Galaxy S9+ Black Crush and Gradient Banding Issues

[recDNA]

You must be really lucky then! As I said every single S9+ I have seen IRL has this problem. You do have an S9+ and not the smaller S9, right? Could you please take a photo when you're in a room with low light to prove that you don't have the problem? Preferably with one of the movie scenes on where you clearly can see the problem if you had an affected device?

Evsryone mentions low ambient light. If you manually turn up the brightness to max is the issue still visible in a dark room?

I was thinking of buying a 9+ but I watch videos at very bright settings even in dark rooms. I never set a phone below 80% brightness.

 

[ConnyHedgehog]

Evsryone mentions low ambient light. If you manually turn up the brightness to max is the issue still visible in a dark room?

I was thinking of buying a 9+ but I watch videos at very bright settings even in dark rooms. I never set a phone below 80% brightness.

If you manually max the brightness it's much less noticable, it might not even be noticable at all (I can't test since I returned my S9+), but why would you watch videos at very bright settings even in dark rooms? If I max the brightness of my phone in a dark room it gets very uncomfortable for my eyes to watch and I need to lower the brightness to well below 50% for it to be comfortable. If your eyes can handle such brightness even in dark rooms then sure, go ahead and buy it
(But remember that this is a very bright screen at 100% brightness, it's much brighter than something like the Razer phone or most other phones)

 

[lucianus_luciferus]

Thank you for the picture! I agree with you it doesn't look like you have the problem! May I ask what the screen brightness was at when you took this picture? On my S9+ (which I've now returned, so I can't compare) the problem wasn't noticable at more than 80% brightness (but then it was so bright it burned my eyes out when I was in a dark room), but it was super noticable at below maybe 40% brightness. If you have time, could you please lower the brightness to maybe 20-30% of max brightness and share more pictures? (for example the black panther trailer etc). This is the first S9+ I've seen without the problem!

25‰ brightness. Very dark so crap quality photo

https://image.ibb.co/cqd36x/20180426_235614.jpg

To the guys not having the issue please download this pic and take a picture with the brightness set to 0 (auto brightness off):
https://abload.de/img/screenshot_20180318-2nnrqi.jpg

With the brightness set to 0 I could barely see anything. The camera could not even focus to take the picture.

https://image.ibb.co/ieoWtc/20180427_000451.jpg

 

[waveuk]

Here mine ones.

Firt one taken with a Pixel at 0 brightness; in person looks much better. The red dot you see is the laser trying to focus.

Second one also taken with the Pixel but about 20% brightness.

Third one, the picture in the Pixel at 0 brightness and photo taken with the S9+.

At 0 brightness the S9+ looks much better. In my view my phone does not have any issue.

 

[Toss3]

Looks like your phone is fine. Weird. Would you mind downloading "phone info" from the play store and let us know where and when your phone was built?

 

[waveuk]

Please see below.

I got it on first release day in UK (preorder) so clearly one of the first one manufactured.

 

[Toss3]

Not doubting you but could you maybe take new pics with the exposure set to manual on your Pixel? There's just no way you could get that sharp a picture at 20% brightness in complete darkness while holding the phone with your hands. Set them on a table on their sides leaning against somthing with the camera of the Pixel facing the S9+ and set a 2s timer on the pixel (no shakiness even without a tripod). Would be greatly appreciated just to be 100% yours doesn't suffer from it! Don't want to go through the hassle of sending it in (just got my whitestone dome installed) if there really are none that don't suffer from it.

Something like this:

 

[ConnyHedgehog]

With the brightness set to 0 I could barely see anything. The camera could not even focus to take the picture.

https://image.ibb.co/ieoWtc/20180427_000451.jpg

Thank you for your pictures! I completely agree with you now that you don't have the issue!

 

[waveuk]

Not doubting you but could you maybe take new pics with the exposure set to manual on your Pixel? There's just no way you could get that sharp a picture at 20% brightness in complete darkness while holding the phone with your hands. Set them on a table on their sides leaning against somthing with the camera of the Pixel facing the S9+ and set a 2s timer on the pixel (no shakiness even without a tripod). Would be greatly appreciated just to be 100% yours doesn't suffer from it! Don't want to go through the hassle of sending it in (just got my whitestone dome installed) if there really are none that don't suffer from it.

Something like this:

https://abload.de/img/mockup1ep3q.png

The S9+ was on a bed not on my hand.

In person it looks even better but it is difficult to get the picture. The Pixel has a laser to focus and that is seen on the screen so I had to block it first.

I will send one more tonight and also one at 10%.

 

[Chris_c81]

Please see below.

I got it on first release day in UK (preorder) so clearly one of the first one manufactured.

//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180427/8ac3d12a2944b9668e5bfbc70ee6c724.jpg

Same. Yet mine suffers

Whats your Hardware Revision? Its detailed on the Hardware screen.

 

[waveuk]

Same revision. Couldn't send the new picture yesterday. I will try tonight.

 

[Toss3]

Would you mind testing the following pictures as well:

 

[pearse87]

Does everyone here have banding on the stock wallpapers with the colour gradient and the giant 9? Both the black and gray wallpaper have noticeable banding especially in the lighter grey areas.

 

[strikeIII]

Would you mind testing the following pictures as well:
https://abload.de/img/screen_test_channelse0nsqx.png
https://abload.de/img/screen_test_channelsedgsap.png
https://abload.de/img/screen_testz3sun.png

What should we look at with these pictures? Which number starts changing from full black? At 0 percent?

 

[ssj100]

Does everyone here have banding on the stock wallpapers with the colour gradient and the giant 9? Both the black and gray wallpaper have noticeable banding especially in the lighter grey areas.

Yes I have noticed that on mine.

 

[fanel891]

What should we look at with these pictures? Which number starts changing from full black? At 0 percent?

Same question, what am I looking for?

I just got my S9+ two days ago and I noticed the banding in a pitch black room, mostly around really dark colors on youtube videos.

I don't see any banding on the default 9 wallpapers but I do see it in the top left corner of the default 1 infinity wallpaper.

 

[Toss3]

The biggest issue with the S9+ lies between RGB(0,0,0) -> RGB(15,15,15) and these just illustrate where exactly the problem occurs (somewhere between rectangles 8 and 9 at the bottom); the S9+ fails to show the different shades of black and goes from very dark to a light gray instead of showing a slight increase in luminosity. It basically illustrates how different colours appear at different brightness levels.

 

[fanel891]

Ah, then I definitely see that under low light. I have a Qualcomm S9+ in Canada. The weird thing is I don't see any issues with the wallpapers except for infinity 1.

What does everyone recommend to do? Exchanging it seems like a toss up from what I read.

 

[waveuk]

I managed to get some new pictures. Some at 0/10/20/30/50/100% brightness; others at 0/10%.

 

[fanel891]

Does anyone think this is a hardware issue?

I think it's a software one. For example, in the attached screenshot, you can clearly see the triangle crush in the top left corner. This was taken using the built-in screenshot feature.

If it wasn't software-related but hardware instead, you wouldn't be able to see the issue with the built in screenshot tool. You'd have to take a photo with an external camera, no?