Sony Recants on Dead Pixels (Sort Of)

Ayaress writes "As reported on Gamestop, Sony will now warranty PSP units suffering from dead pixels. Sony still insists that dead pixels are a common problem in all LCD displays, saying "A very small number of dark pixels or continuously lit pixels is normal for LCD screens, and is not a sign of a malfunction," and asks that PSP owners use theirs for at least a week or two, to see if it still bothers them. User who encounter, "persistent and aggravating dead pixels," are instructed to contact Sony customer support, and will be allowed to mail in their PSP to recieve a unit with a new screen."

Comments

New screen

[nearlygod]

I unit with a new screen does not neccesarily mean a new unit.

Re:New screen

[ZephyrXero]

Dear Customers,
If you're just gonna keep whining about our products, I guess we'll have to do something about it, but you should have learned from the PS1 and PS2 that our first gen products are always faulty pieces of crap...Can't wait to see what weird defects the first PS3's have, just wait a year ;)

love,
Sony

not malfunction?

[seanadams.com]

I love it. How are "not functioning pixels" "not a sign of malfunction"?

I've bought well over a dozen LCD montitors from Apple, Dell, and Philips in recent months and I have not seen a single dead pixel on any of them.

This is just a case of Sony reducing cost by widening manufacturing tolerances. It's fine as long as you manage expectations properly.

Re:not malfunction?

[DarthVeda]

Maybe they mean most Sony LCD have these problems?

Re:not malfunction?

[Kanabiis Atiiva]

you probably just never noticed a dead pixel on such a large monitor. Dead pixels ARE common with LCD screens. As manufacturing techniques improve, the frequency of dead pixels decreases, but doesnt disappear completely.

Re:not malfunction?

[ivan256]

You're lucky.

I've bought 4 LCD panels in the last two months. Two from Dell, One from Hyundai, and one from Acer, and all of them have had either dead, or stuck pixels. Each time the manufacturer (reluctantly) replaced the display, but they were there. My wife couldn't see them at all until I shoed her through a jewelers loupe... Of course once you know where they are, they seem to stand out.

Dell doesn't have a "no dead pixels" policy, but if you mention that you're going to return the monitor to their "LCD support center" (I.E. Some cheap warm bodies on the other end of a long phone line to india) they'll replace your display... Just don't be surprised if the one you get is worse. They consider up to 5 dead or stuck pixels "acceptable".

On high resolution displays, stuck sub-pixels are really small. They're hard to see. If you have bought 12 displays and haven't noticed a stuck pixel, chances are you haven't looked hard enough. You almost certainly have at least one. (Or you're incredibly lucky.)

Check out some dead pixel test patterns and see if you missed something. You have to use all of the patterns. They may all look grey when you load them up, but they really are made up of different colors and will test every sub-pixel on your display.

Re:not malfunction?

[Phisbut]

you probably just never noticed a dead pixel on such a large monitor. Dead pixels ARE common with LCD screens.

They used to be common for all LCD screen, but today, quality LCD screens have none of them. Where I work, everybody has a 17 inch LCD and nobody has a dead pixel. And it's not because we don't notice it, we test them all, first with a white screen (to see dark pixels), then with a black screen (to see bright pixels).

People shoud stop saying dead pixels are common to all LCD's, that is soooo 1999...

Re:not malfunction?

[GeckoX]

Size doesn't really matter here, resolution is more important. What's the res and dpi on the PSP? If the dpi is higher than most lcd screens being manufactured, it is entirely possible that the manufacturing process is more delicate resulting in more problem pixels. Not to excuse it, but it could explain why most monitors these days no longer have this issue, and why the PSP display does.

Re:not malfunction?

[Truekaiser]

then why do all lcd manufacturers still have a 'no return or refund for less then 8 dead pixels' policy?

Re:not malfunction?

[genkael]

poke 53280,0
poke 53281,8

The LCD industry needs to get a grip

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the dollars I spend on my new monitor work just fine, thank you. So guess what... all of the pixels on that monitor had better work just fine, too.

If a manufacturer doesn't consider "a few dead pixels" to be a warrantable issue, then I'm going to make damned sure that the monitor they get back does have a warrantable issue. Applying 120VAC to the 14VDC power jack for a few seconds should do the trick.

Yes, it bothers me

[daveewart]

"Yes, it bothers me. Replace it."

How can they say it isn't a defect? Of course it's a defect.

Re:Yes, it bothers me

[Guppy06]

"How can they say it isn't a defect? Of course it's a defect."

Because it has the "Sony" logo glued on it. It's the same kind of corporate hubris that gave us disk read errors on the PS2 and cracked lenses on the PSX. They're able to push it through by having the device seen as a cultural icon, one that must be bought despite of its manufacturing flaws.

It may catch up to Sony and bite them in the ass at some point, but that doesn't look like it will be today. It might hurt Sony for the launch of the PS3, which will be happening when this whole disk-ejecting, button-sticking, pixel-killing debacle will still be fresh in peoples' minds. Ultimately, of course, I wouldn't bet on it.

So long as they take the attitude of "We're Sony, you'll like what we give you" (the attitude that gave us Betamax, Minidiscs and now Memory Sticks), you're going to continue seeing "logic" like the "It's not a defect!" statement to continue to pour out of them.

Seems like 0 is the norm now.

[garcia]

While commonly referred to as a "defect," Sony says the off-colored pixel problem is common in all LCD screens. "A very small number of dark pixels or continuously lit pixels is normal for LCD screens, and is not a sign of a malfunction," a representative for Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) told GameSpot.

How many pixels are we talking? I have no problem with one or two dead pixels (depending on the screen size). I would think that for the size/resolution of the PSP that 1 or 2 would only be noticable and that would depend on what color they are permanently (white would likely be annoying on dark games).

I received 0 dead pixels for the first time in my life when I purchased a 17" LCD panel (I forgot which company as it's not in front of me at the moment). The second time I received 0 dead pixels was on my work computer's Dell 23" LCD. I would think that in this day and age, at that screen size, if I would end up w/0 dead pixels a PSP could too.

laptop screen

[phorm]

My laptop screen is 1440x900px. Of those pixels (1296000) in all, they're all healthy.

Similarly, even the cheaper laptops we get in tend to have fully functional screens to start with.

Sorry guys, but dead pixels are not as common as you might want us to believe. Maybe in a poorly designed portable wherein the manufacturer doesn't care so much about quality, yes... but lately other devices seem to have less pixel-problems.

Re:laptop screen

[PhilHibbs]

I got a laptop from Rock, who are a reputable company with good customer care. It had a few faulty pixels, and they replaced the screen. My dad got a laptop from PC World; it has some faulty pixels, and they refused to replace it. Their policy is that ten adjacent dead pixels constitutes a fault! Serves him right, I warned him not to buy expensive hardware from PCW.

Of course

[Dachannien]

They're just going to reship the units sent back to them without servicing them, so somebody else will get your dead pixels.

It is a common issue

[Catskul]

Its not as if they are making it up. Virtually all lcd manufactures accept screens with a "few" bad pixels. Look it up

Re:It is a common issue

[Cecil]

I know it is a common issue in manufacturing. That doesn't mean it should be a common issue in the marketplace.

My AST laptop 10 years ago had zero dead pixels. My IBM laptop after that had no dead pixels either. My Toshiba after that had no dead pixels. And my current Powerbook has no dead pixels. I'll note that cellphone for example has no dead pixels either, nor my Gameboy. Particularly noteworthy, I have not heard the same complaints about Gameboys having dead pixels that people are making about the PSP.

So why do modern LCDs suddenly have this problem, anyway? They always did. The difference is that while they used to throw them away and only sell the good ones, now they are simply saying "Well, we've always had this problem in manufacturing, and we've decided that since we can't fix it, we're just gonna start selling these broken screens and hope you have bad eyesight and don't notice. That way we can skimp on our QA budget and reduce our manufacturing expenses. If you do notice, we'll just throw up our hands in frustration and insist that that's just the way it is."

I did have a Samsung desktop LCD with a dead pixel which they wouldn't replace. It irritated me so much that I gave it to a friend and just pretend that I had accientally flushed the $500 down the toilet or something.

Re:It is a common issue

[WebCowboy]

Virtually all lcd manufactures accept screens with a "few" bad pixels

Yeah, but you see there is a little problem with Sony's excuse. It might be somewhat common for a notebook or desktop LCD to have 1 to 10 defective pixels (I've never seen more than a couple though), but keep in mind we are talking about 12" to 19" screens with 800,000 to well over a million quite small pixels. A Sony PSP has less than 135,000 pixels--and even accounting for the screen being smaller, the dot pitch is still larger for the PSP than for a notebook or desktop display.

Since the pixels (and thus the transistors) are larger and there are fewer of them, I'd expect the Cadillac of portable game devices to be equipped with a flawless display, not to have a similar defect rate to displays that are much more complex.

Remeber that early PSP units in Japan had this and more problems (too many defects with controller buttons and motors). It seems to be indicative of overall quality problems Sony is having with most of its consumer electronics in the past few years--something consumers won't tolerate if their products remain high priced. Maybe the recent overhaul in executive/management at Sony will remedy the problem, but it'll take some time (hopefully for them they'll get the PS3 right--it seems with each successive game platform they release the initial quality gets worse).

Didn't want a blackeye

[Kirby-meister]

I guess Nintendo's stance on the dead-pixel, offering to replace any DS that has a dead-pixel, forced them into this...otherwise it would've been a blackeye for them. Competition is already making the handheld war good for the consumer. It should make this a good handheld war, much like the golden days of SNES vs Genesis...

meh....

[Viceice]

Personally, I find that regardless of how much the industry tries to insist that dead pixels are normal, consumers tend to have zero tolorance for them.

Having worked retail before, my experence is that if you even try to hint that it's not a defect, they'll throw a fit and think you're out to cheat them.

And who can blame em? Anything with a colour LCD on it comes at a price premium and nobody in their right mind would want to pay a premium for something that in their mind is defective.

The iritation from that one tiny discoloured dot alone is enough to wipe out any satisfaction to be had from owning that product.

They just need better marketing

[tritone]

Maybe: "Life is Random."

Nope. Apple already has used that.

What about: "Sony Introduces PIX, the Personal Identification indeX. In case your PSP is lost or stolen, it can be easily be identified by checking the pattern of unactivated pixels!"

Yeah. That'll do.

Too many defects

[Gribflex]

My wife - she works at Futureshop (the Canadian arm of Best Buy) - came home last night to tell me of her hatred for the PSP.

On the opening day, about 17% of the PSPs sold were returned due to defect of some kind. Many of them didn't even turn on.

Yesterday, she had person after person coming into the store complaining about dead pixels. With one guy, she went through an entire crate of PSPs to try and find one that didn't have a dead pixel. No luck. He ended up settling for a PSP that had only one dead pixel - rather than the average 3. One of them had an entire vertical column gone.

From what I'm hearing from my wife, it would be much, much better to wait until revision B before thinking about purchasing a PSP. The ones on the shelves today have far too many defects.

I will never buy Sony again

[John Seminal]

I purchased a Sony Vaio GRX-520 for over $2,000 when other laptops were selling for half that price. I picked Sony because I expected the best quality moeny could buy. But then I got 2 pixels that are always red. I tried to return the unit to Sony to get it fixed, but they would not help.

It is frustrating, to spend twice as much as other options, to get something that turned out to be lower quality. And what really burned me was their non-existent customer service. It took forever to get a human on the phone, only to be told they could not do anything.

Re:I will never buy Sony again

[merlin_jim]

And what really burned me was their non-existent customer service.

A close family member used to work at their american tech support center. Turnover was high. Expectations were high. Typical "get the customer off the phone" policies. He was there for about 9 months IIRC, and at that point was the senior member of his team.

IMHO, (and this is an informed second-hand opinion) Sony really needs to stop treating customer service as a cost center, and give it the same branding treatment they give all their other products BEFORE sale.

Or to rephrase: branding doesn't stop just because the consumer has bought your device.

It continually amazes me that a company that is SO great at branding (see: playstation, XPlode, SonyStyle, Walkman, VAIO) drops the ball at such a crucial part of the branding experience.

Sony CEO was heard saying

[Swamii]

I see dead pixels.

Re:They're right!

[tlhIngan]

Dead pixels ARE a common problem in all LCD displays. Why is this written like Sony is the only company saying this?

Not really.

Firstly, the common ISO thresholds for dead pixels typically range about 1 to 3 full pixels, and up to 7 subpixels on a typical 17" (1280x1024) display (note: cheaper brands may go with lesser quality panels - BenQ, will allow up to 7 full pixels and 17 subpixels(!) before considering replacement). Going for the worst (3 dead pixels == 9 dead subpixels) - there are 1280x1024x3 subpixels on a 17" panel or 3,932,160. If 9 of them are bad before returns, that's ~0.0000023 dead subpixels, or one dead subpixel for every 436,906 subpixels.

The PSP has a nice 480x270 LCD, or 388,800 subpixels. There should be no dead pixels at all on a screen this small!

In a more anecdotal sense, I remember when color TFTs came out and it was really difficult to get 640x480 screens with zero dead pixels (this was over a decade ago). Fast forward a few years, and the incidence of dead pixels dropped quite significantly, and these days, getting a monitor with dead pixels and laptops with dead pixels tend to be a rarity. It does happen, but rarely (unless you just happen to be really unlucky).

I'm pretty sure people don't complain of dead pixels on PDA screens (QVGA and higher, including oddball 320x320 and Half VGA, to full VGA) - and the incidence of dead pixels on these screens is extremely low.

On screens that are VGA or lower resolution, dead pixels are such a rarity that honestly, it shouldn't be tolerated.

Re:It's normal, but not that normal to sell... yet

[H_Fisher]

they should give the consumer the option of what they want, maybe with a minor price reduction for the more defective version.

Right. Maybe they'll call it the PSP Reduced Pixel Edition.

Re:I don't understand

[ScentCone]

Can someone please explain to me how having an LCD with dead pixels (even one) is considered "normal"?

Because the manufacturing of LCD displays produces a lot of devices with dead pixels. It is normal. The only thing that alters that is whether or not the company distributing the end product is willing to charge enough for that product (and whether the consumers are willing to pay enough) to cover their having to throw out any sub-perfect displays.

I've paid good money for a good display

Actually, you've paid the price the manufacturer and their dealers have asked, for what it is they say they're selling. If they say they're selling a unit with an LCD display that may have a dead pixel or two, then that's what your money buys. If they say they're selling you a unit with a flawless display (something Sony is expressly saying that they are not providing at that price), then that's another matter.

So is this a classic case of manufacturers trying to get us to accept mediocrity

But we accept mediocrity all the time. That's the only thing that makes life affordable. If everything we made and purchased was "the best," then that would be the new average, or middle-ground (or mediocrity), and we'd just complain because, gee, at that price, shouldn't it be gold-plated and read my mind, too? This isn't about excellence, it's about price. No doubt Sony weighed very carefully the price they expected to get, the distribution costs, the manufacturing costs, and came to this decision. It was probably tone-deaf from a marketing/PR point of view, but it was no doubt a very deliberate decision made to keep the retail price down a notch or two.

Why does everyone even care about this? Because they want the product, and consider it to be within reach, money-wise. If the thing cost $1000, no one would be talking about it. If the thing cost $49, we'd all shrug at dead pixel or two. It's finding that sweet spot, for Sony and for us, that's hard - and Sony probably gambled a little unwisely with this, and didn't have the PR engine in place as well as they should have. They're not idiots, and it's not like they don't want you for a customer. And if you're absolutely sure that this is an evil plot by a mediocrity-driven company, then surely you don't want their entertainment product anyway, right? I'm being rhetorical, but you get my drift. It's price point, price point, price point.

Typical Sony?

[blueZhift]

This sounds like typical Sony behavior. Wasn't there a problem with the first batch of Playstations overheating that Sony tried to ignore and finally, probably at the nudging of large U.S. retailers, began to address? I'm guessing that retailers like Best Buy and WalMart have enough clout to force Sony to change their position. Afterall, consumers are going to return what they think is defective merchandise regardless of what the manufacturer says. That means angry people at the returns section of Best Buy or WalMart, which means unhappy managers and execs. Since WalMart basically runs the world now, when they complain to Sony, Sony listens.

In Sony's defense though, they usually clear up problems with new products without a year or so of introduction. That's one reason I'm in no hurry to buy a PSP right now.

Consumer Protection Law

[TheMCP]

Check your state's consumer protection laws. In Massachusetts, a store is required by law to give the consumer's choice of repair, replacement, or refund if an item is defective upon purchase... and I think bad pixels could reasonably be called "defective".

So, if you bought a PSP in Massachusetts (or a state with similar laws) and it has bad pixels, take it back. They have to deal with it for you.

Screen defects not necessarily dead pixels...

[AnyNoMouse]

If you've got a bright pixel (stuck on), then it's definately a LCD defect. Dark pixels on the PSP aren't necessarily LCD problems, though. If you tilt the unit side-to-side you might notice that the "dark pixel" moves across the front of the screen slightly. Apparently, there are defects in the clear plastic in front of the screen that makes some of the pixels appear dead. Add in the gratuitous amount of dust under the screen and it can really look like the LCD's are crap.

I unscrewed the front of the case from mine and blew some air under the cover (didn't take it completely off as that voids the warranty). Some of the sub-pixels I thought were dead turned out to be just dust. The other spots appeared to be in the clear window of the case itself.

I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but it seems to be the problem with mine.

What I was worried about..

[beldraen]

I used to believe in Sony. I actually didn't buy their products much because they were so much more expensive; however, if you wanted something that would last for 10 years, Sony was often the way to go, especially in audio/video equipment.

Something sorta' happened with their computers. I think they realized that marketing won over with their computers because they became more haphazard. While the equipment was generally pretty good, it was utterly proprietary and had a simple support policy--"Oh, you want to upgrade your equipment to do new things? Sure! Here's a new computer you can buy!" I bought a Sony Clie NX80; although, I knew their generally policy. I figured at least some of their software, if it had bugs, would be fixed. The most annoying thing is that the thing is designed to be upgraded, thanks to flash memory, but they wouldn't even fix the web browser that has some severe flaws. The Clie has a CF slot which can take bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc, but Sony refuses to do anything for it (and this was long before they discontinued the line). In fact, the movie transfer program was so buggy you generally had to convert the movie to a format that the program would be willing to tolerate before you can convert it. And, half the time the converter would just drop sound at some point. When I heard that the PSP was going to use the Clie format for video, I knew people were going to be in trouble. Sure enough, complaints abound.

I used to play Star Wars: Galaxies. If you know anything about that fiasco of a game, they give a whole new definition to "quality control." Just read the forums and you'll see their attitude is "we'll fix it if we feel like its something bother to fix." Half the time the "fix" introduces ten more bugs than what was fixed. And, I am not talking about minor graphic bugs. I'm talking about whole broken professions, personal buildings (with stuff inside) going poof, creatures you are attacking disappearing, and the mobs stop dropping any loot. The very basics of the game mechanics are not reliable and their policies have encouraged griefing and malicious play.

Few months back Sony got rated as the worst of the big name companies for support, and it appears they are quickly added quality to that list. I, for one, refuse to buy Sony. Before, I could at least count on that it worked, so I didn't really need support. Now that the products do not work..

Damned Democrats!

[A nonymous Coward]

I mistyped and left out the 'W'.

Musta voted for someone other than Our Dear Leader last election.

(for moderators, especially humorless Republican moderators: This is FUNNY! Trust me.)

Un-stick my pixel

[AvantLegion]

On each of my last few laptops, I've had issues with a couple "stuck" pixels... but "massaging" the pixel (pressing against the screen a bit on that spot) always un-stuck them. My girlfriend freaked the first time she saw me do it to her new iBook (because the screen image distorts around your finger when you do it, and it looked to her like I was "breaking" her new laptop), but she soon saw the pixel would be un-stuck and the problem thus solved.

In each case that I've had to do this, the pixels would stick a few more times before ultimately giving in in defeat and bowing to my will. They then behaved like good working pixels for the rest of their useful lives.

I know the PSP screen is shielded so that you can't make direct contact with the screen. I wonder just how many "stuck pixel" issues could be fixed with a nice little massage to the pixel area, if only you could get to it...