After Nokia’s undisputed cameraphone, the 808 PureView went on sale, we have heard of a issue with its display where it forms a purple tint under specific brightness conditions. While we would have thought it as a hardware issue but it seems its just a software issue caused by “performance restrictions of AMOLED displays in certain brightness conditions“. Nokia is also aware of a issue and they have released a statement saying they are working on a software update to fix it.

We have been made aware of an issue where the displays on some Nokia 808 PureView units are exhibiting purple discolourations. This phenomenon is due to performance restrictions of AMOLED displays in certain brightness conditions. However, we have identified the root cause and are currently working on a software update that will deliver improvements.

Short-time purple discolourations (purple tint) on the display can be seen in the type of AMOLED displays used in the Nokia 808 PureView in the following situations:
– In dark room conditions, when the display is automatically adjusted to lower luminance level to maximize dark room readability
– In bright sunlight, when the phone’s display is automatically adjusted to maximum luminance to enable the best possible readability
– If a user wakes up the phone from dimmed mode, a purple tint can be seen as a transition effect when changing the display brightness

Until the software update is available, affected customers can address the situation by going to “settings” and then “phone”, “display” and “brightness” on their device. Once there, users should shift the brightness slide switch towards “maximum” . This will improve colour tones.