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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."
I unit with a new screen does not neccesarily mean a new unit.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
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.
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. Replace it."
How can they say it isn't a defect? Of course it's a defect.
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
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.
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.
They're just going to reship the units sent back to them without servicing them, so somebody else will get your dead pixels.
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...
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.
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.
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.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
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.
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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.
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.
Random and weird software I've written.
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..
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
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.)
Infuriate left and right
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...