Yellow-tinted 3G iPhones causing concern amongst new buyers

Cleve Nettles
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July 11, 2008
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Over at MacRumors forums and Apple forums people are complaining about a yellow tint that covers the screen.  Anyone else having this issue?  How are you doing in the iPhone 3G screen lottery?  Did someone pee on your screen?

Or is this just the new 3G iPhone's screen default "tint".  Maybe Apple went with a slightly less quality screen on the 3G iPhone - or same quality - different default tint.  So maybe the question should be: Does anyone have a white 3G iPhone screen?  Does anyone want to buy a 2G iPhone with Whiter white?  The price just went up $100...

 

Update: there are some reports that the yellow tint burns off after some use.  Is this your experience?

Comments (12)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 8:43am

My screen is perfectly fine. No tint,

Rob Tucker (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 8:50am

Purchased an iPhone 3G first thing this morning. 2 problems.

a) Yellowish tint, seems to be getting less with use
b) Mail crashes everytime you use it.

So tried restoring to 2.0, and now caught up in the iTunes activation mess.

Rob

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 9:14am

someone peed on mine too :(
hopefully it goes away, but it is noticeably pee colored

john (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 9:27am

wait, ARE you selling your prev. iphone? let me know

Rob Tucker (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 1:29pm

Mail has now sorted, was a problem with MobileMe syncing. Annoying but sorted. Yellow tint remains. Not impressed, would love to know if this is in fact a default or just a new tint for this model.

Anybody have a pure white one?

Rob

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 2:25pm

Sounds familiar... the new iMac were introduced with inferior screens than their predecessors. Most of the 20inch screens give a yellow hue looking at it from an angle. They dropped the price then, perhaps the quality too?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 2:54pm

bought a 16g in UK this morning, and yeah, the tint is indeed pee...

how would this 'burn off' in time??? is that really possible?

DistortedLoop | July 11, 2008 - 2:57pm

 I've got two first generation iPhones, an 8gb from 6/29/07 and a 16gb from last February.  Add in today's iPhone 3g, and between the 3 of them, no two have the same tint to the screen.

The original 8gb has a very blue tint to it, the 16gb has a lighter tint, and the 3g phone is the brightest of the three, albeit a bit brown or yellow(?) compared to the first, but not noticeably so next to the second.

Odd. 

 

P.S. - hey admin, no more captcha for me.  Guess you fixed it from my last post.  THANKS!

DistortedLoop | July 11, 2008 - 3:01pm

P.S. - my White iPhone 3g, fresh out of an unopened shrink wrapped box has a very small nick/ding/gouge in the middle of the white plastic backing.  Very disappointing.  I managed to "buff" some of it out, but it's definitely a defect/damage.

Probably not enough to bother replacing it.  Might even be a blessing, you know how once you have the first scratch, you worry less about getting something scratched.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 4:37pm

I noticed the same thing today in the swisscom store and was glad i still own my good old 1G Phone :-) Also, the screen feels not as good as the 1G, it feels not so smooth to touch, like it has more resistance.

pomus (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 9:05pm

There are two things you can do to take out the yellow hue:

1. Take off the yellow tinted plastic strip that covers your glass display :p, and,

2. There might be a chance that you just have to update the firmware (from 5A345 to 5A347) apparently this has fixed the yellow discoloration!

Hope this helps.

uptownj (not verified) | July 13, 2008 - 12:30pm

I read comment from Apple that it's on purpose. Looks like shit. I will pass.