Screen Differences Between Models, or ROM Differences? - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S 4

Hi everyone. I recently got a second Galaxy S4 as a work phone, and my company uses Verizon as their carrier. I have noticed quite a few differences between the phones that are ROM related (mine is T-Mobile obviously), but the ones that get me the most are the screen on the Verizon S4 is significantly brighter for any given setting and the notification LED is brighter on the Verizon S4. So, if they're in auto brightness mode, the Verizon screen is brighter by a noticeable amount in any given lighting situation. If they're not in auto brightness with the slider set to the same position, the Verizon phone is still brighter. I have to move the slider up quite a bit more (a full slider "knob" width at least on my T-Mobile S4) to get them to be relatively equal brightness.
The other thing I noticed is the notification LED at the top is MUCH brighter on the Verizon S4. Mine is easily half as bright for any given color. So, are these features ROM controlled as well? Meaning, could it simply be the ROM is written so that the screen isn't as bright for any given slider position and the LED brightness is reduced by the ROM? I never even noticed this "issue" until I had another one side by side, so that's why I wonder if it was intended to be this way. Everything works, it's just not as bright. I really like the brighter notification LED though...
The other option of course is that my phone has some kind of hardware difference or possibly a defect of some kind. I don't know anyone else who has an S4 to compare it to, so I'm not sure. I tried stopping in at a couple mobile phone stores, but they didn't have working demos. I might try a T-Mobile store this weekend since they are normally closed after I get off work.
Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has noticed similar things. Thanks in advance!

Bump? Function of the kernel possibly?

Pictures, please.

Is there any way to force the notification LED on for the Verizon phone? The test menus don't work. I'd like to set them side by side and get a picture of each color, plus pictures of the screens where it's most noticeable.
Also, all I have to take pictures with is my Sensation 4G, so I don't know how well they will turn out, but I can try once I figure out the notification LED for the Verizon phone. I have seen how to enable them, but it requires root. Since it's a work phone, this isn't an option.

Related

[Q] Just got my nexus, the screen dimming is annoying. help please.

I just got my Galaxy nexus (an hour ago), and I'm getting around using it pretty well except for one thing which is annoying me big time.
The screen seems to dim or change its color balance when viewing certain things. Whites are usually dimmed at most times, but when I view other things, the dimness goes away and whites become very radiant.
It seems like the phone is adjusting automatically to things on the screen for the sake of energy saving. How do i disable this!?
Yes, I have my Brightness on manual and set to full. That is not the issue.
okay wow this is getting annoying... Two more issues:
1-The thing won't transfer files while im using windows 7 "the device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected". When using OSX Lion, it isn't even detected.
2-There is chinese text here and there no matter what I do for language settings.
This is my first android phone ever, and I'm not liking the experience so far...
Look, I've tried searching for these two issues, and I did not find any threads with them resolved. Maybe I'm computer illiterate. Maybe I have a very low IQ, but can you just help me resolve these issues IF you know how to resolve them without just going into my thread and be like "Oh look, another noob", and proceed with leaving?
PS: I AM A NOOB.
Protip 1. Read up on amoled technology a little. And then read some of the issues some phones like galaxy s2 had. Your dimming is normal. It sounds like you're just more sensitive to it.
Protip 2. Download the appropriate drivers. In device manager, you want it to say android adb interface when you're phone is plugged in.
Protip 3. Take a chill pill. It is okay to be a noob. It happens. Your attitude comes off as annoying or you're freaking out over nothing. Solving problems take time and we are not sorry xda can solve them instantly for you. Patience, amigo.
My grandma beat me down and took my nexus. Sent from a jitterbug with beats by dre.
You might try turning of Auto Brightness and set it somewhere you feel comfortable... I just decided when I got this phone that I'd make myself get used to the adjustments and it's worked out well.
IMHO the adjustments going from white to black are less noticeable on 4.0.3
As far as the dimming, you have Auto Brightness on. Go to settings, screen and set the brightness to something else.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Is_907 said:
You might try turning of Auto Brightness and set it somewhere you feel comfortable... I just decided when I got this phone that I'd make myself get used to the adjustments and it's worked out well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GinoSylum said:
As far as the dimming, you have Auto Brightness on. Go to settings, screen and set the brightness to something else.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it you missed the part where the op said his brightness is set on manual?
samsung drivers
for the drivers use this post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20311264
PDAnet installs the drivers for you nice and easy, then you can remove from your phone and pc and the drivers will stay behind.
at this time there is no way to disable the screen dimming function. samsung's other phones have this feature as well, with an option to disable it in settings. its a power saving feature. for whatever reason google did not give any option to turn this on or off. so for now we have to wait if maybe a ROM can disable it.
For OSX you need to download Android file transfer for it to be seen.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Thank you everyone ...Sorry for the attitude earlier.
It seems like I got one of the GNexus phones which have a really good screen (The colors are just mind blowing), its only the dimming thing which is getting in the way. Also, I've tried to update to 4.0.3 and checked out the developer's section of the GNexus forum, but the steps are kind of overwhelming and I'm having my final exams at university right now, so I'll have to wait for a week to just sit back and read everything slowly and correctly.
One more thing, is there a download link to the official 4.0.3 mod ? It seems like everyone here prefers modded images one way or another.
lol. the dimming you are referring to is probably from current draw or a trait inherent to amoled. some people have mentioned they notice "dimming" like on white background browser and you pop up your keyboard. the white will get dimmer or yellower, or black more grayish. this is what you're talking about?
pukemon said:
lol. the dimming you are referring to is probably from current draw or a trait inherent to amoled. some people have mentioned they notice "dimming" like on white background browser and you pop up your keyboard. the white will get dimmer or yellower, or black more grayish. this is what you're talking about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its the opposite. When you draw the keyboard out, the whites get brighter and stronger. I don't have yellowing on my phone (thank god), but I do have dimming.
top make it simple:
The more the blacks = The brighter/stronger the whites.
Clearly a voltage issue for power consumption's sake. As the phone physically switches of diodes to achieve true blacks, more energy flows to lit diodes and they in turn become brighter.
Isn't there some sort of tweak deep enough to give full power to all diodes at all times regardless of what's on the screen (Full power even if the entire screen is white) ?
Firstly, welcome to Android. Once you get used to it you'll love it. I gave the same problem Windows 7 sometimes usually large video files and need to say that the adb drivers are not required to transfer files to the phone - I don't have them installed and I can still transfer data.
I have to say this is my first amoled device and I haven't noticed any dimming unless I have auto brightness on of course which I understand you don't.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
BLL00 said:
Its the opposite. When you draw the keyboard out, the whites get brighter and stronger. I don't have yellowing on my phone (thank god), but I do have dimming.
top make it simple:
The more the blacks = The brighter/stronger the whites.
Clearly a voltage issue for power consumption's sake. As the phone physically switches of diodes to achieve true blacks, more energy flows to lit diodes and they in turn become brighter.
Isn't there some sort of tweak deep enough to give full power to all diodes at all times regardless of what's on the screen (Full power even if the entire screen is white) ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ah yes. you're correct. i had it backwards.
I have the same issue with transferring large amounts of data using Windows 7. Looking for a fix too.
Investing the time to learn how to setup the SDK and using ADB will be well worth it.
BLL00 said:
Its the opposite. When you draw the keyboard out, the whites get brighter and stronger. I don't have yellowing on my phone (thank god), but I do have dimming.
top make it simple:
The more the blacks = The brighter/stronger the whites.
Clearly a voltage issue for power consumption's sake. As the phone physically switches of diodes to achieve true blacks, more energy flows to lit diodes and they in turn become brighter.
Isn't there some sort of tweak deep enough to give full power to all diodes at all times regardless of what's on the screen (Full power even if the entire screen is white) ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of the three results I found searching for this topic, I'm glad I checked this thread.
The exact thing I was wondering was:
Is there any way to disable the screen from getting brighter when my keyboard comes up on the screen?
From reading your response, it seems that the screen getting brighter is a result of the design of the screen, suggesting that there is no way to stop it from happening. The only thing I've been able to do to make the screen remain at the brightness I set it is to change the theme of my keyboard to a brighter or lighter color based theme.
I'm using Swiftkey with the Neon keyboard, it looks great and I love it!
I had a Samsung Vibrant previously to the Galaxy Nexus, and there indeed was a "Power Saving Option" in the settings and if I remember correctly that stopped the screen from getting brighter with the keyboard on screen. Has any fix / ability to change this on a stock Galaxy Nexus running JB been found? It's just barely annoying enough for me to notice it, plus I'm a stickler for more battery life and I can feel my battery dying the brighter the screen gets. ( I know this last part may be a mental thing, but still. Haha. )

Flickering white pixels in some places?

Just received my second One X from amazon UK (first was sent back due to charging issues).
Been getting some weird things with the screen on this one, which I haven't heard of in the other threads. I have a fair amount of pixels on the screen that will flicker white on certain screens, particularly on the pull-down notification. The pixels seem to be roughly distributed along two vertical lines on the screen, and there's about 20-30, although it's hard to tell since they never flicker all at once. The white pixels don't show up in screenshots, so I don't think it's a software issue, although it's possible, I suppose.
They never show up on solid colors as far as i can make out, but i get them on the camera preview and in the notification drawer (seems to be that shade of grey combined with the fine texture that sets it off). Very occasionally I get it on the bubbles live wallpaper. I also get it when viewing screenshots of the notification pulldown, so it seems to be the colour/texture, not the actual window being drawn.
I can't tell if this is a software or hardware issue.. I've done a few reboots and a factory reset, which did absolutely nothing. It's always the same pixels, which suggests hardware to me, but then it's oddly specific circumstances that set it off.
Any ideas/anyone else getting similar issues?
Edit: re-reading your post it may not be what I thought. Info below for the "usual" screen flicker issue.
It's a well known issue that pretty much everyone has. The backlight flickers slightly due to a voltage drain when the CPU is busy, causing whites and greys to turn a slightly warmer "colour" for a moment.
It's fixed in the 1.29.11 (not 1.29.7) update which just rolled out in Europe and should follow in the UK in about 2 weeks. It takes up to 2 more weeks after the update for it to monitor the voltage of your individual screen and learn to compensate so the flicker goes away.
Yeah, it's not the backlight, it's literally single pixels flickering from their correct colour to white.
So I've been through the standard factory reset crap with customer service, and they're recommending I sent it in for repair. Has anyone had any luck with the repair centre (I'm in the UK)?
Not sure if it's even worth sending it back since I'm still not sure if it's a hardware or software issue. If it's a software issue, will they fix it, or will they just turn it back and go "nope, couldn't find anything"?
I have EXACTLY the same issue, but with two pixels only, I'm almost convinced it's a hardware fault because I'm on a custom rom and it's still there, I got mine without a warranty though so I'll have to deal with it, any suggestions other than acceptance?
I have same issue, i change the rom and now its fine. it was almost on 3 or 4 roms, and finally its disappear
kami2k said:
I have same issue, i change the rom and now its fine. it was almost on 3 or 4 roms, and finally its disappear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well thank you that's rather comforting to know, fingers crossed

Screen brightness

My wife and I both have month old gs3's. Both are stock, have brightness set to auto, and power saving mode on. However, hers is much brighter than mine.
She has a white phone and I have a blue one. Am I missing another setting that could be different on our phones?
Have you tried manually going through each of the brightness settings to see if they are different when not set on auto?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
Yup. They're the same. It's only with auto.
In my experience auto brightness has never really worked properly for me on any Android I've had.. I personally always have my screen as low as possible, it's pretty bright even like that.
I have heard that its not uncommon for inconsistencies in screen brightness on some phones. May be a quality control issue
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
If the brightness of the phones are working manually then i would just chalk it up to minor inconsistencies in the photo cell's on each device, which is to be expected.
Check if "auto adjust screen tone" is checked in Settings -> Display.
EDIT: If it's only with auto, maybe the brightness sensor is a little wack. You could try the Lux brightness app in the play store, as you can manually set the outdoor brightness/screen brightness ratios.
slicetwo said:
My wife and I both have month old gs3's. Both are stock, have brightness set to auto, and power saving mode on. However, hers is much brighter than mine.
She has a white phone and I have a blue one. Am I missing another setting that could be different on our phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for bumping this but I have the exact same issue. Mine is blue, my wife's is white. Her phone is way brighter set to auto than mine. It's the same if auto is turned off, her phone is way brighter.
Google searches don't reveal any suggestions...
So this is definitely not a blue vs. white phone issue. In my office, four other people have Galaxy S3s. Three are blue like mine and one is white. I compared all of their phones to mine and mine is way dimmer and a slightly different color temperature than theirs are. I did a factory reset on my phone and it made no difference. The phone is only 12 days old so I am going to take it back up to Best Buy today and see if they can swap it out.
**Update**
Best Buy swapped the phone for me and the issue is resolved for me. In fact, the new phone is a little brighter than some of the phones I had compared to before.

[Q] Purple smudging on screen

Hey guys, I'm thinking this is simply a common drawback from having an amoled screen, but I just wanted to be sure. While using auto brightness in a dark room (e.g., during bedtime) the brightness level on my device is properly turned down, but I've noticed that when looking at applications that use a black background there will be a lagging "purple smudge" when scrolling or sliding through an application. I first noticed this while using the Yahoo Fantasy Football app in bed. Again, I read that this may be a common problem with phones that have amoled screens but I just wanted to make sure I'm not the only one with some sort of defect. Are you guys experiencing this?
I have used several amoled screen phones and have never had an issue like that. I now have a note 4 as well and I'm not experiencing anything like that. I tried to recreate your condition as best I could and I'm not seeing it..... good luck with that one!
yeah, it always happens on amoled. s4, s5, and the galaxy tab s has it. it's just how it's always been
Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
Nothing to be worried about. All I have had have done this and the note 4 is no different. Just remember, it's the BEST display available on a phone right now... or so I have read
mine is so terrible, its making me crazy! specially when watching a movie, its all purple, it started the day after i bought it and now got terrible ! my movies get all purple :|(not that much but really annoying)
I'm having the same problem on my note 4 (SM-N910C) after the lollipop update... It's making me very angry! At least on my device the effects seem to be rather substantial... I'm sure this wasn't happening on kitkat...
Anyone else having this problem?
So I tried to reproduce this and under no circumstances does my phone exhibit this under auto brightness.
Though no matter how dark it is my phone will only drop brightness to about ~15-20%.
Even if I drop the brightness down to 2-5% manually it does not exhibit the purple lag.
For my device... only at the absolute minimum brightness does it exhibit this behavior.
If your device is exhibiting this kind of behavior what brightness level is it actually at?

[Q] Notificatio light is dim

My notification LED is hard to see when you are not near the phone. It's just a tiny dot. It's a lot weaker and dimmer than the one on my S5. Is that normal?
Really? No answers?
Yes
Seems dimmer than my m7 was, but not too bad
Sent from Tapatalk on either my HTC One M9 or Tab4 10.1, it kinda depends
dexterxda said:
My notification LED is hard to see when you are not near the phone. It's just a tiny dot. It's a lot weaker and dimmer than the one on my S5. Is that normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
make the hole bigger, lol
dexterxda said:
My notification LED is hard to see when you are not near the phone. It's just a tiny dot. It's a lot weaker and dimmer than the one on my S5. Is that normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is one of my gripe when getting the phone as I would like to rely heavily on my notification LED rather than taking my phone out of sleep and looking at the lock screen. When I had my HTC One X, I relied heavily on the notification light AFTER I used cyanogen mod to stop the "blinking" LED and changed it so it always stayed on. I wish HTC would at least add this option onto our M9 at least.
Unfortunately no one really have not said anything about this in their own review which is a shame as HTC will most likely keep this flaw in their next upcoming flagship phone.
Call me hipster but when the HTC One X & m7 came out, the only problem I had with these phones was the notification LED. No reviewers ever said anything about it and only complained that the power button being in the "wrong" place.
When the m8 came out, and reviewers reviewed it, none really complained about the "black bar" except a minority of people including myself (yes yes I understand you need it for drivers). Just wished they could have flipped the LCD screen so I wouldn't have to reach so far up with my thumb
Now the M9 came out, all the reviewers complain about the black bar still being there (most now at least say it's for driver purposes). However, I have yet to see any reviewer mentioning that this bar has shrunk a little when comparing to the M8.
Moomoomania said:
This is one of my gripe when getting the phone as I would like to rely heavily on my notification LED rather than taking my phone out of sleep and looking at the lock screen. When I had my HTC One X, I relied heavily on the notification light AFTER I used cyanogen mod to stop the "blinking" LED and changed it so it always stayed on. I wish HTC would at least add this option onto our M9 at least.
Unfortunately no one really have not said anything about this in their own review which is a shame as HTC will most likely keep this flaw in their next upcoming flagship phone.
Call me hipster but when the HTC One X & m7 came out, the only problem I had with these phones was the notification LED. No reviewers ever said anything about it and only complained that the power button being in the "wrong" place.
When the m8 came out, and reviewers reviewed it, none really complained about the "black bar" except a minority of people including myself (yes yes I understand you need it for drivers). Just wished they could have flipped the LCD screen so I wouldn't have to reach so far up with my thumb
Now the M9 came out, all the reviewers complain about the black bar still being there (most now at least say it's for driver purposes). However, I have yet to see any reviewer mentioning that this bar has shrunk a little when comparing to the M8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. I don't like the notification LED at all, and with there was an option to disable it. That LED uses a lot of power.
I like the smaller black bar I must say.does make a big difference compared to the m8
my LED is only visible in total darkness - you do get used to not having it
That little light sucks.....
It needs to be twice the size...and not buried in a speaker grill...g
It's as twice as big and bright as the one that was/is implemented in the One S so I'm happy with the way it is.
Flippy498 said:
It's as twice as big and bright as the one that was/is implemented in the One S so I'm happy with the way it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flippy....
I'm blind....so if they used the camera flash sized light I'd be happy....lol......g
ugh, i got me a used m9 some time ago and the light doesnt seem to work at all? Anyone had the issue? Since it has warranty at the original store im considering to bring it back for warranty... Anyone did that already?
My notification LED has faded to the point that it is no longer visible, not even in a dark room. I will be sending this phone back under warranty repair (we have 2 year warranties in Australia). Hopefully I will get a new phone with a new battery.
I do use my notification light, especially at night when my phone is on silent. New / refurb phone will be a great upgrade for my partner.

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