A handful of first-hand reports show similar damage, suggesting a bad batch of hinges. Here's what to do if your Duo screen fails.

The iPhone Duo started landing in customers’ hands last Friday, and it didn’t take long for the problems to start rolling in. And the most obvious — and urgent — of these teething troubles is a screen damage issue that leaves a block or line of bright pixels on the display.

Owners are seeing bright white lines appear on the display, sometimes within a few hours of ownership. And all the damage being reported seems to be the same — one or more bright lines running across the right-hand side of the display about a third of the way up, with a secondary line along the middle.

Bottom line: We don’t know, but there are some well-informed guesses out there.

There’s been a flurry of activity over the weekend related to what is, rather predictably, being called “Crackgate.” The teardown experts at iFixit have been busy — they completely disassembled a Duo, built a 3D model of the hinge, and identified several ways the hinge mechanism could be damaging the inner display.

It could be that the flexible display is coming into contact with a support bar that doesn’t retract properly, or that a rail that moves during folding is brushing against the screen, causing a pressure hotspot. Finally, the damage appears to start where a lot of edges, components, and moving parts converge, and that convergence could be stressing the display more than expected.

Source link