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Samsung Announces Zero Dead Pixel Policy
Kez writes "A result for the consumer as Samsung declares any TFT that they sell from today onwards should be guaranteed dead pixel free. Until now, purchasing a TFT has been a gamble, given that dead pixels, while extremely annoying, did not necessarily entitle the consumer to a replacement monitor. Unfortunately, anybody who bought a Samsung TFT before today is not covered by the new policy." Update: 01/01 19:49 GMT by M : The new policy only applies in S. Korea. Suck.
Lots of people notice them, and when they complain, they are told that 1 or 2 is an acceptable number due to the manufacturing process.
Hopefully Samsung's actions will set a standard for other's to follow.
> most customers probably wont even notice 1 or 2 dead pixels..happy 2005
Sorry, but that's just not true. "dead" pixels do one of two things. They either stick open or stick closed. The end result is that you have a dot on the screen that either is very obviously dark when the surrounding material is light, or vice-versa.
While this isn't terribly noticible when playing movies or video games, it is quite noticible when using most traditional 2D desktop apps. A dark pixel in the middle of your otherwise mostly white word-processing session becomes obvious.
Case-in-point is the support wires in Sony Trinitron monitors. Very, very fine horizontal lines at the 1/3 and 2/3 levels on the screen are used to hold a mesh in place which gives the Trinitron series a great display. Every Trinitron style screen I've ever sold, I got asked, immediately, what the story was with the lines. Most customers balked somewhat, but all eventually agreed to live with it.
Dead pixels are, in fact, defects. I don't intend to purchase a defective product out of the box. A product should be free of manufacturing faults for the period of its warranty, or be replaced/repaired. Cosmetic damage to say a bezel, or a power cord is trivial to ignore, but a dead pixel is a flaw in the display's ability to display accurately what it's told to.
As such, I will never buy a laptop or LCD without being allowed to first verify its display is without flaw. A retailer who refuses to allow me to confirm the proper functioning of the device before purchase/departure is a retailer who loses my business. Period.
"Oh no... he found the
Many people aren't aware that font sizes and pixel sizes are independent issues, and get a bigger display so that the same pixel-size graphics are "bigger". Silly, I know, but the problem is particularly acute on Windows, because of Really Stupid (tm) windows third-party application coders who hardcode pixel sizes everywhere.
First rule of modern GUI design: Natural Units and Vector Graphics, not Pixels!
An 8 POINT font should be the same SIZE - 8 points (duh!) - on a 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 display - it should just be a bit clearer on a 1600x1200 display. When I set my document zoom to 100% and hold an A4 sheet up to the display, the A4 sheet on screen better be the same size as the physical sheet, or there'll be a bug report filed!
In general, when shopping for an LCD monitor, look for low power-consumption, small screen-pitch (less than or equal to 0.26), and at least a three-year warranty.
But before you buy a Samsung LCD monitor, get your hands on the repair manual (PDFs can be found if you are good at using Google). In the parts diagram, ensure that the LCD screen and the screen controller circuit-board are SHOWN separately and can therefore be PURCHASED separately.
I am stuck with a Samsung TFT 770 whose screen is perfect but the screen-controller board has failed. They are considered by Samsung to be ONE part, although the LCD screen is worth over $600 and the screen-controller is likely worth $15.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Until now, purchasing a TFT has been a gamble, given that dead pixels, while extremely annoying, did not necessarily entitle the consumer to a replacement monitor
Whatever. Philips have been offering a zero dead pixel guarantee on all their DVI monitors for years. They only cost $20 - $50 more than the cheapo analogue ones and here in NZ they also come with a 3 year on site warranty.
Ah, but they can, and do. If the customer is pissed off about the dead pixels in their display, you'd better believe they'll let the retailer know about it. In almost all electronics stores I patronize, you could just take the monitor back for a refund, even if it wasn't actually defective. Retailers would rather not buy items that get taken back all the time, so manufacturers have a motivation for improving display quality.
It is the very act of "whining" that drives improvements in both product and service. If manufacturers could get away with foisting crappy products on everbody, you'd better believe they would (see: Microsoft :P), and Samsung's new policy never would've happened. It is only because customer whining can have a tangible impact on profits that these companies realize they have to work harder to stay competitive.
I'd consider that wasteful. I'd be happy to buy a monitor with say 10 dead pixels at halfprice or so.
Recently, here in India the LCD of my laptop (bought in the US) went bust. HP replaced it for about US$350 (it was out of warranty), and the replacement has a pixel that's permanently red. Initially I found that annoying but now I don't even notice it. Very possibly they knew it was defective and that's why it was relatively cheap: I believe replacing a laptop screen costs at least $1000 in the US (and this one is a very good 1400x1050 15.3" screen), and that's not counting labour, I remember being told (by CompUSA, I think) that it costs $200 just to get someone to open the laptop and look at it if it's out of warranty.
If I'm right and it was cheap for that reason, I don't see why they can't formalise the process and sell "defective" monitors cheap. There could be quite a demand.