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Nintendo Switch Owners Complain About Dead Pixels, Nintendo Says They're 'Normal' (theguardian.com)
Nintendo says the dead or stuck pixels Switch owners are complaining about are "normal" and not defects. "New Switch players have taken to online discussion boards, including a 2,000-comment strong Reddit post, to complain of screen issues distracting play, unbecoming of a $300 handheld gaming machine," reports The Guardian. From the report: In a support document entitled "There are black or bright dots on the Nintendo Switch screen that do not go away, or there are dark or light patches on the screen," Nintendo said: "Small numbers of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect." Customers wishing to swap their Switch consoles with defective screens will get no support from Nintendo. A similar issue happened with the Nintendo DS at launch in the U.S., but the Japanese gaming company eventually relented after complaints from buyers, begrudgingly offering replacements under warranty. Nintendo also warned users that using the Switch near an aquarium or within a meter of another wireless device, including laptops, wireless headsets, wireless printers, microwaves, cordless phones or even USB-3.0 compatible devices "such as hard drives, thumb drives, LAN adapters, etc," might cause the Joy-Con controllers to disconnect from the Switch.
...that Nintendo doesn't have to accept the lowest bid if it doesn't think a good job will be done, right? The buck stops with Nintendo, not the factory they contracted construction out to. The factory will happily take whatever quality control measures Nintendo deems necessary, so long as they're paid enough.
Sounds like Nintendo's buying up all those panels that didn't pass muster for other companies' standards. Pretty cheap of them, considering the price of the unit.
I haven't seen a dead pixel on a screen in years. I can't believe Nintendo would stoop so low to essentially buying up rejects to save a couple bucks per unit.
I didn't plan to buy one anyhow, but this is proof positive that Nintendo still has the sense of entitlement leading them to say "you'll take what we give you, and you'll like it". Getting rid of region locks might have been seen as a step to hand some control back to the customer, but refusing to accept that dead pixels are defects and have been considered such for at least ten years now is an admission that they either can't do better, or are honey badgers about what the customer actually thinks. Unreliable connections are defects too, even Apple wasn't able to get away with the "you're holding it wrong" defense for very long.
If they can't do better for technical reasons... well I'm not buying that. They can do better, because other device manufacturers are doing better. If they can't afford to do better, then they really should get out of the hardware market.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Nintendo really should pay more attention to these sorts of things, as this can be what makes or breaks a device. I was strongly considering getting one, but between these stories, the untransferable/unbackup-able save data, and all that on top of them repeating their inability to grasp how people use online play (Really, friend codes? AGAIN? You can't just let us use handles like everywhere else on the civilized internet?), I'm shifting more to the mindset of "maybe let's wait and see if the version 2.0 is any better."
The defects you seem to think exist are a normally engineered design to enhance our users experience. Besides, we don't have sufficient inventory to supply the current demand. As soon as our supply is greater than our customer demand, we may consider some type of compensation. Please keep complaining and we'll contract you in 6 months or so (if you're loud enough).
Thanks and enjoy your experience!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Because if the Switch was a stunning 4K (710 PPI for a 6.2" screen), people wouldn't complain much because the pixel are too tiny to be noticeable if they die.
But at 720P (237 PPI), that's a whole different world. It's comparable to the first Samsung Galaxy S with 233 PPI. Even the new iPhone 7 is not "that" far ahead with 326 ppi (well, the Galaxy S7 have over 500 PPI).
Elok
...but maybe the customers are just holding it wrong?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
... on an older screen or one that has been abused. On a new device? Not so much. The only reason that anyone's going to take Nintendo's explanation lying down is because trying to stand up to Nintendo on this point is going to take a ton of perseverance, time, and probably money with no assurance that it's actually going to work out.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's to be expected that for the first batch, QA standards aren't too stringent, as they need numbers, numbers, numbers, to get 3rd party buy-in. Early PSPs had some stuck pixels, but later ones were fine. None of my VITAs have stuck/dead pixels.
I was planning to wait for the Mario Bundle, I'm guessing with a Mario-Red and Luigi-Green joycon, as here in Canada the Switch debuts at $400 and there's not even a pack-in game included. Yeah, that's $400 CAD and it also proves that a low CAD vs USD might be 'good for the economy' but it's bad for consumers (e.g. you and me). Hopefully by that that time the Canadian Dollar regained some of its value.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I remember WAY back in the early 2000's when LCD flat panels first started getting cheap enough for the average consumer (I bought my first as a 17" for $300 back around 2001) it was common for there to be at least 1 dead pixel - and they generally wouldn't consider it a warranty item unless there were more than 10 or more than 2 within a few cm of each other.
That is pretty much of thing of the past now though. In the last ~7 years I can't recall having a single display with a dead pixel, and in today's age I certainly would return a display (or device) that had one.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Here's Dells dead pixel policy for 2017. So basically Dell will ignore 5 dead dark pixels before you can get a replacement.
Flat panel monitors with Premium Panel Guarantee (HD+ (1600 x 900) and above LCD resolutions):
1 or more 6 or more
Bright = 1 or more
Dark = 6 or more
Dell monitors (D Series) 6 or more 9 or more Combination of bright and dark = 9 or more
All other Dell flat panel monitors 6 or more 6 or more Combination of bright and dark = 6 or more
Dell Laptop LCD screen with standard panel (HD (1366 x 768) or below resolutions):
Dell Inspiron laptops 3 or more 6 or more Combination of bright and dark = 6 or more
Dell Laptop LCD screen with Premium Panel Guarantee (HD+ (1600 x 900) and above LCD resolutions): :
Nintendo has it half right
Dead pixels ARE normal.... Fortunately, so is the replacing of affected devices under warranty.
If I went to the local tech mall and bought 100 tablets, I could take 100 tablets and none of them would have any dead pixels.
thats why people are complaining. it's not usual nowadays. if you have such a policy that you need x amount of them to be bad for it to be a defect, put it on the box.
or just try the device before buying, thats what people do in asia - in the west you just assume it works.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Can confirm I've fought manufacturers on their 'dead pixel policies' before in Oz and won, with the help of the ACCC. Basically a defect is 'Anything that would prevent the consumer from buying one instance of a product over another instance of the same product if they knew about it in advance', and dead pixels are considered defects by this definition, and manufacturers can't refuse replacement on defective products, period. The '7 day' or '30 day' policies are also not enforceable, if you get dead pixels 9 months down the road they still have to fix or replace. Even if it's 1 dead pixel. Nintendo will not be able to enforce this policy here, though it might be quite time consuming and tedious to make them comply. (nb: I am not a lawyer but I've been in this boat before)
No, no the pixels are not dead, they're just resting. Remarkable pixels on the Nintendo Switch. Beautiful plumage!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... I guess sort of like bad sectors are a characteristic of disk drives ...
Each hard drive has bad sectors detected during the QA testing and permanently stored in drives primary defects list (PLIST) table. The visible reallocations that start from 0 and reported by S.M.A.R.T are grown defects list (GLIST), not existing during the manufacturing. So yes, bad sectors are sort of a characteristic of disk drives.
... I guess sort of like bad sectors are a characteristic of disk drives ...
Each hard drive has bad sectors detected during the QA testing and permanently stored in drives primary defects list (PLIST) table. The visible reallocations that start from 0 and reported by S.M.A.R.T are grown defects list (GLIST), not existing during the manufacturing. So yes, bad sectors are sort of a characteristic of disk drives.
But in that sense they get hidden and the user is never aware rather than them going "nah, you can't save that properly, bad sector innit, that's just how they work now pay up and fuck off"
Wanna buy a shirt?
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