S9 touchscreen “dead zones” causing havoc
Samsung are shipping out dud phones to customers that are hopelessly broken, including components like the S9 touchscreen.
That’s the assertion of users who have whipped up a storm of complaints on Reddit.
We’ve come a long way from plastic button keypads, but a host of Samsung customers have been left longing for simpler days.
Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus handsets are affected by the problem, with the £700 S9 Plus responsible for most cases.
S9 touchscreen “dead zones”
Most of the problems reported describe “dead zones” on specific parts of the screen that do not respond to swipes or taps.
If this dead zone lands on a particularly important area, such as over the keyboard or notifications bar, it can make the phone effectively unusable.
When the S9 officially launched at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona it was hailed as a world-beater that would whip the troubled iPhone X.
News of the problem spread when worried customers took to Reddit looking for help.
Picked up a snapdragon S9+...having weird issues with the screen registering touches.
I seem to get a fair amount of phantom ones and swiping on the keyboard is a mess... do I just need to go in an exchange it?
- Reddit user
Reddit posters also confirmed that the problem came straight from Samsung rather than re-seller websites.
Customers complained that their S9 touchscreens were broken on unlocked handsets ordered direct from Samsung’s website.
Numerous users also warned of Samsung’s poor customer service when trying to fix or replace affected phones.
One distressed Reddit user wrote: “I have been fighting with them to replace out-of-box defective screen on S9+ but I am getting nowhere. I have spent 4 days of my life on the phone with them but it was fruitless. So Disgusting.”
How to fix it?
It is currently unclear how widespread the problem is with the S9 touchscreen.
It could be a consistent manufacturing flaw affecting thousands of devices, a few bad batches that have slipped through Quality Control, or just a handful of unlucky customers with Reddit accounts.
Increasing a phone’s touch sensitivity settings can apparently help in some cases, but the only fix so far seems to be sending the handset back to Samsung and requesting an entirely new phone.
Samsung has responded by saying that they are “looking into a limited number of reports”, which means they haven’t yet officially recognised the problem.
No patches have yet been put out, so it appears not to be a firmware issue or something that can be solved with an update.