Dark strip at the bottom of 720's screen - is it ok?

[snobergen]

Hey hi everyone

I've noticed a barely visible 3-4 mm-wide dark strip at Nokia Lumia 720 screen's bottom today when checking the phone before buying. It looks like the bottom edge of the screen is not as bright as the rest display. It's particularly visible on white background regardless the brightness level selected. I've also checked Nokia Lumia 820's screen to compare and there was no such a dark strip. I had to avoid the purchasing of the phone because of that

I googled for this issue and found some controversial forum posts where some say almost all 720s have this dark bottom edge and some say their 720s are ok. So is it a problem or just a feature of the 720's screen? Again, it is visible only when background is white/bright.

Thanks!

 

[donoester]

Hi,
My 720 is also slightly darker near the bottom compared to the rest of the screen. As my phone is otherwise completely flawless, I decided that this was a non-issue for me. Darker patches on LCDs occur when the back polarizer (fresnel sheet) behind the LCD screen is not properly lit by the backlight (LEDs) because they are not completely perpendicular. This could happen if the LCD is bent ever-so-slightly. So yes, product variance does exist, and it is caused by assembly quality/handling.
OLED screens as those found in the 820 do not need a backlight, since it is self-emitting and has no use for polarizers, so it will always be perfectly illuminated for a relatively short life time before it dims in the areas which are normally lit up the most.

The problem is that phones are seen as "consumer" devices, ready to be replaced in 1-2 years time. You won't find any company that cares about consistent light uniformity of phone displays, color temperature, gamma and what color space they should represent. They're all, regardless of cost, extremely poor compared to a desktop display used for photo editing, even if the desktop monitor was from 2008. With any non-OLED phone screen, you'd risk a non-uniformly lit display that the manufacturer deems OK.

.. and yes, I've seen a demo-920 with a similar dark screen.

 

[snobergen]

Hi,
My 720 is also slightly darker near the bottom compared to the rest of the screen. As my phone is otherwise completely flawless, I decided that this was a non-issue for me. Darker patches on LCDs occur when the back polarizer (fresnel sheet) behind the LCD screen is not properly lit by the backlight (LEDs) because they are not completely perpendicular. This could happen if the LCD is bent ever-so-slightly. So yes, product variance does exist, and it is caused by assembly quality/handling.
OLED screens as those found in the 820 do not need a backlight, since it is self-emitting and has no use for polarizers, so it will always be perfectly illuminated for a relatively short life time before it dims in the areas which are normally lit up the most.

The problem is that phones are seen as "consumer" devices, ready to be replaced in 1-2 years time. You won't find any company that cares about consistent light uniformity of phone displays, color temperature, gamma and what color space they should represent. They're all, regardless of cost, extremely poor compared to a desktop display used for photo editing, even if the desktop monitor was from 2008. With any non-OLED phone screen, you'd risk a non-uniformly lit display that the manufacturer deems OK.

.. and yes, I've seen a demo-920 with a similar dark screen.

Thank you very much for your comment. Well I watched some video reviews of 720 on Youtube today and noticed that most of the phones filmed indeed had that darkened bottom edge... I don't really understand why people don't consider it being an issue... When you surf the net and visit some site with white background while turning your phone at 90 degrees, doesn't it annoy you that a side edge of the screen is slightly darkened? AMOLED variations is not an option for me since I want IPS and IPS only, but now I'm totally confused since most of the sources I found claim that this darkening is present while not considered being a problem while some other say it is not present at all...

I guess that I just have to check some other instances of 720 with my own eyes to understand if it's a technological feature (just like in case of Sony Trinitron monitors back in a day) or a real problem. BTW I don't understand how can they sell 920 for about $700 with that darkening being present...

Believe it or not, I'm using Nokia 3310 for more than 5 years now and absolutely happy with it. I just need to have an access to my email and surf some sites sometimes so that's why I'm wanna buy Lumia. I do understand that 720-like phones are considered being consumer electronics but for me such screen issues (and especially variability of its presence) are unacceptable. Again, thank you for your comment.


I would be glad to see some other comments by 720 owners upon this topic.