[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jmattp:
I posted a while back with photos of a good phone. I sold that phone (bad idea) because I bought it used off contract, needed the money at the time, and I had an upgrade coming anyway. I got another today with my upgrade and it's really bad. It's not awfully noticeable in bright rooms (like the Verizon store for example) but the notification shade, the settings app, calculator, and anywhere else you'll see dark grays are so purple they almost look blue. It's obviously really noticeable when the brightness is low. We've all established that already.

I tried to exchange it at a local store and the visit basically ended with, "Exchanging it won't help. Deal with it or return it." even though the manager looked at it himself and acknowledged that he saw the purple discoloration.

I called Verizon to talk to someone about that. The representative told me that he should have given me more options. Because I'm still in my 14-day return period, she put in an order for a brand new replacement. She also said that if the replacement has the same issue, to just call them and they'll send another if needed, or they can "opt me out of the device" (I'm not sure what that means) so I can get something different (which I don't want to do because I have no interest in any other phone they sell or will sell any time soon. I only want a vanilla Android device).

I think I might just try to keep getting replacements - refurbished or not - until I get one that can at least display grays and blacks properly. The Android 4.0 UI is so nice; I hate that it's ruined by Samsung's crappy displays.

I'm not really providing any productive input here. But, if anyone takes their phone in for display issues and the salesperson won't swap it out, call Verizon (or Sprint) customer service. They should help you out. The retail salespeople never seem to notice the discoloration. I'm pretty sure it's due to the bright lighting in the stores, and that they don't actually own a Galaxy Nexus and use it as their regular phone. Maybe they just don't want to see it because they have to sell them... I mean, every person I show it to who isn't a salesperson notices it immediately. I can hold it up and say, "Is this black or purple?" and they answer, "Purple."

I hope no one who is having these problems with their phones are just dealing with it. Return them, exchange them, get replacements, contact Samsung. It's not the end of the world or anything THAT significant, but it's a pain the ass and Samsung needs to stop shipping phones with bad displays. Most of us either get stuck with these phones for two years straight, or we spend around $400 (previously $600) on the phone itself. I don't think it's excusable to have to deal with the results of Samsung's terrible quality control.

...Not to mention there's a giant poster in every Verizon store that shows a Google+ Hangout screen on a Galaxy Nexus. That image shows that the UI elements are black and gray, not purple. Some stores even have phones with good displays (besides screen burn from them being on all the time) yet some salespeople refuse to acknowledge that a lot of these phones have this problem. How do they not know about it? One guy even asked if I had Advanced Task Killer installed. WTF?