When the Google’s Pixel 2 XL came out, the press gave Google a ton of grief over the perceived display issues, including the infamous “blue shift”. Many of these articles pointed out the Galaxy 8 series and proclaimed that Samsung’s latest devices have vastly superior displays.

These people haven’t taken a good look at Samsung’s latest displays, or they’re flat out not paying attention, because each one of Samsung’s flagship series including the Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note8 all have a display issue that I personally find just as bad, if not worse than any “blue shift”.

 

The issue

Here’s the issue in a nutshell. All of the newest Galaxy phones feature a tapered edge which Samsung calls the “Infinity Display”. Since all OLED screens tend to shift in color and/or brightness when viewed at an angle, the edges of an infinity display exhibits a noticeable shift in brightness near the left and right edges of the screen.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s some photos of the color shift around the screen edges.

The Note8 head on. Notice the fuzzy blue border around the top and bottom of the screen.

 

The Note8 tilted. Look at the obvious bright glow on the bottom of the screen. Oh and do you notice that “blue shift”? I guess the Galaxies aren’t immune to hue shifting like many people thought.

 

Let’s compare

Now that we know how the Galaxy screens look when viewed straight on and tilted, let’s compare with the Pixel 2 XL

The Pixel 2 XL straight on. Everything’s looking good so far.

 

The Pixel 2 XL tilted. There’s barely any distortion around the edges if any.

 

Conclusion

The moral of this story isn’t that Samsung sucks and Google is awesome, or that all phones suck. It’s that everyone should calm down and quit being so picky about the littlest imperfections of their phone’s screens.

If you were to show a modern smartphone to someone 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago, they would be blown away. They wouldn’t sit around and bicker about how the color temperature is slightly off when you look at the phone at a steep angle.

If you look hard enough, you will find flaws in any product that exists. So instead of seeking out things to complain about, how about enjoying the amazing technology that modern society provides.