Samsung is known for the quality of its OLED panels, and its flagship phones get some of the best AMOLED displays, marketed as “Dynamic AMOLED” from the Galaxy S10 series and later.
However, the brand has also been marred by a series of well-publicized green line display issues on older devices like the Galaxy S20 series. Unfortunately, the issues seem to have spread to the Galaxy S21 series.
Recently, a few users of the Galaxy S21 series phones have reported facing the green line issue on their phones in a seemingly upward trend.
- The affected Galaxy S21 Ultra user (via @Entroprox on X/Twitter) claims that his phone has always been in mint condition and faced the green line display issue after updating to the April security patch update.
- The S21 FE user (via @Hercules_UTD on X/Twitter) claims that he faced the green line issue after the March update for that phone and the fact that Samsung is refusing free display replacements. The company seems to be asking for a repair cost of INR 14K (~$168) for the display repair due to this issue.
- Another S21 FE user (via @Babu__R on X/Twitter) claims to have faced the green line issue on his unit after a software update, but there are no further specifics.
These phones are likely to be the Exynos 2100 versions, and all of them have surfaced within this week, indicating an increasing trend of users facing this issue on the Galaxy S21 series after software updates.
For the uninitiated, the green line display issue can be caused by various reasons, including (but not limited to) a faulty display connector. This has been long theorized to be a permanent hardware issue caused by heat generated via software updates, and given Exynos 2100’s poor thermal management, this could be a plausible reason.
It is important to note that Samsung is not the only one with such display issues since many other smartphone brands using Samsung-supplied displays (especially E3 and E4 panels) have also faced this issue recently.
For example, OnePlus is infamous for this issue in countries like India, where it became so widespread that now it even seems to be affecting the company’s sales figures (via @heyitsyogesh on X/Twitter) and many flagship phones from Vivo (via @SavageAryan007 on X/Twitter) also faced this issue in the recent past.
Personally, I have had green line issues on two phones in the past: the OnePlus 9R and the Vivo X50 Pro. While such brands have generally been more active with replacing the displays for free (see my tweet here), there have been no such proper moves by Samsung.
When it is not the user’s fault, Samsung can charge users for expensive display replacements for the green line issue.
We hope the company resolves these display issues by offering free replacements or repairs sooner rather than later, or it risks losing its loyal customer base.
In the meantime, affected users can try documenting their issues with photos and videos, taking them to the Samsung after-sales representatives, and hoping for a solution.
