Database Users

My home buttons are so dim, is there a setting for this.

Is there a setting for home button being dimmed. My home buttons are very dim. I dont wanna have to return again for this.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I'm not aware of any setting. The Nexus S button backlight is significantly dimmer than that on the other Galaxy S phones, though. That's not a defect, it's part of the device's design.

I like the fact that they are dim, they're not distracting. I've never had a problem seeing them either
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I think there is a hardware issue with the lights. Mine arealso quite dim, and I've seen several phones that had them both dim and much brighter, all straight out of the box.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

The two I've played with (including the one I own) both had a dim backlight. If there are phones with a brighter backlight, I'm glad I don't have one. The backlight on my Vibrant hurt my eyes when I was using it at night. Now if only the screen brightness went lower so I could stop using Screen Filter...

maybe they are only using one LED to lit the whole thing vs. 2 ore more used on the SGS ?
to save battery power?
that's just my guess, we wont know for sure until we take one apart

AllGamer said:
maybe they are only using one LED to lit the whole thing vs. 2 ore more used on the SGS ?
to save battery power?
that's just my guess, we wont know for sure until we take one apart
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can tell you without taking it apart.
There is one LED for every key. (total of 4)
How I know this?
Press just in a corner or any of the four keys (back, menu, search or home) and you will see it get dimmer (almost off) individually from all others.

I'd rather mine to lit up bright so is this something where bestbuy will replace it.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

They'll probably replace it as many times as you want as long as it's in like-new condition. But I doubt any new one you get will be different.

wootek76 said:
I'd rather mine to lit up bright so is this something where bestbuy will replace it.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd rather mine cook me dinner, but it wasn't made that way...

sosasami said:
I think there is a hardware issue with the lights. Mine arealso quite dim, and I've seen several phones that had them both dim and much brighter, all straight out of the box.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, however it is true that some Nexus S devices have brighter softkeys than others.
I bought my Nexus S a couple weeks ago (Rogers) form FutureShop. The led backlighting on the soft keys are dim. My girlfriend got hers yesterday. The lights are bright.
My room mate also has a Nexus S and her lights are bright as well. I went to Futureshop to see what they would say. The guy at the counter agreed he has seen the same thing on various Nexus S devices. Some with brighter buttons than others. It might just depends where the device was made (what factory) etc. and what leds were used.
The phone is not defective, however, personally, I prefer the brighter backlight.

wootek76 said:
Is there a setting for home button being dimmed. My home buttons are very dim. I dont wanna have to return again for this.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this might be of some help to you - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1141233

I would have to agree this was by design. The buttons are just light enough to make an faint but elegant appearance in fluorescent lighting, and dim enough as to where when using the phone in a dark room the buttons aren't so bright they distract you from the screen (aka the content).

Same for me...and it's driving me crazy
I love the Nexus S (using it on Rogers here in Canada), but the dimness of the soft keys is very disappointing and making the phone difficult to use at all times of day, but of course particularly at nighttime.
I have checked with Rogers, Samsung and Android Central and nobody knew of any solution, so I'm happy to see this thread to learn it's not only me, and I didn't get a bad unit (Rogers told me to send it for repair, of course, because they didn't want to actually pick up a phone to see if they are all like this).
My phone recently did an auto-update to 2.3.6, but I don't seem to remember the buttons being brighter even prior to the update.
So does anyone here think this could potentially be fixed through a firmware update at a later time or is it really a hardware issue? I must add that this is particularly annoying to me because I also have two HTC phones and their soft keys are *brilliant*.
Thanks, everyone!

rashad1 said:
I like the fact that they are dim, they're not distracting. I've never had a problem seeing them either
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Agreed... They're only 4 buttons and the only time I cant easily see them is in the middle of the day when i'm outside. It really helps the device and makes it look good with the blacked out design.
Seriously, you'd have to be senile to not have the muscle memory to hit the buttons as they are... You shouldn't even need a light on then to be honest
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

It's definitely by design and not defective.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

siffar said:
I think this might be of some help to you - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1141233
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but it's not worth all that effort for me.
---------- Post added at 11:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 AM ----------
snowmanwithahat said:
It's definitely by design and not defective
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shame, IMHO. Thanks for the response.

Bonus Look or Design Flaw with WHITE GS3:-)

Hi guys, when my notification light blinks blue at night, if I am in a dark room the whole entire face lights up. It has a skeletal look to it. I like it though
Too bad I can't capture this feature/flaw using my wife's phone camera.
Does anyone else with the white .GS3 have the same thing happening to theirs?
Press thanks if I helped you!!!!
Sent from my GT-I9300

I haven't heard of this, but if you can graphically document this, then by all means! That sounds really cool, blue-skeletal look!

Yeah, it's called light spreading
tapatalked from galaxy s3

It does the same thing with the menu/back lights as well, personally I think its awesome
Also noticed how the LED light never flashes while the display is on, Samsung discovered that having both on at once will mean the LED washing over the display?

yup does it with my white S3 , and yeah i actually like it too

P1n3apqlExpr3ss said:
It does the same thing with the menu/back lights as well, personally I think its awesome
Also noticed how the LED light never flashes while the display is on, Samsung discovered that having both on at once will mean the LED washing over the display?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only time I've seen it is when you shut it down, the led goes on
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Noticed this myself last night, does indeed look pretty decent.
The back cover is no no for me, looking into getting something to cover it. I like the white front though.

Skeleton phone ? That's epic I need decals on it!

That's a really cool effect! It's a defect that is when they are not glued probably. It's a bonus effect I'd like to have.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA

It looks cool those bottom back lights, light up the entire front white frame slightly
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA

I'm glad you guys like it. And also happy that I'm not the only one with this look on my GS3

ronj1986 said:
I'm glad you guys like it. And also happy that I'm not the only one with this look on my GS3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must not have seen a white SGSII then, my Skyrocket does the same thing and I love it, had to pre-order the SGSIII for that reason and about 100 more!

Pink tint area in the display

I love everything about this phone except...pinky tint at the bottom 1/5 of the screen!
It's especially visible with white background. It seems that the bottom 1/5 part gets very warm when the phone is doing lots of stuff or charging battery and I think that's when the pink tint is really gettung, well pink.
I will probably exchange it once the supply gets better and my local att store gets stocks. Hopefully you guys are not experiencing this.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

Yunosuke said:
I love everything about this phone except...pinky tint at the bottom 1/5 of the screen!
It's especially visible with white background. It seems that the bottom 1/5 part gets very warm when the phone is doing lots of stuff or charging battery and I think that's when the pink tint is really gettung, well pink.
I will probably exchange it once the supply gets better and my local att store gets stocks. Hopefully you guys are not experiencing this.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what color did you get?

I have the white and have not noticed this.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using XDA

Yunosuke said:
I love everything about this phone except...pinky tint at the bottom 1/5 of the screen!
It's especially visible with white background. It seems that the bottom 1/5 part gets very warm when the phone is doing lots of stuff or charging battery and I think that's when the pink tint is really gettung, well pink.
I will probably exchange it once the supply gets better and my local att store gets stocks. Hopefully you guys are not experiencing this.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How dark is the tint? Like how noticable is it?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

werked said:
I have the white and have not noticed this.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using XDA
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Click to collapse
Same here.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

americasteam said:
Same here.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Thanks guys for the reply. I've got blue one. It's barely visible as my friends couldn't see it at all lol. I have really good eyes, or I have to say "trained eyes " that I do graphic arts stuff everyday. Color accuracy is critical for my job.
My S2 had blueish tint but it was uniform color temperature for the entire screen. I'm currently using app called Screen Adjuster to mitigate the issue but it doesn't solve the problem because of the uneven color temperature. I really think that the heat at the bottom part really changed the tint permanently.
I'm happy that you guys don't have such problem!

Yunosuke said:
Thanks guys for the reply. I've got blue one. It's barely visible as my friends couldn't see it at all lol. I have really good eyes, or I have to say "trained eyes " that I do graphic arts stuff everyday. Color accuracy is critical for my job.
My S2 had blueish tint but it was uniform color temperature for the entire screen. I'm currently using app called Screen Adjuster to mitigate the issue but it doesn't solve the problem because of the uneven color temperature. I really think that the heat at the bottom part really changed the tint permanently.
I'm happy that you guys don't have such problem!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you contacted samsung about it? I am curious on how they would address it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

I have some ink blob close to the middle of my screen that's visible at night in a dark room. It's very annoying and definitely swapping it out hopefully next week. I have a blue gs3.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747

uranis said:
I have some ink blob close to the middle of my screen that's visible at night in a dark room. It's very annoying and definitely swapping it out hopefully next week. I have a blue gs3.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
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Click to collapse
Mine has a couple of those too. From reading the international thread, it seems somewhat normal with amoled. There's a chance you will exchange it and get once that's worse....
Edit: I shouldn't say normal with amoled. My nexus s doesnt really have it. My nexus s is also almost completely black while the galaxy s3 isn't as dark of a black
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using XDA

uranis said:
I have some ink blob close to the middle of my screen that's visible at night in a dark room. It's very annoying and definitely swapping it out hopefully next week. I have a blue gs3.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
I must say it'll be really hard to find the AMOLED screen with no ink bolbs unfortunately.. I went through 3 S2 Syrockets and 1 Playstation Vita. All of them have those blobs or lines of ink that you can see in a dark room with black or gray background. It's really prevalent issue. Personally I gave up about the issue as its only visible in some limited conditions. Sorry but if you don't have any other problems then i dont want you to exchange it with even worse unit...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I have no tint or anything in that matter, I don't see any blobs like I did on my s2
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

cashyftw said:
I have no tint or anything in that matter, I don't see any blobs like I did on my s2
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Thanks! I'm really hoping that the odds are very rare!
Until my exchanged unit arrives, I'll just enjoy this beautifully built phone!

Oh man I thought samsung noticed this issue with the intl version.. is it possible to use the SG3 without a simcard? I mean can I access the applications / browser using wifi without having a simcard in? I am asking because I ordered one from AT&T and I will unlock it, I don't want to unlock it then send it back if it has issues..

Sher The Love said:
Mine has a couple of those too. From reading the international thread, it seems somewhat normal with amoled. There's a chance you will exchange it and get once that's worse....
Edit: I shouldn't say normal with amoled. My nexus s doesnt really have it. My nexus s is also almost completely black while the galaxy s3 isn't as dark of a black
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yunosuke said:
uranis said:
I have some ink blob close to the middle of my screen that's visible at night in a dark room. It's very annoying and definitely swapping it out hopefully next week. I have a blue gs3.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
I must say it'll be really hard to find the AMOLED screen with no ink bolbs unfortunately.. I went through 3 S2 Syrockets and 1 Playstation Vita. All of them have those blobs or lines of ink that you can see in a dark room with black or gray background. It's really prevalent issue. Personally I gave up about the issue as its only visible in some limited conditions. Sorry but if you don't have any other problems then i dont want you to exchange it with even worse unit...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never noticed the issue on other amoled devices but you're right it would suck to give it in and get something worse.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

If you want to see if your phone has these blobs, do the following
Go into a pitch black room
Set your phone brightness to auto
Open camera app
Turn off flash
take a picture of pure darkness
View the picture in the gallery, and tap it once open so all the bars and menus go away showing nothing but the image
Inspect the screen up close, you may have to wait 5 minutes for your eyes to adjust
If you don't see those blotches, your eyes suck, didn't let them adjust enough to the dark, or you just wasted your luck on a nice phone rather than a lottery ticket!

PMad said:
If you want to see if your phone has these blobs, do the following
Go into a pitch black room
Set your phone brightness to auto
Open camera app
Turn off flash
take a picture of pure darkness
View the picture in the gallery, and tap it once open so all the bars and menus go away showing nothing but the image
Inspect the screen up close, you may have to wait 5 minutes for your eyes to adjust
If you don't see those blotches, your eyes suck, didn't let them adjust enough to the dark, or you just wasted your luck on a nice phone rather than a lottery ticket!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont want to see them if I do this my ocd will b In overdrive....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using XDA

PMad said:
If you want to see if your phone has these blobs, do the following
Go into a pitch black room
Set your phone brightness to auto
Open camera app
Turn off flash
take a picture of pure darkness
View the picture in the gallery, and tap it once open so all the bars and menus go away showing nothing but the image
Inspect the screen up close, you may have to wait 5 minutes for your eyes to adjust
If you don't see those blotches, your eyes suck, didn't let them adjust enough to the dark, or you just wasted your luck on a nice phone rather than a lottery ticket!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you know that the blotches you see after this test are not just a camera flaw? Did you send the picture you took on the sg3 to another phone and view it again? If the bloches are there, its a camera flaw. If not, its a screen flaw.

Everysingle amoled screen that I have owned had purple tint. It is more or less common on samoled. Especially noticeable when the brightness turned to low.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

NA 521" said:
How do you know that the blotches you see after this test are not just a camera flaw? Did you send the picture you took on the sg3 to another phone and view it again? If the bloches are there, its a camera flaw. If not, its a screen flaw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because, i used pinch and zoom while the picture was open and pretty much saw nothing happen on the screen. I could tell from some slight changes in some lighter spots, but the blotches did not move. You can do the same.

PMad said:
Because, i used pinch and zoom while the picture was open and pretty much saw nothing happen on the screen. I could tell from some slight changes in some lighter spots, but the blotches did not move. You can do the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, that will work, too! Thanks!

Pinstriped bezel

Since this subforum is so dead, I figured I'd make some small talk...
Am I the only one who loves their notification LED? I was very disappointed to see the gray demo units at Best Buy actually have a pinstripe pattern under the glass that noticeably obscures/dulls the LED, and the pattern is even applied over the touchkeys, so they have a weird, wavy look to them. A foolish decision by Samsung, IMO.

ffolkes said:
Since this subforum is so dead, I figured I'd make some small talk...
Am I the only one who loves their notification LED? I was very disappointed to see the gray demo units at Best Buy actually have a pinstripe pattern under the glass that noticeably obscures/dulls the LED, and the pattern is even applied over the touchkeys, so they have a weird, wavy look to them. A foolish decision by Samsung, IMO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to see you over here in the Note 4 area! Can't wait to see what you come up with.
I haven't actually seen the note 4 in person yet but i'll have my hands on one in a couple days. Are you talking about the same type of pattern under the glass of the note 2 and its touchkeys?

Yes that's the way it is on my Note 4 :/
Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

Funny you should mention that - I just noticed it with my Note 4 about 30 minutes ago :$

Just got my note 4 and see the same thing. At least for the soft key buttons i dont mind it because i always keep them off
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app

ffolkes said:
Since this subforum is so dead, I figured I'd make some small talk...
Am I the only one who loves their notification LED? I was very disappointed to see the gray demo units at Best Buy actually have a pinstripe pattern under the glass that noticeably obscures/dulls the LED, and the pattern is even applied over the touchkeys, so they have a weird, wavy look to them. A foolish decision by Samsung, IMO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same pattern on mine. Didn't notice it on the white one set up at best buy. Not a fan of the obscurity. Stoked to see you picked one up too ffolkes!
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

egodriver07 said:
Same pattern on mine. Didn't notice it on the white one set up at best buy. Not a fan of the obscurity. Stoked to see you picked one up too ffolkes!
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont know if its design or corner cutting. I dont like it, it looks cheap. Even the notification light has it. Luckly its only these items.

I don't have mine yet so I don't know. But you're saying this dulls the notification light? maybe Samsung did this so people complain less about their notification light colors when their phone is charging/charged in the middle of the night in a dark room
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

mikey123 said:
I don't have mine yet so I don't know. But you're saying this dulls the notification light? maybe Samsung did this so people complain less about their notification light colors when their phone is charging/charged in the middle of the night in a dark room
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if they did it for any reason on purpose it is stupid. I usually don't mind software related mishaps with LED because apps and kernel devs usually give us a ton of options to workaround it. But this is the way they designed the phone from a manufacturing standpoint. Blah.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

Black one has the stripes but my wife's white one doesnt.

I like the pinstripe and keeps it from looking plain. I always turn off the bottom lights, i know the buttons are there, so that's not an issue.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

I like the pinstripe on the notification light. I like the dulling effect. I on the other hand hate the stripes on the lower buttons. It gives it an appearance that the lighted buttons are flawed or pixels are burnt out.
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app

I don't like the dimmed LED. I use Light Flow, maybe my favorite program on Android. I rely on LED notifications almost every minute of every day. I'm missing the LED on the Nexus 5.

I don't have that problem on my white Sprint Note 4 at all. Not on the buttons or the notification light. I'm really glad because I saw that pinstriped look on the buttons on some YouTube videos and think it looks awful.
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app

White spots on aluminum bezel
Anyone else have 4 white squares on their aluminum bezel on the top and bottom? There's 2 near the glass and 2 near the back on the top and bottom, no idea what they are or what they're for.

Kortekn said:
Anyone else have 4 white squares on their aluminum bezel on the top and bottom? There's 2 near the glass and 2 near the back on the top and bottom, no idea what they are or what they're for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, they're gaps to allow signal to get through the metal frame to the antenna.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

Cool, thanks for the info.
Sent from my SM-N910P using XDA Free mobile app

I don't like the pinstripes; period. Last three plus years, the plain black bezel matched to the dark super Amoled native screen gave the black Galaxy a certain distinction that other OEMs with LCD couldn't match with their lighter looking native screen. Not appreciating this look; not so bad under low light but that wasn't the reaction Samsung hoped for. Thumbs down; face Palm. Not liking either of the browsers included either. Why no auto fit? Samsung's response is that natively, auto-fit exists; reset your settings. Nope. Second response: you can manually adjust the screen with pinch to zoom/minimize. Otherwise, I'm very pleased with this phone and look forward to development in this forum.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

stared at both black and white side by side at best buy the other day for a bit, the white one definitely has the pin stripe look to it, its just a lot less noticeable. The only would offer to let me pre-order a black device so..guess ill look forward to stripes whenever they come in...

j00manji said:
stared at both black and white side by side at best buy the other day for a bit, the white one definitely has the pin stripe look to it, its just a lot less noticeable. The only would offer to let me pre-order a black device so..guess ill look forward to stripes whenever they come in...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is my opinion on the 8 total white (possible 8x ir led) squares on the bezel.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/3/6098745/samsung-gear-vr-oculus-announcement-hands-on
It is for vr. To be used with a Xbox-one live camera for positional/tilt head movement in conjuction with a PC.
As soon as I saw these 8 squares I had a 99.9% confidence that note4 is vr ready! As I have been balls deep in oculus news!
The Exynos has 20-30% stronger gpu that never overheats, so it never throttles.
My sm-910C Thailand is a cool running gaming monster so far. Better than all phones in benches so far..... only 75% slower than i7 [email protected] 4.8ghz [email protected] For open es 3.0 bench with t-rex
34fps 1440p t-rex in my pocket. ......
Thank you XDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

White balance.

Hello there.
Anyone noticed bad white balance on the screen? I have warm white on the bottom and cold on the top. Its easy to see on the gray sides of keyboard in landscape mode.

This is just AMOLED. No screen will have an evenly distributed white balance if you look closely. You can go ahead and exchange it, your next device might look a bit better or it might not. It's a gamble, but none are 100% flawless.

Do you have this problem? I see a lot of edge have this discoloration and the normal s7 don't.

Mine is the sides. It's a bit noticeable but it's not the first time I had this, I had it on LG and moto with qhd displays. You can trade it in and waste your time or be lucky.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

I changed mine 4 times, finally found perfect one

iz1pp0 said:
I changed mine 4 times, finally found perfect one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's ridiculous
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

Because you said that? Whatever.

iz1pp0 said:
Because you said that? Whatever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No i mean its crazy that phones are not perfect, and i wouldnt spend time switching phones to find one thats perfect.
even if its not that bad. people at the store would look at me crazy.

My uncle is store manager