Nexus 5: Yellow Screen

**Darrkman** · 01-04-2014, 03:29 AM

Forgive me if this is something discussed a lot already. I got my nexus 5 yesterday and now I'm noticing my screen seems pretty yellow. At first I thought it was my imagination until I out it side by side with my Nexus 4. Is this a known problem? If it is will Google give me a hard time if I try to return it?

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**mrsmumbles** · 01-04-2014, 03:54 AM

Originally Posted by Darrkman

Forgive me if this is something discussed a lot already. I got my nexus 5 yesterday and now I'm noticing my screen seems pretty yellow. At first I thought it was my imagination until I out it side by side with my Nexus 4. Is this a known problem? If it is will Google give me a hard time if I try to return it?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

It's known but some displays have more of the warm color than others. The Franco ROM (or kernel?) apparently fixes it but if you don't want to mess with that I'm sure they'll replace it.

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**p3ntyne** · 01-04-2014, 05:41 AM

BTW, it is a kernel so if you wish you can keep using the stock ROM if you wish...

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**maverick7526** · 01-04-2014, 07:20 AM

Originally Posted by Darrkman

Forgive me if this is something discussed a lot already. I got my nexus 5 yesterday and now I'm noticing my screen seems pretty yellow. At first I thought it was my imagination until I out it side by side with my Nexus 4. Is this a known problem? If it is will Google give me a hard time if I try to return it?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

It's the glue bonding the screen together. Give it a couple of days and it will disappear. Otherwise if it still has a yellow tint RMA your device.

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**David Lessnau** · 01-04-2014, 09:15 AM

There's a big thread about this over on

**Darrkman** · 01-04-2014, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by maverick7526

It's the glue bonding the screen together. Give it a couple of days and it will disappear. Otherwise if it still has a yellow tint RMA your device.

Posted via NSA Spy Van 37...... Free candy??

Cool I'll hold off on selling my Nexus 4 till next weekend to be safe.

Sent from my Nexus 5

**gidgiddonihah** · 01-04-2014, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by mrsmumbles

It's known but some displays have more of the warm color than others. The Franco ROM (or kernel?) apparently fixes it but if you don't want to mess with that I'm sure they'll replace it.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2

The Franco kernel does wonders but can only do so much. If it looks like you are looking at your phone through a puddle of pee, get a replacement as the Franco kernel doesn't tweak the color profile enough. I would suggest his kernel anyways as its plain amazing. I love it.

Originally Posted by maverick7526

It's the glue bonding the screen together. Give it a couple of days and it will disappear. Otherwise if it still has a yellow tint RMA your device.

Posted via NSA Spy Van 37...... Free candy??

Originally Posted by Darrkman

Cool I'll hold off on selling my Nexus 4 till next weekend to be safe.

This theory has actually been debunked on the big XDA thread concerning this problem. It looks better because you get used to it. If it were a glue problem it would look splotchy, not uniform. It's either a software problem when calibrating the screen's color temp or something wrong with the screen's hardware. The last time I looked I think they were leaning to a hardware problem. There was also a theory of some sort of dust they used to clean the screen. The Google rep in question said it would come off during use. Again, they weren't sure if this could even be possible.

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**chadthebuilder** · 01-04-2014, 10:25 PM

Mine has a small tint of yellow to the screen. Its not noticeable unless held beside my Nexus 7, but then it definitely has a yellowish tint compared to the almost pure white of my N7. It doesn't bother me at all since it gives the screen more of a warm tone, but I assume it is a slight calibration issue. Definitely not enough for me to send back over.

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**JohnnyBroccoli** · 03-08-2014, 12:18 AM

Just got my RMA in the mail a few days ago. Finally got some time to set it up. Before getting on that, I compared my old Nexus 5 to the brand new one they sent me. The screen on the new one doesn't look nearly as bright and has a very noticeable yellow tint to it. Showed both of the phones to two other people and they thought the exact same thing (without even being told what to look for). I don't buy this glue theory but am going to run the screen on the new one nonstop (via 11 hour YouTube video on repeat) for a few days before sending it back. The Google rep on the phone said another RMA would be no problem but that I'd have to send back one of the phones first. They mentioned nothing about a glue issue that could be resolved by a short break in period.

**vanhoud** · 03-10-2014, 04:26 PM

Use a kernel that supports Gama tuning and use some of the available presets (such as in my screenshot) and the yellow is 100% gone (I had the stock yellow screen)

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**JohnnyBroccoli** · 03-10-2014, 04:30 PM

Thanks but I am unrooted and know that there are Nexus 5's out there that don't need to be tweaked to get a clean, clear screen. Since Google is willing to send me another one free of charge I will go that route.

Breaking in my screen over the last week hasn't seemed to help the problem FWIW.

**vanhoud** · 03-10-2014, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by JohnnyBroccoli

Thanks but I am unrooted and know that there are Nexus 5's out there that don't need to be tweaked to get a clean, clear screen. Since Google is willing to send me another one free of charge I will go that route.

Breaking in my screen over the last week hasn't seemed to help the problem FWIW.

So if the next one is the same are you just going to keep RMA until u get lucky?

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**JohnnyBroccoli** · 03-10-2014, 04:41 PM

I have not decided how far I am willing to take this yet. Paid good money for this thing though and would prefer to keep one that looks and works properly.

**JeffDenver** · 03-10-2014, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by JohnnyBroccoli

Thanks but I am unrooted and know that there are Nexus 5's out there that don't need to be tweaked to get a clean, clear screen. Since Google is willing to send me another one free of charge I will go that route.

This.

If you have to root to use your device as intended, your device is broken.

Originally Posted by vanhoud

So if the next one is the same are you just going to keep RMA until u get lucky?

That is what I would do. And that is the whole point of RMA.

**JohnnyBroccoli** · 03-10-2014, 05:30 PM

Odd thing is they apparently don't use refurbished Nexus 5's at all in the RMA process, yet they seem very willing to go through the process multiple times with a single customer to make them satisfied.

**vanhoud** · 03-10-2014, 05:54 PM

It's weird that the screen make is the exact same, but a simple tweak to the gamma table corrects it perfectly, which suggests it's definitely not a hardware problem. It's odd to say the least

I was cool with tweaking with the software because I will never use stock rom/kernel so it's no big deal

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**Samar Basrai** · Yesterday, 04:31 PM

I have received four RMAs and all were with yellowish display, I have ordered for yet another. trying my luck .....

In case the new one is still the same then I think for the replacement they purposely send the devices with yellowish display...

**Saturn1217** · Yesterday, 10:23 PM

Does anyone have an unevenly colored display? With my Nexus 5 90% of the screen is beautiful, but when I am in immersive mode (in Google Play Books app) I noticed that the very bottom edge is yellowish. It is mostly covered up by the on screen buttons most of the time (so I didn't notice within the return period) but it is definitely there. Not sure if I should return it or not since most of the time my screen looks great unless I'm trying to read a book...

Also curious is this is a common problem or isolated to my unit.