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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.
Why aren't the 1600x1200 flat panel LCD monitors more popular? Why do people put up with the crappy 1280x1024 resolution with a 20" monitor? Laptops have better resolution than most desktops these days. Very strange.
Logical step are ...
...
1) they raise the price of samsung monitor
2) they wait inspection before applying Samsung sticker to monitor and send those that fail to other brand
I am a REAL American from Canada , not a wanna-be from the country , self called "last remaining superpower" "of America
i never had a 15"+ lcd without a single dead pixel.
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
depends on type of "dead". those that have a colour permanently on will be very obvious e.g. constant red pixel.
I saw a LCD TV a while ago in a PC shop. I was amazed by the obviousness of dead pixels it had. not a huge number, but immediately distracting since it was showing a TV programme with constantly changing pictures instead of a static desktop. not the best way to attract customers.
Why anyone would ever actually believe that you couldn't return an LCD (or laptop) with a dead pixel. This is a manufacturing defect, plain and simple. Every customer expects there will be NO dead pixels, so my guess is that proving to a court of law that a dead pixel is a de facto breach of various implied warranties (and probably express warranties that come with the unit as well) would not be difficult.
Any decent credit card will likely supply the consumer with enough tools to reject a charge for such an item, if refused. Further, if pushed, I sincerely doubt any company would believe that they could win in a case where they're trying to foist an obviously defective monitor on someone by claiming that the defect is really bad enough to be a defect. Right. Most states provide a damages multiplier for unfair business practices such as this. This means if push actually did come to shove and you had to go to small claims court, you'd get double or triple your money back.
My guess? Samsung realizes the above to be true, and is trying to play this to their advantage.
Given that there's undoubtedly still going to be a few monitors produced with dead pixels, are they going to supply thier otherwise worthless screens to other vendors for sale at a discount? And then would the consumer ever see these savings?
Further - how hard will it be for them to weasel out of the "no dead pixel" policy? After all, should something happen during shipping or in the hands of the retailer, are they going to let themselves be held responsible for damage that they may or may not have had anything to do with?
Perhaps I'm being overly skeptical on the last part there, but questions are made to be asked, after all.
Although we're talking about slightly different technology here, I've got a Samsung DLP TV. Although they haven't stated it in writing as such, from what I can gather they've been extremely good to people who have experienced "dead pixels" on their DLP sets. I haven't had any problems at all with mine (find wood, knock, repeat), but I know some people who have had the "light engines" in their sets replaced by Samsung due to dead pixels. With getting fixed pixel technology off the ground, Samsung has been reasonably consumer friendly. It doesn't suprise me that they're taking the high road here as a differentiator from their competition.
Sony on the other hand has been very stingy with their LCD sets as far as dead pixels go. Apparantly they find some number of dead pixels to be acceptable. I don't know what the threshold is, but I know that LCD sets have a reputation for dead pixels and that Sony hasn't been particularly good about getting it resolved.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
...I was looking at some LCDs recently.
Good 19" LCD (1280x1024): 4500NOK / 650$
Good 20" LCD (1600x1200): 8000NOK / 1150$
Now, that is including 24% VAT and whatnot so forget about comparing them to US prices. But the ratio should be about the same. You have to pay a damn lot extra to get that 1" and additional resolution. We're talking very different price points, and there's no doubt which one is "mass market" and which one is not...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I currently own 4 15.4" Neovo brand LCD screen I bought for half of their market price. They were discounted by a regional distributor. Two of them have a hot pixel (means always ON) and the two others have a dead pixel. I chosed ones that had this defects at edges, so for most application it does'nt bother at all.
In fact I used one of the in my kitchen, after all, if a LCD screen get hit, burnt or whatever, I prefer it to be a cheap one. So after all, there is room for nitpickers, and room for smart people.
I remember that Apple has a dead pixel policy many years ago for the early powerbooks that also would not replace units with only a few dead pixels on the LCD displays. Some 133t individuals figured out how to patch the SCSI/HD driver with some code to fake some (more) bad pixels. Since it was in the HD driver, it ran even if you booted from a floppy. I think they called this the "warranty manager" or something witty like that.
No, a black-and-white checkerboard pattern on a 1-pixel grid is best.
will Samsung employees make it difficult to claim this policy, as in having to contact the guy's manager's manager's manager just to get started? I've heard similar stories such as Apple's customer service refusing to return Cinema Displays initially.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
...and you see that in other areas as well, e.g. CPUs. Those who pass the most rigorous stability tests become server chips, the others may (unless scrap) be sold as desktops. Or binned in some other fashion.
I mean, for many uses an LCD with a dead pixel or five is completely acceptable. For others it is not. I very much doubt they'll throw away a screen with a single dead pixel. It has simply too much value.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Easy: you alternate between black-on-white and white-on-black checkerboards at a high enough frequency that your visual system sees only a solid grey color on the display. Dead pixels (or hot pixels) on even-numbered x,y coords will show up in one pattern, but not the other, and vice versa for odd-numbered dead pixels, leading to a noticeable overall darkening of dead pixels due to the high frequency alternation.
I don't know about you Americans but my side of the Pacific, we haven't had LCDs with dead pixels for a while now.
Customers started getting pissed off at dead pixels, and when buying an LCD monitor, they would demand that they be shown the monitor plugged in before they pay for it.
As a result, stores here will have their staff open each box before delivery and test, and reject monitors that come with dead pixels.
So it's been years since i've seen a monitor with a dead pixel in a store for sale.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
hmmm, does this mean that displays with dead pixels will instead be shipped to the US or other countries where the policy does not apply? this could mean an increase in dead pixels in other countries. maybe ill think twice before buying a samsung panel.
On the other hand, if they get caught intentionally sending the monitors with dead pixels to the states, and keeping all the good ones for use with this policy, they would probably lose in court for fraud. That is to say, if anyone with the balls and money to do so sued them.
The reason I say this is because the current accepted policy on dead pixels generally states something like 'the process is not perfect and there is a chance that of (xxx million) pixels, a few won't work.' This is generally accepted; there is a chance that you will have a bad pixel or three. However, more than likely, if LCD manufacture X just ships with random distribution then YOU will probably have no dead pixels. Crap shoot. You can get unlucky.
Contrast that with the company basically saying 'there is a chance one or more of your pixels won't work' and then only sending monitors with one or more bad pixels to a region.
I contend it would be a tough case, but win or no, the press would be horrible for any company dumb enough to try it.
My guess is the LCDs with bad pixels would be used in smaller applications such as those happy little monitors on airplanes, car information displays etc etc. But then, companies do stupid shit to screw themselves and their customers all the time. Who knows?
I think there's a legal loophole that may allow ANY monitor with dead pixels to be returned, under a 'false advertising claim.' For instance, say the monitor says it can display, "1024x768" pixels, this is equivalent to 786,432 pixels. But if you have 2 dead pixels, then your monitor only displays 186,430 pixels. Well, the manufacture told you it can display 2 more pixels than yours actually does- and this is false advertising. It should make no difference if they say, "Our policy is that you must have 3 or more dead pixels to be able to return this product." This is only my guess though, any legally inclined people know if this would fly?
It's probably too late to get any mod points on this but for any of those late viewers who happen to see this...
This is something I completely did not expect. I often buy the latest and greatest thing to get an idea for trends and which ones would stick and new ideas for development. A lot of them turn out as busts but the ones that work really pay off. One of my more recent acqusitions was a 1920x1200 monitor.
It is a Samsung one that can flip into a vertical display mode.
Well, my intent was to only use it in horizontal mode. In fact, I originally bought the Mac 1920x1200 widescreen but returned it due to connector compatibility problems which they didn't document.
Anyways, I flipped the Samsung for fun and let me tell you, there is no going back. When writing software, the more vertical space you have, the more lines of code you can see at once. This improved productivity a great deal. I now always leave my monitor in vertical mode and I absolutely love it.
The funny thing though is I never thought I'd be using my monitor like this. It seemed like a gimmick or at best, useful for designers. And I am actually a graphic designer too (I used to even have a design company) and seeing a full page drastically changes the way you design as well. Anyways, if you are a programmer with cash to spare, this is a great way to improve productivity.
Ironically, the other great find on producitivity was a rectangular bookshelf (one level but wide with edges and a top) that I mounted over my computer desk. It puts all the books I need access to really close by. I found that having reference books within arms reach, easy to find greatly increased my use of the reference books and also improved productivity. I originally bought this bookshelf just to clean up my area but it turned out to have a great productivity boost.
Sunny
Be my Friend