[Samsung Galaxy S9+ Questions & Answers] trenzterra:
Ok. Fine then, there is more black crush in the s9+ compared to other AMOLED phones.

My experience with Screen Balance is that when applied properly, I can minimise black crush while still retaining true black level (I.e. if the screen crushes greys from level 1 to 5, you can apply screen balance such that it will crush only level 1 and 2 (thus still retaining true black)).

Some have mentioned that when black crush is alleviated they see other compression artifacts and banding. If you see this when comparing using the Netflix app, don't. It seems that netflix is streaming a different video to s9 devices. Try it using a local video loaded on MX player or something. You should find that whatever residual compression artifacts you find are a part of the video itself.

I don't think there's anything defective in the hardware at all. Samsung, which has been manufacturing AMOLEDs for many years, suddenly produces a dud when all of their other panels have been "perfect"? More likely it has something to do with how they calibrated the s9+. Some mention their replacement s9+ is "better". Now that's where I think it is just placebo or small manufacturing variance (I have two s9+ at home, one shows slightly less black crush than the other when using the display tester app, but when testing on normal videos they look exactly the same).

But even if Samsung can fix it, chances are that it won't. From my experience with Samsung, whoever is Manning customer service are clueless about the technicalities of their products compared to us. They will write some generic description and the issue gets lost in translation when escalating it to the engineers who will end up fixing something else, e.g. the wallpaper instead of the underlying issue.

But I've come to accept this as part and parcel of owning a Samsung device. I owned the S4, s6 and s7 edge before this. Sometimes things get fixed, sometimes they don't, sometimes they introduce another problem.

On the S4, I had sound crackling on certain earphones (again, another issue I discovered courtesy of XDA. Thanks guys.). Replaced my phone and same issue. So I headed to the service centre and told them the issue. They did a replacement of the screen and motherboard. Still same issue, but now I ended up with a dead pixel on the screen. Swapped for another screen and same thing. Swapped again, and got a big piece of dust under the screen. Swapped once again and there was a small (normally unobservable) dust under the screen. This time I was told I could no longer do a swap. Eventually the sound crackling issue, which everyone thought was hardware, was somehow fixed some six months in when the KitKat upgrade was rolled out.

With the s6, I had screen unevenness issue where my screen would be green at the left and red on the right. Did multiple swaps again and even ended up selling and buying another s6 twice, all with variations of the same issue.

Both times, I eventually lived with it and learnt to accept that this is Samsung. Which is why I am advising you guys not to get a replacement. It will most likely be the same. Do you honestly believe yourselves to be so "lucky" to end up with a lemon set when on other days, one could never even win in a lottery? And so far, no one has said they don't have an issue with the s9+'s screen. Improved, but not resolved.

What I advise, for those who cannot live with this, is to get another model like the s9, or leave Samsung altogether.

For those more technically inclined, get to the root of the problem yourself, like loading a custom ROM and see if there's a way to alleviate the black crush.