The iPhone X might have a little green problem

This shouldn't happen to a $1,000 smartphone.
 By 
Brett Williams
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo

The iPhone X has been out on the market for just a week, and the much-hyped device appears to have its first big hardware flaw. Some early X owners are already reporting issues with their $999-plus premium devices shortly after putting them into daily use.

A thin, vertical green line has popped up on some of Apple's brand-new edge-to-edge OLED displays, frustrating device owners and prompting them to take to Twitter to share photos of the issue. The flaw has even been dubbed the "green line of death," a fitting moniker only a week into the X's lifecycle.

Some of the X owners say they restarted and even restored their devices to no avail — the pesky green bar remains on the screen no matter what.

The issue could stem from an electrical flaw that messes with the way the phone displays pixels, as TechCrunch notes. That same type of phenomena has affected similar OLED devices like the Samsung Galaxy S7 in the past, which lends more credence to the theory and proof that this is likely a hardware failure.

Apple appears to be aware of the issue, as the company's official support account has interacted with some of the iPhone X owners on Twitter. One of those owners said that Apple replaced his phone for free at an Apple Store, but didn't specify if anyone explained what might have caused the flaw.

We reached out to Apple to ask what might be causing the green line of death, and exactly how many cases the company is investigating. We haven't heard back yet, but we'll update this story once we do.

Flaws like this one aren't exactly rare in the smartphone world, especially after the first production run of a high-profile new release. Google's Pixel 2 XL had its own display issues after hitting the market, and one of the variants of Apple's other 2017 iPhone, the 8 Plus, had its own battery swelling problems.

What is rare is a widespread hardware defect that grounds an entire smartphone line, like the explosive, now-infamous Samsung Galaxy Note 7. That type of fallout and all-out recall is reserved for the most extreme circumstances — and at the moment, the X's display flaw doesn't appear to be one of those cases.

Apple's working out the kinks in the early days of the iPhone X (the company will issue a software patch to fix the device's cold weather struggles), which will more than likely be just fine in the end. It just sucks if you went through the hassle of getting your hands on the phone on launch day and paid over $1,000 for a phone, only to get the green line of death within a week.

Topics iPhone

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Brett Williams

Brett Williams is a Tech Reporter at Mashable. He writes about tech news, trends and other tangentially related topics with a particular interest in wearables and exercise tech. Prior to Mashable, he wrote for Inked Magazine and Thrillist. Brett's work has also appeared on Fusion and AskMen, to name a few. You can follow Brett on Twitter @bdwilliams910.

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