Summary
- Galaxy S24 Ultra is shaping up to be one of the top Android phones this year, despite being a dull upgrade from S23.
- Many owners are complaining about washed out colors and grainy texture on the display of S24 lineup.
- Some users also report horizontal bars and excessive banding at low brightness, possibly software-related.
Despite being a boring upgrade over the Galaxy S23, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is already shaping up to be one of the best Android phones to launch this year. The phone is not perfect, though. Many early S24 owners have complained of washed out display colors. Samsung is reportedly working on a vividness slider to resolve this issue. But this is not the only display defect that Samsung’s 2024 flagship Galaxy phones have. Apparently, the Galaxy S24 lineup’s super-bright display is marred with several problems.
Many Galaxy S24 displays appear to have a grainy texture, which is especially visible on dark and gray backgrounds. There are several reports about this on Reddit, and a poll with over 350+ responses indicates that most Galaxy S24 and S24+ owners are seeing this issue. One Redditor put his Galaxy S24 Ultra under a 400x OM microscope, revealing that the subpixel intensity is not uniform at 10% brightness. The uniformity improves at 30% brightness, while at 50% brightness, it’s almost non-existent.
Apparently, this is a hardware issue. Many customers were able to get a replacement unit free of this problem. Some were refused a replacement and had to escalate the matter to get a new unit.
Admittedly, you might not notice the grainy texture on your S24’s display unless you look closely. Still, given the Ultra’s price of $1,300, you’d expect the phone to be free from such defects.
As if the grainy texture issue was not enough, some Galaxy S24 users report seeing three horizontal bars on their display at low brightness. Unlike the grainy texture problem, this one appears to affect a limited number of units. Some users also report seeing excessive banding when viewing gradient images. It’s unclear if these are hardware or software defects, though one Reddit post suggests this is a software problem and should be resolved soon.
Our Google Editor, Manuel Vonau, faced a similar issue with the Honor Magic 4 Pro‘s display. On dark gray backgrounds, he noticed uneven colors with vertical stripes running along the screen. This indicates that the problem could be inherent to OLED panels and is not specific to the S24’s screen.
Smartphone OLED displays have improved dramatically in the last few years, but they typically struggle with uniformity at low brightness levels. However, this should not be a dealbreaker, especially since Samsung S24’s display packs some major improvements.
Apart from a peak brightness of 2,600 nits, Samsung’s 2024 flagships use a display with a higher Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) refresh rate of 492Hz. This is more than double that of the Galaxy S23 and should benefit users sensitive to PWM flickering. On the S24 Ultra, Samsung uses Corning’s Gorilla Armor glass, which heavily cuts down on reflections.
We have reached out to Samsung about the S24’s display issues.
Thanks: Ricardo!
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