yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S II General] tuhinz:
I have noticed the yellow tinge towards the left of the screen only on lowest brightness. However I almost always set brightness to around 30% so it doesn't show up at all.

I'm pretty sure the colour banding is a driver/ software issue and could be solved with updates. I think supercurio is working on a mod for improving the colour and could possibly solve the banding.

My screen does not have the vertical/ horizontal lines at all. This seems like a manufacturing issue and doesn't affect all handsets.

I think its worth a try to ask for a replacement and see if it helps you.
[Galaxy S II General] ru5t:
it's definitely not a screen problem, because the banding is even visible in a simple screenshot. Take a look at the pictures:

screenshot galaxy s2: (2.3.3 official)

screenshot galaxy s: (2.3.3 official)
[Galaxy S II General] tuhinz:
Could it be that Mali400 is cheating with lower bit output to improve performance?

Before GSII came out I remember reading a few articles questioning Samsung's choice in going for the Mali GPU over the PowerVR SGX 543 considering the fact that the Galaxy S had great GPU performance due to the SGX 540 (?) chip inside.

However now in the benchmarks the Mali GPU looks competitive compared to the Tegra2 and Adreno220. Is it possible that this is due to performance optimisation over quality?:confused:
[Galaxy S II General] TheWarKeeper:
ok so this is a software problem then? as the screenshot is also 16bits? man im gonna murder them for this low cheat, 650€ for a phone that tries to cheat its way to the top?!
[Galaxy S II General] Sandruz:
We need some answers from samsung....
[Galaxy S II General] jvidia:
How do we get that?

Samsung, as all actual multi million dollar companies, don't bother too much aswering clients.
[Galaxy S II General] TheWarKeeper:
i rly need to know if this 16bits is the problem of the screen or if its just some software crap, because if the screen is only 16bits im returning it this instance and ill get either an lg or the xperia arc
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
I think its definitely software issue. The screen is samsungs newest hardware, and the previous amoled screens were not limited to 16 bit. I can't see how their latest version would be worse than their older hardware.
[Galaxy S II General] TheWarKeeper:
well as someone said, to have a dirty cheat at performance i dunno... it looks fine for me but i havent checked gradients rly.

This is killing me, i could have done alot better stuff with 650€ and i think so could everyone else facing the same problem...
[Galaxy S II General] ZhuraYuk:
googled a little

Just launch Angry Birds or The Imposible Game and you will see that ****. But i personally see it even in apps.

Read this http://forums.arm.com/index.php?/topic/15028-bug-in-driver-android-sgs-2-i9100/ thread and i think it's hardvare limitations. Mali 400 is crazy ****.
[Galaxy S II General] Dannyboyni:
I just tried doing a skype video chat with a friend who also owns a galaxy s II. OMG the gradients, I would get better quality image using a black and white tv from the 1930s.

I am so mad, sorry folks. Why has this issue not been fixed yet, I really hope its not a hardware issue :(
[Galaxy S II General] sunwee:
likely NOT a hardware issue.

coz over at the MUIU thread, folks are reporting that even with the rom's alpha status, there is NO banding!
[Galaxy S II General] ZhuraYuk:
No, there IS banding. Here my screenshot from MIUI.
[Galaxy S II General] briko78:
Well... Cannot see it though!?
[Galaxy S II General] ZhuraYuk:
Lol wut? Man you are blind, open image on phone then.
[Galaxy S II General] briko78:
Opened it on my phone... Don't see it at all :confused:
[Galaxy S II General] buddy01:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=13850823&postcount=52
[Galaxy S II General] ZhuraYuk:
I really envy you, wish I would not see it too.
[Galaxy S II General] aydc:
CyanogenMod7 is much much much better in this issue. I had banding on stock rom too, but with CM7, banding is either nonexistant or very very hard to see. I don't have another camera so I can't give you any screenshots, so try CM7 nightly and see for yourself.
[Galaxy S II General] ZhuraYuk:
Just play Impossible Game, or Angry Birds, you will know for sure.
[Galaxy S II General] deanwray:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=13850823&postcount=52

My proc gradient gen, easy way to see ;)

Viewing an image and saying look at the banding is a bit retarded unless you compressed it yourself! And wrote the viewer app yourself!!!
[Galaxy S II General] xakarix84:
i can see the banding easily at *#0*# under dimming section, appear on all the red green and blue, but it doesn't annoy me day to day use, so i can live with it. my dell 2007wfp monitor have banding too, maybe i'm a easy settle person. =)
[Galaxy S II General] robt772000:
Has anyone found a fix for this yet?
[Galaxy S II General] knightnz:
Installing CM7 is the "best" solution currently. So, effectively, "no".
[Galaxy S II General] slabster025:
hmmm...i asked for replacement because of it (dark vertical lines)

reseller said no stocks yet, im doing nothing with so far

i find the lines annoying specially when watching in a dark room :(
[Galaxy S II General] robt772000:
I would rather live with banding and keep Sammy codecs than go CM7
[Galaxy S II General] EarlZ:
CM7 is still far from 24/7 daily usage, Wish development would speed up a little :D

Either you dont know what banding is or your visually impaired, I also envy you for not seeing it.
[Galaxy S II General] knightnz:
That sounds like a different problem entirely. You should not generally notice gradient issues during video playback (unless it's a cartoon perhaps?)
[Galaxy S II General] beaver2233:
yeah its clearly evident there's a problem when playing the impossible game, even more-so when compared with my sgs1
[Galaxy S II General] joelmonty:
Here's a screen on my galaxy sl (SCLCD) ,the banding isn't there.:)
[Galaxy S II General] .Arkham:
Looks like a screenshot, not a pic of the screen. Which is it? ;)
[Galaxy S II General] z45123:
Atrix Border Banding Issue

I having this issue now with the Atrix why cant these phone screens have the same quality as the Iphone. Thanks
[Galaxy S II General] hexxor93:
That is why you should always demo the phone if you get the chance. And comparing it to a Iphone is kinda not helping. Unless the colour banding is making reading the screen or playing a game hard, just wait it out. Sure there is a fix somewhere out there. When I updated my GS2 to 2.3.4 the banding on the xda app was less bandy looking but still a little off... Nothing biggy
[Galaxy S II General] anshmiester78900:
Well mate after reading ur comment i just installed Cm7 (cm_galaxys2_full-39) n installed Angry birds but still i can see banding on my screen :(

do i need to do anything more after installing CM7?
[Galaxy S II General] SaneinOne:
I exchanged my device 1 week ago due to that issue as well as yellow discolouration and random reboots. Absolutely no visible screen issue with new device, dated Aug. 24. While different ROMs on original device resulted in variances of the screen issues they were always observable. This leads me to conclude that a software fix will eventually result in good improvement to these but that the hardware build is a factor as well.
[Galaxy S II General] Pfeffernuss:
As you would be one of the lucky few people in the whole world with a "perfect" S2 screen please upload some photo's ;)
[Galaxy S II General] z45123:
Fix for this

I have an atrix which has similiar issues is there anything we can mod to fix this. Thanks
[Galaxy S II General] Vialeb:
Mine have the same problem.not on this game but on others.bt i just ignored it since its just a minor issue for me.
[Galaxy S II General] SAlmighty:
anytime I rotate my s2 in the notifications area I see a faint line that appears on the sides of the screen (usually 2 lines, one on each end, running parallel in respect to the orientation of the screen), which disappears slowly after a couple of seconds. is this a fault? or normal with these AMOLED displays?
[Galaxy S II General] mwatson:
I just flashed a MIUI rom and the banding is almost gone. Just a bit on red. Much better compared to stock rom.
[Galaxy S II General] knightnz:
That's because MIUI is AOSP based like CM7 and uses similar graphics routines. They both vastly reduce the banding issues.

FWIW I'm running a KJ4 firmware, and the issue still exists, so if Samsung have any intent on fixing it, I doubt they'll do so until ICS.
[Galaxy S II General] adedawson:
Just want to point out some banding it caused by image file size reduction techniques.

I've created an example to the extreme, no one with half a brain would do this, but what you might find is banding a lot tighter.

*edit* Created 3 example showing file size/image degradation. The 3rd being normal.

If you ever get anomalies in certain games etc which you dont get else where, its probably been caused by this.
[Galaxy S II General] deskmat81:
Hi guys, every SG2 I've seen (and there are at least 7 different SG2 in my family) has the problem on the banding when the phone renders live wallpapers or 3D games. Some time ago I readed about that Samsung chooses (I'm not sure about this) to use 16bit dithering for better perfomance and so worse image quality ...Now, if I use an AOSP ROM (CM o MIUI) are the things different? Using a program like Voodoo Screen Tuning will change anything? I hate that bands more than the autofocus problem!
[Galaxy S II General] godutch:
Even though the banding improved over the course of the gingerbread ROMs it was still there but now with ics it finally seems fixed.
[Galaxy S II General] VAXXi:
Are you sure about this ? I'm running ICS and the banding is still horrible, visible on the lockscreen/wallpaper/browser images. I've cut an wallpaper to the exact screen size in order to dismiss a possible crap resize of images by the phone, I've changed various display settings - still the same.

The gradient test from here looks ok in screenshots, but I don't have anything with me to photograph the screen (it's worse in real life).
[Galaxy S II General] yahyoh:
no thing fix in ICS i think this problem not sammy thing its Mali developer cuz same problem in galaxy note but no problem in galaxy nexuse or galaxy s1 with PowerVR SGX540 gpu

but no one hear us and they didnt fix any thing its really annoying problem with the beautiful super amoled plus :(:mad:

what do u think is it screen problem or gpu driver ??
[Galaxy S II General] VAXXi:
I'm betting on a hardcoded bit depth limitation somewhere in the GPU driver source code. Don't remember having this problem with previous custom GB kernels.

Edit: just as info, here's a picture about how it should look. Left is Nexus, right is S2. Difference is obvious.
[Galaxy S II General] jawil:
Today I finally got to see for myself how terrible the banding is with 16-bits graphics comapared to 24-bits. It's pretty clear that the banding on the S2 is caused by applications using 16-bits rendering.

I downloaded a Live Wallpaper called Ice Cream Sandwich Live WP (I am not associated with this program or the guys making it) and immediately discovered heavy banding in the wallpaper on some of the backgrounds and heavy dithering on others. The wallpaper was great, apart from the banding/dithering. For example there was banding on the "phase beam"-style screen and dithering on the "standard"-style screen.

I decided to take a look at the settings, and found the option "Color Mode". This setting comes with a warning about problems with some devices. The default was set to 16 bit (565). I changed this to 24 bit (888) and re-started the screen-saver as told in the warning.

All of the banding was gone in an instant! Totally smooth colors. This little screen-saver shows what can be done with the S2 and the SAMOLED-screen when using 24-bits colors.

The LWP costs $1 or something, but you should be able to try this within the return-window. But it's woth the money anyway. Especially without the banding. :) I also tried this on my Galaxy Tab 7.7 with the same result. The banding was even more visible here because of the larger screen.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tribok.android.livewallpaper.icswallpaper.pro
[Galaxy S II General] ndnesh:
Cool! I will check out the app!
[Galaxy S II General] andro6600:
I am wondering, how tha problem that big, getting no attention from Samsung, Google, devs? This is major downfall for this device ever! For GB roms, supercurio's screen tuning app solves the problem somewhat , but now with ICS, things are worst! Is it so hard to fix this, or just no one even bother? If I just had the skills...
[Galaxy S II General] RogerPodacter:
yeah i totally agree. interestingly the android gallery app on the nexus one (and looks like on the SGS2 too) IS in fact hardware accelerated even on the nexus one and the SGS2. so i wonder if there is any relation to the banding and this fact.

i actually cant remember now if i am confusing the gallery app being native c++ code vs hardware accelerated, rather than written in java with the dalvik VM. it was one of the two but i just cant remember which now.
[Galaxy S II General] murklor:
The original photo however, was for a game. Not the browser.

Is there any Android application that is known to try to enforce its own bit depth, where its possible to check gradients?

I suppose the easiest way would be to try the lagom test in browser and compare with a downloaded version in the image gallery, if that's supposed to be 24bit? The image gallery should show no banding then. If this is the case, then the game for some reason default to 16bit on the S2, while it default to 24bit colors on the Nexus One (alternatively 16bit with dithering, compared to 16bit without dithering on the S2).

Please somebody try this, as it would put the argument to rest :)
[Galaxy S II General] amtrakcn:
I would suggest try gallery and view the photo at original size.

This is where most manufactures would try their best to keep the color.
[Galaxy S II General] BlueScreenJunky:
Are you sure the gallery is actually displaying 24bits ? I'd think they used the same trick as on the galaxy S1 and use dithering for the gallery and browser (see "color depth and granularity paragraph on this page). So it looks almost as good in those apps but we can't know for sure that the display is able to handle 24bits for other apps.
[Galaxy S II General] Funkym0nkey:
it looks that way.

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php#gradient-h.png

the images here show definite banding if viewed in browser.

But if you download the images and see it in gallery, the banding is no longer there.

So looks like gallery definitely shows true 24bit colours.

Also there is distinct possibility that in some cases gradient might not be displayed properly on the SAMOLED screen due to the nature of the screen. The screen itself might be wide gamut causing these issues in certain applications.

BTW banding is also visible in some youtube videos and angry birds splash screens(when you move from one level to other ).
[Galaxy S II General] Ingvarr:
... or maybe gallery uses dithering to hide 16-bit quantization bands.
[Galaxy S II General] phooey:
I too have this issue, I wonder if it's specific to certain copies or if all SGS2 have this issue?

The lagom.nl gradient test picture looks pretty bad in the browser and even worse if you scroll around, however it looks OK if you save it and view it in the gallery. In Opera Mobile it also looks OK. So that speaks for the issue being software related.

The Nexus live wallpaper for example also looks terrible. I noticed the heavy banding in the splash screens of both Angry Birds and Stupid Zombies as well.

The "dimming" test under "*#0*#" has absolutely terrible banding.

I for one find this quite annoying and almost contemplated taking the phone back before I found this thread. It kind of sucks to have banding issues on the wallpaper and in games.

If all copies are affected and it is indeed software-related, do you think we will see a fix for this from Samsung? Or would you have to resort to a custom ROM?
[Galaxy S II General] mathieulh:
If enough people contact Samsung and raise the issue, they might be inclined to do something, otherwise we'll just resort to custom roms.
[Galaxy S II General] murklor:
So has it been fixed on other samoled phones by custom roms? Just curious if it even is fixable. People throw "custom roms fix it!" around a little too lightly for my taste...
[Galaxy S II General] Beefheart:
The lagom.nl gradient looks just as good on my mobile browser as it does on my laptop. Surely I'm not on my own with that. It looks nothing like the gradient example further down the page.
[Galaxy S II General] EmilianM:
I observed it also even in their own apps!

To reproduce this : Open Readers Hub -> Open Magazines(Zinio) and when the Zino brand is displayed the background suffers very visible of this gradient problem. It looks like it is displaying wit 256 colors instead of 16M.
[Galaxy S II General] bilboa1:
yes - all glide stuff (games, browser, gallery browser, etc anything "3D" or using the 3D gpu basically) is 16 bits.

Why, I don't know. Can it be fixed, maybe.
[Galaxy S II General] kersh:
I see in my g2 the same banding in the browser and in the gallery after download the image.

It is a lot and exist.
[Galaxy S II General] EmilianM:
so we should do a list with all the bugs we found :)...to try to force Samsung to prioritise this for the next FW update....
[Galaxy S II General] bilboa1:
there must be a technical reason for this choice, that said if we force the stuff to 24bit via CF's drivers (whenever hes done) we might uncover the real reason (or the lack of it?)

would be bad if the mali has issues ^^
[Galaxy S II General] tuhinz:
I raised the same issue in another thread. I registered a complaint with Samsung support. Look at their reply (red) & my query (in blue). Looks like we are going to get canned responses for this issue from them!

12.05.2011 17:46:02

Customer reference number: #######

Email response ID: #######

Dear #######,

Thank you for contacting Samsung and I have pleasure in providing the

following assistance:

Regarding your query, kindly be informed that if the phone does not

exceed the 28 days, you can exchange it with another brand new phone as

long as it is under the warranty in case there is a manufacture default

in the phone.

If you require any further assistance, please contact Samsung again and

we will be more than happy to help.

Kind regards,

########

Online Support Team

Samsung Customer Support Centre

Need to contact the Samsung Customer Support Centre?

…by EMAIL using the link below and we aim to answer your email within

one business day

https://contactus.samsung.com/customer/contactus/formmail/mail/MailQuest

ionProduct.jsp?SITE_ID=31

…by TELEPHONE during our opening hours Monday – Saturday, 9am – 6pm

UK customers 0330 SAMSUNG (7267864)

EIRE customers 0818 717100

…by LETTER and we aim to acknowledge your letter within one business day

of receipt

Samsung Customer Support Centre

PO Box 479

GATESHEAD

NE9 9BJ

United Kingdom

12.05.2011 03:16:11

The display on the Galaxy SII, while being very contrasty , shows colour

gradient banding on single colour gradients ( As though it was a 16 bit

display). It is especially prominent in the grey background of the

Neural Net Live Wallpaper, Clody sky of the Windmill Wallpaper, Kies (PC

Usb connection) Start screen etc. To a lesser degree it also shows up in

all images which have a gradual tint of a single shade. (Especially

worse is the Oamp;quot customised Log ON amp; Log Off

screen which shows up as horrible banded blue background). Is this a

known issue with drivers like on the original Nexus 1 amp; is a

fix being worked upon? Is it a defect in my handset in particular and

should I ask O2 for an exchange?

FYI, I compared the display quality of my other android phone (Sony

Ericsson Xperia X10i) with my new Galaxy SII and I found the X10 shows

much less(almost none) gradient banding compared to my SGII.

This is my first samsung phone and I hope I will not be disappointed!

Thank You
[Galaxy S II General] bilboa1:
should be more direct in your query to avoid such replies

like

"colors of xx and zz and yy are 16bit and display banding problems"

"fix it fix it fix it"

:)

otherwise they over read it and reply copy-pasted stuff (they get zillion support emails a day)
[Galaxy S II General] tuhinz:
Yeah you are right. I guess its coz of my marketing day job: Love long winded conversations! :p
[Galaxy S II General] daedric:
Due excuse me, but Glide? what is Glide ?
[Galaxy S II General] BlueScreenJunky:
A proprietary 3D API (like OpenGL or Direct X) that was used by 3dfx cards. I had no idea the Exynos used a 3dfx chip though :D
[Galaxy S II General] pahardie:
Getting pretty heavy gradients in all mentioned apps here, ironically xda is the best test.

This forum gets me paranoid (in a good knowledge expanding way :-)) had ignored the banding previously now can't help looking for it!

Fingers crossed its a rom fix they'll shove out themselves soon. A phone marketed on screen quality can't look that bad for long....
[Galaxy S II General] EmilianM:
Very strange, in all the tests done here by GSM arena the imperfect gradient is not visible at all ?!

Maybe this is because this application used for tests uses in a correct meaner(or without HD acceleration!?) the SGS drivers ?

Pleas have a look at this pictures...

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-review-597p2.php
[Galaxy S II General] tuhinz:
Hi,

Yes . This is the reason I am still surprised. None of the reviews mentioned a single word about the gradient banding issue . However it now seems a few of us have experienced this issue. Many others say the banding is not noticeable but to me its quite apparent- especially since I am using my Xperia X10 for comparision (which doesnt show the banding).

It could be down to 3 things IMHO:

1. The ones who have complained (me included) have supersensitive eyes 1 (Mines pretty bad with -4.75 correction on both eyes so it seems unlikely).

2. The reviewers, and others who dont complain haven't used the particular apps/ images which aggravate the issue viz: New Nexus Live WP, Angry Birds stage load screen, Kies MTP screen on usb connect mode etc (Highly unlikely given the popularity of Angry Birds at the very least ! :D )

3. There has been a bad batch of phones with display issues which are the ones showing this banding.

3rd point now seems most likely to me. Unfortunately I havent been able to compare this with another SG" simply coz they are perpetually out of stock- these phones are literally flying off the shelves. Workload permitting, I will try and have a look in the O2 stores tomorrow (Tue is new stock day apparently).

I will also try and click pictures of the screens again and post here (Quality will be bad- Xperia X10 trying to capture a bright OLED screen while keeping it in focus is difficult!).:D

However can any of the reviewers: GSMArena or others specifically look into the scenarios aggravating this issue and reply? Surely some of the old timers here would be able to help us out?
[Galaxy S II General] Seabass1:
I created a gradient in photoshop and when viewed in the gallery on the phone it shows banding and a lot of obvious dithering. The fact that dithering is present suggests that it is something that will occur every SGS II rather than there being a faulty batch as it's probably being done to try and hide the banding to some degree.

Hopefully it's a software issue rather than some sort of hardware limitation.
[Galaxy S II General] deanwray:
Alternate explination

I'll add another possibility to the mix.

Developers have the ability to amend and override the "onAttachedToWindow" function of an activity class. To put it simply, I use lots of grads, both bitmap and procedural and have no issues on my sgs2 unit. But if I don't override and force PixelFormat.RGBA_8888 then it all shows up.

Maybe there is something in a ROM (though I'm not aware) that can force this off for performance.

Just a thought!