Any idea how to change screen calibration?

dhorgas · Nov 7, 2019

After November's patch we have 90Hz on all the time basically, but this also means that now the screen in dark mode is really green. Is there any way to adjust colour temperature on the Pixel 4 XL so as to correct this calibration mess? I know my S10+ can tweak colour temperature. The three available settings on Android 10 are not enough as there is no RGB adjustment.

Thanks all!

Edit: Just to be clear, rooting is not an option. Alternatively, if somebody knows where I can submit feedback to Google to resolve this horrible calibration that too would be appreciated. All grays are green. Ugh

krabman · Nov 7, 2019

You don't have 90 on all the time unless you've enabled developer and set it as such. The green occurs during the switching so you may want to consider enabling developer and turning on 90 all the time which can be done without root. I can say that it uses less battery than AOD (as an example) so it may be that this will fix the problem.

dhorgas · Nov 7, 2019

Unfortunately your information is outdated. 90Hz is on all the time since November patch for the Pixel 4 XL except under some limited conditions when one is not interacting with the display. I also confirmed via UFO test. The only way to get rid of the severe green tinting is to turn off smooth display which is BS. Anyway, I've decided that this product, despite its stellar camera and great physical design is unfortunately too flawed.

Battery life is poor and anxiety inducing, the display is awful (green tint, severe black crush at lower brightness settings), and even Bluetooth functionality has issues. Sure, almost all of these can be fixed by software (except battery life) but that may never happen or may take months or years to materialize. Unfortunately for $1,500 CAD that's just not good enough. There is a lot I love about the phone but this display crap is the last straw for me. Maybe Pixel 5 will do better.

Very sad and disappointed

EeZeEpEe · Nov 7, 2019

dhorgas said:
severe black crush at lower brightness settings

Severe? Not for me. Compared it to my Pixel 2 XL with brightness set to 0 and I could see everything just fine on the 4 XL.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Reuben_skelz92 · Nov 7, 2019

EeZeEpEe said:
Severe? Not for me. Compared it to my Pixel 2 XL with brightness set to 0 and I could see everything just fine on the 4 XL.

Yup I agree. The black crush isn't severe at all and is the same as any oled at low brightness. The 2 XL was awful for black crush

StrangerWeather · Nov 7, 2019

dhorgas said:
After November's patch we have 90Hz on all the time basically, but this also means that now the screen in dark mode is really green. Is there any way to adjust colour temperature on the Pixel 4 XL so as to correct this calibration mess? I know my S10+ can tweak colour temperature. The three available settings on Android 10 are not enough as there is no RGB adjustment.

Thanks all!

Edit: Just to be clear, rooting is not an option. Alternatively, if somebody knows where I can submit feedback to Google to resolve this horrible calibration that too would be appreciated. All grays are green. Ugh

There are a number of apps in the Playstore that can adjust display calibration. I used one in the early days of the Pixel 2 XL, and it worked well.
Having said that, if all greys are green, then maybe your phone is faulty and should be returned?

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/6398243?hl=en-GB

dhorgas · Nov 7, 2019

EeZeEpEe said:
Severe? Not for me. Compared it to my Pixel 2 XL with brightness set to 0 and I could see everything just fine on the 4 XL.

Reuben_skelz92 said:
Yup I agree. The black crush isn't severe at all and is the same as any oled at low brightness. The 2 XL was awful for black crush

Interesting perspectives. I had a feeling that there may perhaps be something wrong with my device at lower brightness seeing as I cannot fathom how DisplayMate could possibly rate the Pixel 4 XL display the way they did if the display was the way mine is. If you look at my post history as well I too praised the display at one point, but my praise was (in my case) misplaced if you take into account low brightness. This was, by far, the worst OLED I've used ever, which leads me to my comment below...

StrangerWeather said:
There are a number of apps in the Playstore that can adjust display calibration. I used one in the early days of the Pixel 2 XL, and it worked well.
Having said that, if all greys are green, then maybe your phone is faulty and should be returned?

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/6398243?hl=en-GB

Ultimately this is what I decided to do. I cannot see how this can be normal. It is truly awful. I think you cannot appreciate just how awful it is because no amount of explanation here will quite paint the picture. Since I have the S10+ and the iPhone 11 Pro, I had put them side by side just to confirm I'm not somehow going crazy and biasing my opinion and the difference was so stark that it made the Pixel 4 XL look like it was a $200 budget phone. The Pixel 4 XL has no colour detail, suffers from terrible black crush, and is completely miscalibrated with all colours at low brightness tending to green.

Last but not least, those apps you mention are all filters. There is no way outside of rooting to actually adjust the RGB balance. For this expensive of a phone, that's just not acceptable and neither is waiting for the issue to be addressed.

I may try another Pixel 4 XL just to see how it compares but I do feel that this isn't as isolated as one may think.

nds850 · Nov 7, 2019

It's very annoying. I manually disable Smooth display in the evenings now. Hoping Google can fix this.

EeZeEpEe · Nov 7, 2019

dhorgas said:
Interesting perspectives. I had a feeling that there may perhaps be something wrong with my device at lower brightness seeing as I cannot fathom how DisplayMate could possibly rate the Pixel 4 XL display the way they did if the display was the way mine is. If you look at my post history as well I too praised the display at one point, but my praise was (in my case) misplaced if you take into account low brightness. This was, by far, the worst OLED I've used ever, which leads me to my comment below...

Ultimately this is what I decided to do. I cannot see how this can be normal. It is truly awful. I think you cannot appreciate just how awful it is because no amount of explanation here will quite paint the picture. Since I have the S10+ and the iPhone 11 Pro, I had put them side by side just to confirm I'm not somehow going crazy and biasing my opinion and the difference was so stark that it made the Pixel 4 XL look like it was a $200 budget phone. The Pixel 4 XL has no colour detail, suffers from terrible black crush, and is completely miscalibrated with all colours at low brightness tending to green.

Last but not least, those apps you mention are all filters. There is no way outside of rooting to actually adjust the RGB balance. For this expensive of a phone, that's just not acceptable and neither is waiting for the issue to be addressed.

I may try another Pixel 4 XL just to see how it compares but I do feel that this isn't as isolated as one may think.

Yeah I don't know if you got a bad screen or what but it's amazingly better over the Pixel 2 XL other than brightness. When indoors and at similar brightness, it's very comparable to my wife's S9+.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Reuben_skelz92 · Nov 7, 2019

The screen is comparable to the OnePlus 7 pro just calibrated a bit different. Any phone or any oled you can get a crappy defective unit, it your not happy swap it out.

I do wish Google gave us more options like OnePlus to adjust the white point etc, that would solve things to some extent as most people prefer or are use to different white points

---------- Post added at 05:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------

P.s you can root and put kiriskua kernel on and calibrate the screen white point, saturation etc

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 PM ----------

EeZeEpEe said:
Yeah I don't know if you got a bad screen or what but it's amazingly better over the Pixel 2 XL other than brightness. When indoors and at similar brightness, it's very comparable to my wife's S9+.

The green in low brightness is a thing, but should only be really low brightness....does sound like yours is more defective than software

dhorgas · Nov 7, 2019

nds850 said:
It's very annoying. I manually disable Smooth display in the evenings now. Hoping Google can fix this.

That's the part that I'm not willing to bet the $1,500 on. I guess I should also be clear that if I disable smooth display - that is I go back to 60Hz - the colour calibration issue is largely resolved. The colour reproduction and black crush are still there at very low or minimum brightness, but not as bad or as prominent as with the 90Hz calibration. This also does not affect the Pixel 4 devices the same because Pixel 4 (non-XL) reverts to 60Hz for any brightness lower than ~40% even after November patch.

Reuben_skelz92 said:
The screen is comparable to the OnePlus 7 pro just calibrated a bit different. Any phone or any oled you can get a crappy defective unit, it your not happy swap it out.

I do wish Google gave us more options like OnePlus to adjust the white point etc, that would solve things to some extent as most people prefer or are use to different white points

---------- Post added at 05:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------

P.s you can root and put kiriskua kernel on and calibrate the screen white point, saturation etc

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 PM ----------

The green in low brightness is a thing, but should only be really low brightness....does sound like yours is more defective than software

Agreed on the "having more options". With that said, I only care about that because the display is as bad as it is at low brightness. If I have time tonight, while I still haven't sent the phone back, I may just try to do a side-by-side comparison for you guys with the S10+ and iPhone 11 Pro. The differences are truly night and day (no pun intended). I am so, so disappointed that this is even an issue. I genuinely enjoyed the Pixel experience way more than I liked any of my Android devices so far. I stayed away from generations 1-3 because I wanted them to find their groove and finally felt that this was the time to jump in, only to be disappointed again. I will likely try another device just to see if it makes a difference and just how much, but I doubt it will be much better. Just as an FYI, in a completely dark room I run my brightness at minimum setting since it reduces glare. A good, properly calibrated OLED should still be able to produce a decent picture. The Pixel 4 XL, my Pixel 4 XL, is far from decent.

Edit: By the way, here is one really good example of it from Reddit https://camo.githubusercontent.com/...3682f45785a68422f666236646162656237642e706e67. It's not my phone, but this is the exact issue. Look at the grays - they are literally green. Here is another set of reports from Reddit as well https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/ds6rd6/pixel_4_xl_screen_tint/. I am going to try to do my own photos tonight to post here.

krabman · Nov 8, 2019

I don't have anything like what you show in the link you posted, I'm forced on here since it turns out it doesn't change battery life much in my use. AOD uses something on the order of twice as much as an example. In any event I'm a home theater enthusiast and have spent some time calibrating, not I'm an expert time, but time enough to recognize blooming and other common display problems and I don't see that night or day at any brightness. If I did I'd have to agree, that wouldn't work for me.

dhorgas · Nov 8, 2019

Okay so I was able to reproduce this issue at will now and can say exactly how you can test for it. Basic display settings are Ambient EQ On, Ambient Display Off, Smooth Display On (90Hz enabled), Dark Mode Enabled, Night-shift Enabled, November patch though I think the same issue affects the launch software but to a lesser extent. For ease of testing, turn off auto-adjusting brightness. Once you have this set, here is what you do to see the problem yourself (note that the settings I mentioned are just what I had set when I tested this so I recommend using the same so its apples to apples comparison):

1. Make sure you have the default wallpaper set for this test since it is the easiest to detect issues with it.
2. Pull down the quick settings shade, drop the brightness slider all the way to zero, then close the quick settings.
3. Turn off the display by pressing the power button, wait maybe 5-10 seconds, then turn it back on. You will notice that the screen (at least in even a moderately lit room) is barely readable. It should now be red-shifted.
4. Pull down the quick settings again and start moving the brightness slider from 0% to 100% slowly, then repeat the process of moving the slider back and forth for a bit and note the colour changes. You will notice that the true-ish gray will be somewhere around 75% brightness or higher. Anything below this will start to red-shift quite severely (your grays will look more red/purple).
5. Set the brightness slider to 100% and close the quick settings, then swipe down to open them again.
6. Start moving the brightness slider from 100% towards zero and pay attention to the screen colour. You will notice that true gray quickly starts to degrade to greenish-gray, then quite severely green, until finally the brightness collapses severely around 10%-15% of the slider. Your display is now severely green shifted and moving the brightness slider back and forth will just show this effect switching to true gray around 70%-75% and up, and to severe green shift for anything below that.
7. Finally, drag the brightness down to zero again, then turn off your display via the power button. Turn on the display again and move the slider around again. Your display is now no longer green shifted, but it is now red-shifted. Repeating the same steps over and over will result in the same behaviour, back and forth red-shift when screen is turned off with brightness at zero, green shift when brightness is turned down after the device engaged 90Hz refresh rate and so on...

I actually recorded a video of this happening and will see how I can share it with Google.

jbartley88 · Nov 8, 2019

So glad I found this post, I thought I was the only person experiencing this. do we try and exchange the device? Or wait for a software update?

dhorgas · Nov 8, 2019

jbartley88 said:
So glad I found this post, I thought I was the only person experiencing this. do we try and exchange the device? Or wait for a software update?

I am actually talking to Google as I type this. I sent them my video and they confirmed the problem. They are escalating it now with all of the detail that I have provided so far, but they cannot tell me if or when it will be resolved at the moment. They are not stating that this is a hardware issue or an issue with my device. They believe that it is firmware/software, introduced or maybe made much worse by the November patch. I did inform them that the issue existed with the October patch, but it was made much worse with the November patch. Interestingly enough, while testing with them we confirmed that the green shift occurs even if smooth display is completely off or the smooth display is forced on. Turning off smooth display eliminates most of the red shift (though not all).

To answer the latter part of your question more specifically - this could end up being similar to the Pixel 2 XL POLED fiasco so there may not be a way for Google to fix this in software. Whether you are willing to take that risk is up to you. I am going to send my device back and am trying to get the Google dev team to update me on the progress of the issue regardless. At some point in the near future I'd like to be able to re-buy the Pixel 4 XL free of this problem.

Reuben_skelz92 · Nov 8, 2019

I wonder if rooting and putting kurisuka Kernel would hekl

dhorgas · Nov 8, 2019

Reuben_skelz92 said:
I wonder if rooting and putting kurisuka Kernel would hekl

Perhaps but those days are behind me. I simply don't have time to do this any more. I need the device to work solid out of the box. If you have the Pixel 4 XL, were you able to follow my instructions and reproduce the issue?

Reuben_skelz92 · Nov 9, 2019

dhorgas said:
Perhaps but those days are behind me. I simply don't have time to do this any more. I need the device to work solid out of the box. If you have the Pixel 4 XL, were you able to follow my instructions and reproduce the issue?

Didn't make a difference, I got the white point better to how I like but the green tint bug is still there, deciding weather it's a deal breaker or not, it's really annoying

elreydenj · Nov 9, 2019

Reuben_skelz92 said:
Didn't make a difference, I got the white point better to how I like but the green tint bug is still there, deciding weather it's a deal breaker or not, it's really annoying

What settings did you use in color control to get the white point you like?

pixelsquish · Nov 9, 2019

dhorgas said:
Perhaps but those days are behind me. I simply don't have time to do this any more. I need the device to work solid out of the box. If you have the Pixel 4 XL, were you able to follow my instructions and reproduce the issue?

i agree with not having time, I don't have the time to try to replicate this issue. I use my phone in my bed in the dark all the time, with a dark theme and low brightness and don't have an issue that i've noticed.

Any idea how to change screen calibration?

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Recognized Contributor

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts