[Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] supermurmeli:
It seems that there is a lot of variance between the display quality between different SGS2 units. I myself was perfectly happy with mine until the screen had to be replaced by the Samsung warranty service. The new display wasn't half as bright as the one before and the light sensor coupled with a dim display makes it even worse. I've done some comparison between different units and found that almost all of them had different quality displays - many way too dark.

I made a photo comparison between our own to SGS2s using an original device (bought in early July) as a reference as its display performance is similar to the one I used to have in mine before the replacement.

I would be happy to hear if you have noticed similar differences with you own or your friends units just to get sense of how common the issue is.

The full story below!

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I’ve been a pretty happy owner of a Samsung Galaxy SII since April. I’ve especially been pleased with the excellent display that is able to deliver true blacks while being one of the brightest screens out there.

Imagine my horror then when the display broke. It looked like something was leaking inside it. It started as a minor pink hue in the edge of the screen and in a couple days had turned into a bruise covering one fourth of the screen. All the pixels seemed to work but there was a shadow with distinct edges clouding the picture.

The issue

Luckily the warranty covered this and the service point returned my phone with a note: “Display module replaced“. Little did I know that not all Super Amoled+ screens are created equal. After a minute of using the serviced device I noticed that the screen was somehow dark – noticeably darker than before. I checked all the settings – everything was set up the way it had been before with the auto-brightness set on. It just wasn’t the screen I had come to know. We have two units of the SGS2 at home and so I compared the serviced one with the other original unit. The display in the original (reference) unit was noticeably brighter than mine. The difference was even more apparent in the dark shades – where the reference display separated several different shades of dark grays mine only displayed black. The original screen on the reference device delivered the same quality as my ‘pre-serviced’ unit. Then I turned off the auto-brightness on both devices and cranked up the brightness to the max. Again the serviced unit was visibly dim compared to the reference unit. Even the color space between the devices are different – the original quite natural and a tad warm and the serviced one distinctly cool with whites tilted towards blue.

Next I borrowed a couple of other S2′s from colleagues at the office and it turned out their devices were just as dim as my serviced one – one even dimmer! I guess this explains why some reviewers and users have judged the display on the SGS2 to be too dark – something that I always thought to be a silly complaint. It seems that the display quality between devices varies greatly. I’m currently expecting a reply from my service point as to what I should do with my ‘faulty’ screen – I’ll let you know how this pans out.

I tried taking photos with the reference unit and the serviced unit side-by-side. If you think the differences are small and to complain is silly you should know that the real life effect is that taking photos and watching videos is now a pain because every shadow is just a solid black area and when you go into a dark room the auto-brightness drops the brightness way too low. So if you own a Samsung Galaxy s2 with a dark screen – you are one of the unlucky ones.

Below are the comparison shots. If you suspect you have one of the dark screens feel free to leave a comment below.

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