So the streaking is only in the browser, what about while reading emails?

If it *is* a screen issue, it should affect all applications more or less equally; if the streaking is only visible in the browser, maybe there's something weird going on in the Webkit render engine that could be looked at in time for PR1.2.

I'm not a hardware engineer, but I see little reason why there should be streaking where the text is no longer visible - if the screen should be displaying all white pixels, then all white is what should be displayed not some remnant of a previous image. This all points to software/driver problems IMHO.

Actually, ignore my previous message, I realized the way I was making my test images was wrong and it is infact just the color depth, I made a simple test page here, where you can see the problem if you look at it with both a desktop browser and the N9's browser.

And this problem is completely unrelated to the purple lines you get above dark patches on white background.

Edit:
Just noticed that Opera Mobile (from here) does dither higher depth images before displaying them.

imo there are 2 main issues with MY N9 screen:

1) the colour mangement is completely off charts.

This is the only phone I have that displays its own shot pictures absurdely oversaturated and over contrasted.

I have compared a same picture shot with the N9 on N900, Pre3, N8 and iPone 3GS, finally on my high gammut , calibrated Dell monitor.

Conclusion: the N9 is by far the worst of the bunch when displaying pictures in the gallery or in the webbrowser.


The N9 is obviously trying to hide something by not allowing full zoom of pictures in the gallery. So doing one can't inspect the subtile gradients up close.
On the N900 one can zoom in full size on pictures.

To get the best out of this screen and phone for everybody, somebody needs to write a patch that introduces the possibility to adjust the RGB values next to colour dept and brightness.


Many of the uglyness may disappear when we have adjusted our screens to normal contrast, brightness and colour values.

2) the sharpness of text: I am afraid most people with good eyesight that were expecting this phone to function as an internet tablet may notice the serious downgrade.
The only thing I see sharp when looking at small text-and I mean really small text that always was readable on the N900- is this damn pentile screen's raster.
a Samsung Galaxy tab with a much lower ppi figure but a quieter TFT screen produces almost the same sharpness on small text, but of course has a much larger screen.

This N9 display quality may be improved by patching but it will never be worthy of the OS when the purpose is using it as an internet tablet for replacing the N900.

For the time being the display only excells in displaying this grid of colourfull app icons.

N9 is really the phone edition of the Harmattan running hardware and even on the wp7 forums there is now anxious speculation going on as will the 800 have the same backward screen technology .

Edit: to confirm with OP, I also am able to observe those black spots on gray (for example in the empty task manager window) but consider this minor issue at this stage

I believe it is 16bit depth, I had the same concern when I launched gPodder, notices the ugly bands of different greys instead of smooth gradient. Hope my screen isn't defective!

I also have been getting red dotted left edges on white/grey text against black background. Makes text hazy, is this pentile doing its evil?

Afraid so, take www.dpreview.com for example.


The screen raster is clearly visible inside the white characters that have indeed a coloured edge.
For me the supposed white text is yellowish.

Somehow this reminds me of CRT monitors with resolution set too high. Or my Panasonic plasma up close. The difference being that I would not read the said screens from close distance.

Clear blackTM, hazy all the rest. Welcome to the museum of obsolete hyped screen technology.

The same text on dpreview.com is rendered close to perfect on the N900 display.

Darn... annoying... I was hoping my phone had a faulty screen... I remember how text was so crisp on my N900 (until I left it on a train!).

Love the N9 viewing angles and vivid colours & deep blacks with that display "glued" onto the glass. It sort-of makes up for the hazy text, but is frustrating nevertheless.

I can literally see the red sub-pixels around all the white text, and since I read web/text a lot on the phone rather than just movies / games, it's actually distracting. (that blue tint on tilt is annoying too, but I was aware of this when I read the reviews so expected it)

You're not alone.

I got my N9 on Saturday and noticed the pink fringing on white text and the left edge of a white panel straight away. Sadly that seems to be an issue with pentile AMOLED displays just not being as good as RGB panels. It reminds me of Windows text anti-aliasing. I stare at Mac screens most of the time with occasional switches to Windows so I notice these things. I would hope it could be tweaked though. MacOS on the same panels doesn't have the same issues Windows has so it can be alleviated with software obviously. To me it just looks like the sub-pixel rendering algorithms need a bit of a tweak.

The black spots on dark grey screens I noticed last night watching a video in a dark room and then discovered this thread. I've got a black line about 4mm wide stretching about 2/3rds of the way over the screen about where the volume buttons are. I've got two parallel lines about 4mm wide and 2cm long in the middle of the screen toward the right edge. I've got another blotch near the bottom left of the screen. I only notice these when displaying something dark grey in the dark. I was playing Tron (the movie) on it so you can imagine how distracting dark splotches are on a mostly dark grey movie. (As an aside, the movie player skips frames all over the place on movie files that worked great on my C7 - hope they can get a better performing codec sorted)

The black spot issue is obviously a manufacturing issue and it's very, very disappointing. I don't notice it 99% of the time but I know it's there. When it's such a beautiful and expensive slab of technology, little flaws are not acceptable. If I wasn't enjoying the phone so much otherwise I'd send it back. I figure I'd give it a while to see if Nokia responds to this issue and fixes it in a later production run. Seems pointless getting a replacement just now if it comes from the same production run. Surely they're going to have the same issues with the Lumia 800 which shares a similar screen?

The automatic screen brightness adjustment also seems to have a life of it's own. I hope that's fixable in software also because it does ramp up and down a bit too aggressively.

Love the phone and OS but I'm somewhat disappointed by the screen.

the issue is visible in the browser mostly because it happens with white background. the background in the mail application isn't white. it's a dirty grey. (same with the RSS reader, for example.)

as soon as theres white backgrounds and something black on them, troubles start. it needn't be the browser. it can be an image in the gallery or an applidation that displays black text on whicte bg.

Back to the physical screen itself - can someone please explain to me how Gorilla screens work. I have started noticing new scratches every single day on my delicious N9. They wipe off with a rub but reappear later. I keep the phone away from all metal and sharp objects. It even has its own pocket in my coat.

If I knew nothing about screen technology i would assume Gorilla is a step down from old school screens. It took a year for my N900 to have any visible scratches yet its not been a week and my N9 is starting to look like a chopping board.

Gorilla glass is pretty much unscratchable. You can rub a key across it and it shouldn't scratch so putting it in a pocket with coins or keys shouldn't cause any damage. I've had a C7 for over a year and that's almost like new. The only scratches are where I've dropped it onto a wall.