UPDATE 1: Also read the post I marked as solution, it contains additional information based on some tests.
TLDR Version: I think it is a driver issue causing incorrect color reproduction and not a question of vibrancy or saturation, for details read below (reading time ~6 minutes...)
So I am an IT professional, AI expert, and tech enthusiast, I had the S23 Ultra since its release at the beginning of last year, it is a perfect and flawless device, everything just works, very polished, no-compromise experience.
When the S24 Ultra was announced, I saw it as a sidegrade, not much to be excited about if you already have the almighty S23 Ultra, and work daily with professional AI tools, but with the attractive pre-order promos I thought why not, a new toy for the new year, and you know life is short so enjoy, I even doubled-down and ordered TWO, one for me and one for the wife!
Because with Samsung something must always go wrong (in my experience at least), one of them got lost in the mail and went to another country, but thanks to probability theory, one of them arrived the next day and I have been playing with it for a few days now.
Of course out the box, the cold frosted grey titanium looked and felt super premium, and high quality, it was love at first sight until (as you might expect) I turned it on and a picture displayed on the screen, I was like huh... Why does this screen look so bad?? That is not the typical experience with a new Samsung phone where the screen is usually a WOW factor every year!
Fast forward a few days later, I got to learn about the "dull display" saga, and the polarized opinions between the group that thinks it is the best display ever, to the other that thinks it's outright unacceptable, and everything in between.
Below are my reflections:
1) From my experience, what is happening with this display is not a down-tuning of the color profile towards less saturated colors, nor is it a settings bug where switching between vivid and natural doesn't do anything, on the contrary in my observation there is a very noticeable change between vivid and natural and even effective temperature tuning settings from cold to hot.
2) The screen looks like a Windows or Linux PC without the correct display driver and/or color profile installed, what I think is happening is the colors reproduction and representation is just wrong, the color space coverage and greyscale gradient are not fully displayed, this results in all sorts of phenomenon described by users, so-called washed out and boring, grainy greys, lines, etc.
3) This is easily detectable in isolation by just using the phone without comparison, but more obviously in comparison not only with other Galaxy phones, but the screen colors look off in comparison to my OLED and QLED TVs from Samsung and other manufacturers, even in comparison to my laptops from DELL & HP, which don't use a "vivid" profile at all, the screen colors on the S24 Ultra are simply just OFF in general.
4) Some users say that this problem is present only in phone menus and icons, but not in media playback, videos and apps, in my experience this issue is present throughout with the exception of HDR10 (DCI-P3 content).
5) Today I played an HD video on both the S23U and S24U side by side, the video shows flowers and landscapes, the difference in picture quality was shockingly significant, the S23 Ultra had that "3D effect" where flowers and trees feel like they are popping out of the display, a similar effect to my Samsung NEO QLED TV, which is an indication of a very high picture quality when everything is just right, however, on the S24 Ultra the colors were muted and the display looked darker despite being technically brighter, and of course no 3D effect.
Under these findings I contacted Samsung's technical support, and the person I talked to was wise enough to escalate the case to specialists in the product team, and not try to give his random opinion like all the other cases we have seen in the news and other posts, so I am hoping for a responsible and conclusive response from the product specialists.
Under these circumstances, I personally have no option but to unfortunately return my S24 Ultras, if I don't get a conclusive answer that the display drivers will be updated, I don't mind natural colors, but they need to be correct colors covering the wide spectrum the display specifications support, until then, I will be rocking my trusty S23 Ultra until we see what the S25 series brings to the table next year, at the risk that life is too short and I might not be around next year!
Thank you for reading and apologies for the long post...
