I purchased a new Xperia PLAY from Argos a month or so ago because certain buttons on mine were wearing to much for my liking.
Upon receiving it, I noticed a couple of problems with it, not present on my prior handset. The first was that the screen had a discoloured yellow tint occupying the entire display, particularly noticeable with white colours but affects all. The second was static noise in the usually excellent audio.
Now, usually I would just return the goods to the place I bought from, but this wasn't possible on this occasion because the goods arrived a day later than expected and I was then on holiday (it was a good holiday thanks for asking - pretty picture at bottom of thread) for 2 weeks before I had chance to unbox and test the handset.
So the only option I had left was to contact Sony Xperia Care and claim on the warranty, who subsequently subcontract to the infamously useless SBE Ltd.
I was told to return the handset to the SBE repair centre and did so accurately making note of the aforementioned faults. So a couple of weeks of wait and the handset was returned to me informing me that the flex cable had been replaced and the firmware updated. First problem, why wasn't anything done to fix the audio problem? second, why wasnt any testing done after the flex replacement? because it incidentally didn't fix the display problem. My previous reservations about entrusting SBE Ltd with the repair of my phone were then well founded.
I contacted Sony Xperia Care with this assessment and was told to send my phone back to SBE Ltd once more for another repair. I already knew that this would be a complete waste of time but not one to argue, I did as I was told.
The phone was away for another two weeks, of which I don't doubt it sat the majority waiting for the nine-till-five hates-his-job halfwit-type whos job it was to fix it. The speaker was replaced which did in fact fix the noisy audio, after waiting a month and a bit for this, I hope they don't mind if I defer sending the gold star. Having failed to repair the screen last time round, they didn't bother trying this time.
I sent a third email to Sony Xperia Care and in response was asked for a screenshot of the problem. Not wanting to miss a chance for them to see just exactly what was wrong with the phone, I sent them a picture of the device side by side with my older device, with both devices set to display an entirely white screen. On the left is the older handset with no problems, and on the right is the faulty handset with the discoloured yellowish screen, despite the fact that the screen should be entirely white at this point.
Picture here (click to view full):
They would see that the screen was indeed a factory reject and needed replacing? surely!
Thank you for contacting the Sony Xperia support centre and for supplying this image.
Having reviewed the information you have provided, it does appear that the handset is working as intended. Some colour variations between handsets are unfortunately to be expected, and the service centre have verified that the handset is functioning normally when they have repaired the faults you have experienced with the handset previously.
For the latest news, information and product support please visit www.sonymobile.com.
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No, apparently not. Colour variations are to be expected. Yellow is the new white and I should just deal with it. Thank you Sony.
At this point I plan on going to a repairs shop and getting an engineers report done of the phone and with that will file a small claim to recover the costs of that and having the screen professionally replaced. I don't know if I'll have any luck going that route but at this point its a matter of principle over cost.
Holiday picture (click to view full):
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