Nexus 6P display lens and color shifting

when viewed even at a slight angle, there is a noticeable color shift to a cooler tonality

+GSMArena​​ review unit, your feedback on +Google+​​ and my blog, all three units I had in hands are the same on this regard.

I don't think +Google​​ and +Huawei​​ made the right choices in terms of polarizer and lens on the Huawei +Nexus​​ 6P.

In the meantime, I've looked at a Lumia 950 in a store today exhibiting no color shifting with viewing angles and good panel uniformity.

Ping +Taylor Wimberly​​

#supercurioBlog #display #Nexus #Nexus6P



Huawei Nexus 6P review: Stepping it up
Last year, a dramatic change came to Google’s Nexus offering. The upper-mid range phone that was the Nexus 5 was replaced by a premium and much more expensive model made by Motorola. Skip time ahead about a year to this fall and we are offered a true premium package with a significantly lower price tag. The Nexus 6P is beautifully designed by Huawei to please both power users and average users alike.

Source post on Google+

Published by

François Simond

Mobile engineer & analyst specialized in, display, camera color calibration, audio tuning

21 thoughts on “Nexus 6P display lens and color shifting”

  1. +Jan Flöer​ thanks for your additional feedback!

    +Josh Unwin​ since the color shift effect is rather obvious on the 6P affected (on any gray/white solid surface) I doubt anyone would miss it.
    It's perfectly possible that we're seeing the results of a widespread production quality control issue, with a stupidly large number of units affected.

    Which is nothing new in terms of AMOLED.

  2. +Rafal Blaszkiewicz​​​ I observed AMOLEDs since the first Galaxy S.
    I would track the production issue with polarized lens introducing some to extreme amounts of color shifting from the T-Mobile Galaxy SII.

    The goal of the polarizer is to reduce the amount of glare and internal reflections in the panel itself and improve the contrast ratio under sunlight.
    Galaxy S I9000 and SII I9100 were not so great on that, and it's at a time where LCDs quickly caught up.

    I would speculate there's a matter of fine alignement between several layers to implement an efficient polarized lens on an AMOLED.
    If done right, just like a first generation Galaxy S the viewing angles are spotless and you won't observe any color shifting whatsoever at pretty much any angle.
    If not, one or several color primary is shifted substantially not only in intensity but also hue (like red becoming plain orange) and the final colors end up uneven even when facing the display.

  3. you really think that software used by Samsung to tweak the contrast is the only variable that changes between the nexus 6p display and the one used on Note 5? To me it seems like Google reps lied when they said the Nexus6p uses latest amoled from Samsung. There is huge difference between those displays. In low brightness, whites on the Nexus 6p become pink. While in high brightness, Sasung flagships have more light. Even Note 4 display is better than the nexus 6p display actually.

  4. +Aldi Mertira​​​ it's 100% a hardware concern.

    Google said that they're sourcing the last gen panel from Samsung but it doesn't mean they get the same as the Note 5, same manufacturing tolerances, and the lens and it's polarizer can also be different.

    As you noticed, another difference is in the display calibration.
    Google implementation of the characterisation, calibration and brightness scaling is of lower quality than Samsung one.
    The result is a pinkish shift on low brightness especially in shadows.
    At lowest brightness, the shadows end up completely clipped black as well: if you're watching a dark video, film or play a dark game, there's a chance you literally won't see anything but a few shapes and highlights here and there.

    Something funny is that the color shifting will be more obvious if you activate the sRGB mode.
    The reason is that in the 6P standard mode, every color is so over-saturated that your eye and brain adjust and compensate, translating them to normal colors. It reduces your sensitivity to color when looking at this display and comparatively, the color shifting appears less obvious.

  5. +Aldi Mertira​​ I also thought that it was note4 panel, but was recently provided a link discussing it.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3ws16x/everything_i_learned_about_nexus_at_the_nyc_nexus/
    GSMArena paraphrased this particular article on reddit, leaving crucial facts out.
    So basically, panel is 2015 batch, from lower bin. Basically note5 rejects. Which kinda makes sense.
    Some in that thread on g+ still cling to belief that the panels are absolutely the same, with only saturation being differentiating factor.

  6. My unit also has the cool color shift at a small angle, but then it goes back to normal at about 60° followed by a strong purple hue at 80-85°.

    As a regular consumer I'm not really bothered by the color shifts, but I can see why professionals like you can't stand it. I guess it's just too far down manufacturer's priority list.

  7. +François Simond​ well, I am not sure if this is right place to ask this question. I am not that pro in terms of how AMOLED displays work. I saw few apps like Pixel Filter on play store, which individually turns off the pixels to save battery.. I had a doubt, will prolonged use of specific pixels or prolonged turning off of specific displays mess up with quality of display? Like burn in effect of plasmas and recent super amoleds?

    Just curious to know.. Hope you'll be able to answer that.

  8. +François Simond interesting point. The polarized glass would definitely make this slight blueish color shift everyone is seeing. It's not much on most devices but you make a point there, my Nexus S never had such issues at any angle. I wonder if you separate the top glass from the digitizer if this issue will go away.

  9. Today got a black Nexus 6p 32Gb and it showed the same issue. What is strange that a 64Gb unit in aluminium didn't show that much of a tint shift when I got it in November. What models have you been testing 32 or 64?

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