Screen flicker on nook color? Defect??

[Ericejs]

I have noticed that when at about 25-40% brightness you can notice a little screen flicker from the brightness on dark backgrounds. For instant if you use night mode at about 30% there is a noticeable flicker on the screen, not real intense, but still noticeable (changing the brightness higher or page color makes it go away). Is this a defect? Does this happen to anyone else? I wonder if I need a replacement It seems to happen on any dark background, not on pure white.. any ideas?

[LoganK]

Originally Posted by Ericejs

I have noticed that when at about 25-40% brightness you can notice a little screen flicker from the brightness on dark backgrounds. For instant if you use night mode at about 30% there is a noticeable flicker on the screen, not real intense, but still noticeable (changing the brightness higher or page color makes it go away). Is this a defect?

It can depend a lot on your reading conditions: incandescent or fluorescent light, brightness of room, angle of display, whether you are looking directly at the device or merely catching it in your peripheral vision. I tend to be moderately sensitive to such flickering, and I have not noticed any issues with the Nook Color.

I would suggest showing your device to a friend and ask them what they see before labeling it a defect. Also, and I know this sounds unlikely, but rebooting it may effect some change.

For those that are curious, this flickering is generally due to the use of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) in the brightness control. It is usually flickering at a rate too fast for humans to notice, but that isn't always the case (I'm looking at you Cadillac brake lights).

[Ericejs]

very interesting, thanks for the reply.... It doesn't bother me too much since i doesn't seem to be noticeable on every background (such as normal or sepia) but is noticeable on darker things with the brightness around 30%....when I make the brightness higher I cant notice it at all. Also can't notice it at 0%.

[cwosigns]

Same issue here. I'll try to exchange for a different one.

[boswd]

What LoganK wrote is absolutley correct. From what I've read it's an LED backlit thing, should be mostly undetacable under normal conditions.

I tried seeing it under my work lights which are flourescent and couldn't see any flickering,

but I have read around of other LED monitors and such where people have noticed some faint flickering when brightness was turned down pretty low.

[GreenMonkey]

I took mine back to B&N today to see if replacing it would fix it. Both store displays didn't have any flicker.

They opened two different nooks and they did the same flickering thing.

So I called Nook technical support. He put me on hold for about 5 minutes. He said he checked about 5 nooks and they all flickered. But he hadn't noticed it before.

So, he will put a ticket into the development team to have it looked at.

So, another confirmation that Nook tech support is aware and looking into it. Some others have said something similiar over at xda developers forum.

[Ericejs]

Yea I saw that pretty much every NC has this... but not everyone notices it! I have heard it may be possible to fix with an update, I truly hope so!

[s52m3]

Ouch now I'm worried as I just ordered one

[coolbreeze]

Flickergate!

[cwosigns]

I exchanged mine; new one flickers as well. Hope it can be fixed via an update.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by cwosigns

I exchanged mine; new one flickers as well. Hope it can be fixed via an update.

there is nothing wrong with your nook color.

It's the nature of the LED technology. If you look in the beginning of this thread LoganK provides an accurate explanation. Its post #2 in this thread

the flicker you see should be rather faint and under very low brightness settings with very dark background. The only time I ever see a faint flicker is when I have either very low lighting or pitch dark room and when I hit the main menu arrow that shades the screen.

In it's simpliest terms it's the nature of how LED refreshes, similiar to the old CRT monitor's. Do you remember when the brightness was on too low or you had the lights off you could see a faint flicker? Same idea here.

The reason for the use of LED besides better power consumption is LED's tend to render the best and most accurate color reproduction and deeper blacks.

I find it to a non issue and don't even see any under normal reading conditions and like I said before even in low light and dark setting I only see it when the menu arrow is pressed. and even then its faint. I have my brightness at roughly 20% to maybe 30%

There is a reason you don't see this brought up in any of the professional reviews, simply because it's the nature of the technology.

but if are overly sensitive to it, try raising the brightness up a notch or two, that should help.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by boswd

there is nothing wrong with your nook color.

It's the nature of the LED technology. If you look in the beginning of this thread LoganK provides an accurate explanation. Its post #2 in this thread....

No, this flicker is a lot more than that. Everyone I took it around to could see it, from about 30% - 80% brightness.

The 2 store displays did NOT display the same flicker. Others at xda went through 3-4 units to get one that didn't have the same flicker / distortion.

[donovan1983]

Mine has a slight flicker but nothing nearly as bad as my old Sony CLIE SJ30. That thing, despite its otherwise amazing (for the time) display, had a backlight that looked like a florescent bulb with a bad ballast on nearly anything but the highest brightness. I expect flicker with LEDs since they just don't have that great of a brightness range and I tend to crank the brightness down on nearly all my portable color LCD electronics. My iPhone 3G S (and its warranty replacement), Sony PSP-3000, as well as my BlackBerry 8530 also exhibit similar slight flicker. The NOOKcolor is better than any of them, especially the iPhone 3G S, so I have no real complaints.

[EveryMan279]

I got a Nook Color for Christmas and also noticed the flicker you describe too. I went to Barnes and Noble and there were 2 demos setup; one flickered and the other didn't. I tried to exchange mine for another, but the first two workers I showed mine to didn't see the flicker under their fluorescent lighting. So, I looked like a nut. A 3rd worker got involved and he believed me. He explained the phenomenon as a refresh rate issue that was normal. So, now I have a choice to make; try to exchange it at another store or live with it... What to do? What to do?