[Galaxy Note 3 General] TML1504:
hi,

i just started this thread to get your opinions regarding the display quality of the note3!

i have to admit upfront that i'm a hypocrite when it comes to amoled screens, so far i had to switch all of my amoled devices a least 5 times until i got a unit which satisfied me. done this with the first note, and also with the second.

as far as i can say the screen of the note3 is the best i've ever seen (by far better black-levels as note1 and note2), although i also identified a few flaws as well:

the color RED has very bad viewing angles: when tilting the device a little bit the color gets orange immediately.

try this by enter *#0*# in the dialer, and click on "red" then tilt the device. let us know how "your red" is, thx!

the gamma of the screen is totally screwed: can see down to "1" in gammatest.png:

the disadvantage of this is that you are actually able to see dark grey screens which you should not.

on the left side of the screen border there is a small strip which has also more gamma then the rest of the screen, in menus etc.

this is clearly visible when its dark around. also only visible when at least a little grey is to display, pure black is ok!

this week i will test one or two more note3's, just to have a comparison and to determine if the quality spread is as big as with previous devices. for note1 and note2 the differences between devices were really huge. some screens were near to perfect, most of them had flaws with color unevenness.

what are your impressions?

and: do you care?

regards,

markus

edit 03.10.2013:

just got my second note (this time from amazon.de): the screen is considerably better!! the "more gamma" strip on the left side is non existent on the second device, in gammatest.png the screen is much more uniform! also the red viewing angle is better, it still fades to orange when tilted, but not as much as with my first device!

conclusio: the big differences in screen quality are still existant, it's still luck of the draw if you get a decent one or not...

also the general build quality differs: on the second device the pcb is not exactly in the middle of the casing, the camera hole is not centered in it's protrusion, and the power button extends a little more out of the casing.

again, i may be a "little" freaky about this things, but for > €700 I want to have a decent device!

screen quality is very important for me, because i read a lot with the device, especially in dark environments where the left gamma strip i mentioned was really annoying! i also showed this to a few colleagues of mine, and they agreed.

edit 04.10.2013:

another finding: when CPU load is high, the brightness jumps between a lower (darker) and a higher (brighter) state, even if brightness is set to manual: both devices show this behavior, although not exactly identically: my first device needs more load to start with this (it takes longer), the second one starts the dimming relatively early.

how to test: load a stress test tool (cpu prime benchmark from google play) and let it run, set the brightness to manual maximum and wait.

you will see that after a few seconds the screen will go darker, and will switch between this states. this is independent from the brightness level, it is only better seen at maximum!

i guess this is some power and/or thermal limitation (when more cores are under heavy load), it would be interesting how this kicks in in summer when ambient temperatures are higher...

edit 25.10.2013:

just to let you know: i'm now through 6 devices, all of them had display flaws in terms of uneveness.

a issue most of the devices suffer is the lower dark half of the screen: on 4 of my 6 note3's the lower half of the screen has been signifcantly darker then t´he upper half,

one had a very bad gamme increase on the left 2mm, one had a bad gamma increase on the top 2cm. 4 had a warmer white, two of them were more cold (more blue). could be due to missing or wrong factory calibration...

what is gone is the "blotch issue" i had with sgs2, note1 and note2, and: black is now really black!

but on dark grey levels the uneveness is clearly visible, look at the attached "gammatest.png"

this shows the lowest grey tones. and should be a very visible gradient from top to bottom.

go in a totally dark room, open the pic, zoom in max, and navigate to the top left corner. then pull the

picture down, and look how the numbers fade. for example: "6" should be at the same brightness level on top

and bottom of the screen. it definitely is not...

go out and test for yourself, and post your findings!