Galaxy S9+ Black Crush and Gradient Banding Issues

[Stocklone]

My display had really bad color banding issues with lots of black crushing going on. The default wallpapers even looked bad. The upper corner, where the colors get dark, instead of being a smooth transition of colors, it would 3 or 4 blobs of distinct solid colors. And if you dragged the notification tray down, the blobs would move as the wallpaper darkened. When I watched Batman Returns, anything remotely dark grey would crush to pure black. So Penguin would have three black holes in the back of his head instead of looking like he had dark grey hair.

I could not reproduce any of this on my wife's Note 8 so I know this is not normal. I already successfully put in a request for a new one and hopefully the new one is as good as her Note 8 at reproducing color. Just curious if anyone else is having this issue.

 

[akira ambient]

Yup, I just got mine and the banding is awful. Any dark colours are crushed and even gradients on normal colours are banding. I got my second today
for my partner and hers is exactly the same.

 

[Tibial]

Same problem here. Any video with dark scenes is practically unwatchable. The black crush is much more apparent in a dim lit or dark environment where there are no reflections on the screen. Watching a movie during bedtime is impossible now.

I had a tough time explaining that to tech support (they barely understood the problem) but they arranged a swap for me next week.

It would be very interesting to know if the problem is widespread. Some people might not even notice it if they only watch video during daytime or in a well lit room with the brightness all the way up...

 

[akira ambient]

Maybe it's how they are calibrated. I'm not sure what to do with mine as watching content is pretty unbearable. I previously had a note 8 and s8 and none of them did this.

Let us know if your replacement has the same issue. I will do the same if I get a replacement.

Also, so you have light leak around the edge of the frame and screen? Because I have it on both units too.

I'll be looking in store tomorrow to see if units there are affected. having two units myself I think this could well be how they are. either that or the first batch.

 

[Kristian Nikolov]

Mine is completely the same but the banding disappears when I increase the brightness somewhere above 50%.

 

[Tibial]

Issue is reduced significantly (but not completely) with Video Enhancer ON. But it's not ideal since I find the picture overly bright and saturated when using it.

Could this be a software issue? If so we might wait forever for Samsung to get it fixed...

Can anyone confirm if Video Enhancer helps them?

On a separate note, I don't have the light leak around the edges.

I don't think you'll be able to replicate the issue in stores because of the bright lighting.
Glare can mask the issue and the displays could appear normal under those lighting conditions.

Worth a try though. Let us know.

 

[goji26]

I have the same issue. I compared the S9+ screen to my Pixel 2 XL and they look remarkably similar. The colors on my Pixel look very close to the S9. Turn down the brightness and they both have identical black crush. I have the video enhancer on.

 

[Tibial]

I'd say it could be an Oreo problem, however, yesterday my wife received the Oreo OTA on her S8 and the screen is flawless.

Another weird behaviour is with the Display Tester app. For some odd reason, the app doesn't recognise the S9 screen as wide colour gamut capable. In the mean time, the screen ranks at the top of the smartphone world, including a review on Display Mate where they claim the screen has the largest coverage of Adobe standards. How is this possible?

 

[kmod75]

My display had really bad color banding issues with lots of black crushing going on. The default wallpapers even looked bad. The upper corner, where the colors get dark, instead of being a smooth transition of colors, it would 3 or 4 blobs of distinct solid colors. And if you dragged the notification tray down, the blobs would move as the wallpaper darkened. When I watched Batman Returns, anything remotely dark grey would crush to pure black. So Penguin would have three black holes in the back of his head instead of looking like he had dark grey hair.

I could not reproduce any of this on my wife's Note 8 so I know this is not normal. I already successfully put in a request for a new one and hopefully the new one is as good as her Note 8 at reproducing color. Just curious if anyone else is having this issue.

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but have noticed when I watch Netflix videos, darker portions of the video I'm watching almost completely blend into the screen. Doesn't make for a very good viewing experience. Basically, anything darker or shaded in the video becomes almost impossible to make out.

I'm using the adaptive display setting on the FHD+ screen.

 

[Tibial]

Ok, trying to figure out the issue a bit further, I did a comparison between the S9+ (top) and the S8 (bottom) which I think clearly demonstrates the difference.

Both phones are running Oreo 8.0 with the latest updates from Samsung (UK).

Settings are the same for both devices. Brightness is set to 50%, adaptive mode, QHD+ resolution, video enhancer off.

It seems that the S9 is actually trying to resolve more detail from a dark scene than the S8 and that results in black crush and colour banding showing things that are not meant to be seen. Notice especially the wardrobe on the right side of the scene. The S8 covers the shadow details effectively and hides the furniture while the S9+ is trying to resolve them and makes everything visible.


Maybe the S9 is displaying a colour range which is not compatible with a standard video.
That's just my wild guess as I'm not an expert in image processing or video standards...

Also, I've been on a Samsung Experience stand today and all the devices I checked exhibited the same behaviour. It seems it's the new standard for now

 

[lucianus_luciferus]

The top image looks better to me
What movie is that?

 

[Tibial]

Blade Runner 2049. And believe me you wouldn't like the picture at all if you'd actually saw the real thing. Especially in motion.

 

[Jaycemiskel]

Top image also looks better to me, as well. When I saw them, I thought you were going to say that the bottom was the S9 and I was thinking, yeah that is pretty crappy looking in comparison to the top. I don't know, so far I enjoy my screen. No complaints.

 

[Toss3]

Seeing the same issue on mine. Comparison between SP4, S7 and S9+:

:-X

 

[zizo90]

I did the test in Display Tester app, and unfortunately here is the result:

Are you sure the S9 is on top? I can clearly see the whole wardrobe on top, on the bottom phone its covered in black and can barely make it out. Plus the table on the left is much more clearer as well on the top phone.

I have the black crush issue on my S9+, and I think yours doesn't.

 

[chanchan05]

Try setting your screens out of adaptive display, since that uses software to try and detect what's on your screen and adjust accordingly. Try any of the others since it just sets the color to one of the other standards regardless of what's on the screen. IIRC, AMOLED photo is RGB and Basic is sRGB.

 

[Shay Shahar]

The problem is there in every screen mode...

 

[Toss3]

Try setting your screens out of adaptive display, since that uses software to try and detect what's on your screen and adjust accordingly. Try any of the others since it just sets the color to one of the other standards regardless of what's on the screen. IIRC, AMOLED photo is RGB and Basic is sRGB.

Mine was set to adaptive (tried all of them and saw no improvement).

Andrei of Anandtech just replied saying it's a calibration issue that could be fixed with a custom kernel (not sure I want to lose any security features because samsung doesn't know how to calibrate their displays properly).

 

[waveuk]

I did the test in Display Tester app, and unfortunately here is the result:

I see the same doing the test but as this is replicated in the screenshot I would say this is a software issue.

 

[Toss3]

Here's an ultra low light comparison (ISO 6400 without a tripod hence the awful quality):

You can clearly see the S9+ struggling compared to the S7. :/