Brightness/Color Reduction issues (NOT hardware problem)

[jqcaffeine]

The problem: Most screens on my Droid 2 are consistently darkened, as if dimmed to the lowest setting. The colors are even inverted in a few places. I would be inclined to call this a hardware problem, except that many of the stock android screens (app drawer, contacts, settings, etc) display perfectly. As you can see in the (poor quality, sorry) photos, the app drawer looks normal, but the second you switch back to the Home screen, everything visibly fades to a darker, slightly inverted color scheme. Pulling down the notification tray only makes the display darker, and it unquestionably inverts the colors, turning black-on-white text into white-on-black, the wifi indicator turns from blue to orange, and the battery indicator turns from green to blue and magenta.

I've reset the phone to factory, re-installed the SBF through RSD Lite, and searched the Internet high and low for someone experiencing a similar problem. I finally resorted to taking it to Verizon, but (surprise, surprise) they couldn't figure it out, either.

There's been no water damage, and the phone seems to be in pristine condition. It works great in every other respect, but it's basically unusable if the screen doesn't show colors and brightness correctly. I love this phone and don't want to return it to the EBay seller I got it from, but I'm beginning to feel that I have no other choice.

Has anyone had this problem? Any ideas on how to fix it? If not, I'm looking at returning it today or tomorrow. I DON'T WANT TO!

 

[Omneitic]

That's unique and if SBF'ing didn't fix it... Well, I don't really know. Verizon wouldn't help you out on a replacement or is it not covered under any warranty because you got it from Mr. Ebay-guy?

 

[jqcaffeine]

That's unique and if SBF'ing didn't fix it... Well, I don't really know. Verizon wouldn't help you out on a replacement or is it not covered under any warranty because you got it from Mr. Ebay-guy?

Verizon wouldn't replace it because the warranty doesn't transfer with resale (understandably). The guy at Verizon guessed that someone had damaged it during a root operation, but he also said that there was no evidence that it had ever been rooted (despite the fact that I had rooted it myself before SBF'ing; I didn't tell him about that).

 

[Omneitic]

Well I don't know how much you paid, but I'd abuse the insurance system on that one. Sign up for insurance on the device and then 'lose' your phone. Say it was stolen. Worked for me back in the day on my Voyager fails.

 

[jqcaffeine]

Well, it's a moot point now. I just returned the phone to the seller; should be getting a full refund.

I'll leave this up for the next guy with this problem. It won't offer much help, but at least he'll know he's not insane.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Coming in on this too late to help but that is definitely hardware problem. Screen is bad and needs to be replaced.

 

[jqcaffeine]

Coming in on this too late to help but that is definitely hardware problem. Screen is bad and needs to be replaced.

If that's true, though, then how do certain screens show up fine? For instance, the contact screen looks perfect (including contact photos). It seems like a hardware problem like a bad screen would show up consistently across all activities on the phone.

 

[nlinecomputers]

It depends on if the screen is refreshed or not and that depends on the call made by the app. I bet turning off the screen and back on would reset it. Forcing the phone to rotate the screen also probably would reset the screen. Even if it is not the screen you did an SBF. That is a total wipe of the system. No software problem will survive that. THAT is 100 proof of a hardware problem.

 

[jqcaffeine]

...Even if it is not the screen you did an SBF. That is a total wipe of the system. No software problem will survive that. THAT is 100 proof of a hardware problem.

Huh. Well, I guess it's a good thing I returned it, then.

I've got a line on a replacement DROID 2; hopefully, I won't have any similar problems.