or YouTube the black bars are truly black, so I know the screen is capable showing true blacks, I'm just not sure why Sammy changed Night mode so it's no longer truly black.
I have just experienced the same thing. I have a note 9 as well to compare. I'm actually deeply disappointed. I also noticed screen mode only has 2 options... vivid and natural. Where as note 9 has 4 screen modes. I'm trying to figure things out to see if I can get it to be true black.
It's probably normal since it's a night mode and not a black mode ; in which you wouldn't it to make your screen showing heavy contrasted differences that actually made more eye fatigue than the light one.
Maybe I'll finally like this mode on this new phone.
Nastrahl said:
It's probably normal since it's a night mode and not a black mode ; in which you wouldn't it to make your screen showing heavy contrasted differences that actually made more eye fatigue than the light one.
Maybe I'll finally like this mode on this new phone.
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No I understand it's a "Night mode" but I'm comparing it to the Note 9 and Note 8 Night mode where it became a true black. And I ran it in Night mode almost 24/7 for some battery savings as well. Well that doesn't work if Night Mode is just a dark grey rather than a true black.
And I'm not sure how true black and contrast made for more eye fatigue? Have you never watched a 4K movie? The whole point of high def is high contrast with true deep blacks, bright whites, and bright colors.
I also noticed on the quick access home screen in Samsung Browser on dark mode, it's not longer a true black. Now if you turn on High Contrast mode in the browser settings, then the background is a true black, so that panel is capable of turning off the pixels and going true black. This means it was an obvious design choice.
Mr. Orange 645 said:
No I understand it's a "Night mode" but I'm comparing it to the Note 9 and Note 8 Night mode where it became a true black. And I ran it in Night mode almost 24/7 for some battery savings as well. Well that doesn't work if Night Mode is just a dark grey rather than a true black.
And I'm not sure how true black and contrast made for more eye fatigue? Have you never watched a 4K movie? The whole point of high def is high contrast with true deep blacks, bright whites, and bright colors.
I also noticed on the quick access home screen in Samsung Browser on dark mode, it's not longer a true black. Now if you turn on High Contrast mode in the browser settings, then the background is a true black, so that panel is capable of turning off the pixels and going true black. This means it was an obvious design choice.
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Dark VS black doesn't make much difference battery wise on OLED screens (let me just find the test back and I'll update my post)
Because the notification panel and anywhere else that it matters contains mostly texts and it produce visual retina persistence (not sure if I translated well), plus it's more annoying to read and and eyes accommodate less than in light mode where everything is light too.
There's nothing to do with movies since it's dynamic and constantly changing from a lot of different colours while texts are more static (but going from dark to light scene still hurts)
I agree that it's absolutely a design choice, but in my opinion for the better.
Nastrahl said:
Dark VS black doesn't make much difference battery wise on OLED screens (let me just find the test back and I'll update my post)
Because the notification panel and anywhere else that it matters contains mostly texts and it produce visual retina persistence (not sure if I translated well), plus it's more annoying to read and and eyes accommodate less than in light mode where everything is light too.
There's nothing to do with movies since it's dynamic and constantly changing from a lot of different colours while texts are more static (but going from dark to light scene still hurts)
I agree that it's absolutely a design choice, but in my opinion for the better.
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I gotcha. Makes sense. I'd like to see some tests on black vs dark. I had always heard and though the battery savings was due to the pixels shutting off. It's why the AOD is black and not just dark.
Buts also weird. I'm replying to this direct from the Gmail notification of your reply. So it opened up the webpage in the webview. Well the top bar above the page that says reply to topic and has had the Gmail overflow button is true black. But the status bar right above it is dark grey.
I guess what bugs me most is it makes the camera cutout stick out, even in the dark. Because I look up an I see a true black for on a dark charcoal background. And I can see the screen edges. I preferred on the Note 9 where it all just blended away with the true black.
But yet, when I watch a movie, the status bar DOES turn off completely and you can't see the camera cutout. Just can't figure out the inconsistency.
Mr. Orange 645 said:
I gotcha. Makes sense. I'd like to see some tests on black vs dark. I had always heard and though the battery savings was due to the pixels shutting off. It's why the AOD is black and not just dark.
Buts also weird. I'm replying to this direct from the Gmail notification of your reply. So it opened up the webpage in the webview. Well the top bar above the page that says reply to topic and has had the Gmail overflow button is true black. But the status bar right above it is dark grey.
I guess what bugs me most is it makes the camera cutout stick out, even in the dark. Because I look up an I see a true black for on a dark charcoal background. And I can see the screen edges. I preferred on the Note 9 where it all just blended away with the true black.
But yet, when I watch a movie, the status bar DOES turn off completely and you can't see the camera cutout. Just can't figure out the inconsistency.
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It may be because apps got their own night mode colour settings embedded, while all One UI apps got theirs which are different.
Like, if for Google night mode is all black, their apps will just check about system UI night mode trigger and of its on, apply their own settings.
I can only find that reason for it to be such inconsistent.
Nastrahl said:
It may be because apps got their own night mode colour settings embedded, while all One UI apps got theirs which are different.
Like, if for Google night mode is all black, their apps will just check about system UI night mode trigger and of its on, apply their own settings.
I can only find that reason for it to be such inconsistent.
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That's a good point/thought. I hadn't thought of that. Damn...I just like consistency, LOL.
Mr. Orange 645 said:
That's a good point/thought. I hadn't thought of that. Damn...I just like consistency, LOL.
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I totally understand and agree ! Especially when you like what Samsung did with their UI
In an other hand, there's some third party theme that may be of use to have a black theme : https://forum.xda-developers.com/s10-plus/themes/theme-anxious-t3921645
I don't know if it's working for the Note 10 yet but I think it's just a matter of time before it do
Nastrahl said:
I totally understand and agree ! Especially when you like what Samsung did with their UI
In an other hand, there's some third party theme that may be of use to have a black theme : https://forum.xda-developers.com/s10-plus/themes/theme-anxious-t3921645
I don't know if it's working for the Note 10 yet but I think it's just a matter of time before it do
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Click to collapse
I'm using #hex_ and it works very well on Note10+.
Wysłane z mojego SM-N975F przy użyciu Tapatalka
I just use a theme that's mostly black everywhere. No need for night mode..
One UI notification shade isn't actually black for any of the devices on the One UI. I had an S8+ before this and it looked black but if you take a screenshot and measure the color value, you'll see that it's not black. You can do the same thing on your Note 9. Take a screenshot and extract the color value. Or take a screenshot and then transfer that screenshot to the Note 10 and view it on the Note 10. I guarantee that the Note 9 screenshot of the notification shade will look like the Note 10 notification shade. Black will cause AMOLED smearing which isn't good look.
jkgao said:
One UI notification shade isn't actually black for any of the devices on the One UI. I had an S8+ before this and it looked black but if you take a screenshot and measure the color value, you'll see that it's not black. You can do the same thing on your Note 9. Take a screenshot and extract the color value. Or take a screenshot and then transfer that screenshot to the Note 10 and view it on the Note 10. I guarantee that the Note 9 screenshot of the notification shade will look like the Note 10 notification shade. Black will cause AMOLED smearing which isn't good look.
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So I tried this. Set my Note 9 to Night Mode and took a screen shot. Sent it to my N10+. Guess what? The notification shade in my Note 9 screen shot is pure black when viewed on my N10+ screen.
So I did the opposite. Took a screen shot of N10+ notification shade and sent it to my Note 9, and it appears dark grey.
So I'm not saying you're WRONG, but this is proof that the notification shade on Night Mode on the Note 9 (and the Note 8) was SIGNIFICANTLY darker than the N10+. If they aren't true black, then they are so close at to be indistinguishable from it, whereas the N10+ is definitely lighter than black.
I also just used an app to do a color value sample on my screenshots. Note 9 notification shade is #00000. I believe that is true black?
See my attached screenshots. War Machine is Note 9 (The one with the true black notification shade) and the Darth Vader is the Note 10+ (the one with the dark grey notification shade)
To see what I'm talking about, you may need to turn brightness up on your phone or go in a dark room.
Screenshots of color picker showing Note 9 notification shade is #00000 (true black) and Note 10+ is #080808 (not true black).
koppee1 said:
I just use a theme that's mostly black everywhere. No need for night mode..
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I tried this. The notification shade was still dark grey, not black.
Samsung doesn't use black on the N10, it's that simple. They use a form of grey that's fairly close to pure black, however. The avg person probably uses white themes, so I doubt many will take notice.
Mr. Orange 645 said:
I tried this. The notification shade was still dark grey, not black.
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Click to collapse
Look for a different theme. There are black ones. I'd post mine but I can't seem to post screenshots here.
koppee1 said:
Look for a different theme. There are black ones. I'd post mine but I can't seem to post screenshots here.
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Click to collapse
It's all good. I fixed it with GoodLock. I have my stock theme and a true black notification shade again.
Thanks!!
Mr. Orange 645 said:
It's all good. I fixed it with GoodLock. I have my stock theme and a true black notification shade again.
Thanks!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Write back when you find a solution to make samsung browser black.cheers.
As Nastrahl pointed out it the pixels don't need to be completely off to save a lot of power. I was going for total black but since I adjust brightness manually a little bit of tint to the black looks nicer and makes it easier to gauge the brightness.
You can use the Good lock app Quickstar to make the pull down notification panel any color or darkness level you want. Mine is almost black with a hint of forest green.
My wallpaper is even darker with the same green tint.
When the brightness is too high the wallpaper's green tint is noticeable otherwise it looks black.

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