Two Sapphire Fenix 6 Pro’s, backlight / contrast issues

Hi Pseudo,

That middle one is great.  I don't think people are being OCD about this at all.  If the device was $200-300 bucks? Maybe so, but when you  start talking near 1k for a watch, people should not settle for anything less.  It's a matter of Cost/Value here.  To accept sub-par quality control is just giving a big company an open book to not give a rats rear end, and do things as cheap as they can get away with.  Garmin charges a premium, the consumer should get a premium product.

It does not cost Garmin very much to produce these, this is the most lucrative business for Garmin.  It's just a cash cow.  So it's very good that people are settling for what the product should be.

Fair enough. I don't fault anyone for working to get the best devices from a range of manufacturing variances.  Given negativity bias prevalent on product forums, who is to say the blacker ones are not the anomalies?  Maybe because Garmin has been willing to exchange some we can assume they were striving for less blue, but I've also seen where they indicated they are within tolerance.  Personally if readability were seriously affected I would insist on replacements also, and maybe for some that is an issue.  I'm more concerned with whether the backlight will last the LED typical 50,000 hours of illumination, can I read the screen, and are all my OTHER necessary features working as advertised. 

Given my now gone F3, F5, F5+ more resembled the blueish screens, I gotta believe Garmin just got lucky with the blacker ones. If we can prove with serial #s they maybe changed their component sourcing or manufacturing method to make improvements, then I will join others in saying "hey, I want the blacker screen with better contrast in the dark"....

I can't even remember my F3HR.  I loved that device!   All good and valid points!  Either way there really shouldn't be that large of a variation on the displays.  You would think in QC the tray of watches would pass an inspector who illuminates them all and pulls the ones out of spec.  But that doesn't seem to be happening, or it maybe it does.   Maybe instead of scrapping the ones that don't pass the muster, they sell them in hopes the buyer doesn't know any different.  We just don't know.

Either way, all valid points.  Add to that, I think the Black DLC with leather band looks badass.

Wow, look what I found in my old images from 2016.  My F3HR!!  Look how good this screen looked at 100% backlight.  I remember because I like my watch bright (old ass eyes).   A hint of blue but looks better than a majority of today's F6's.   I miss that old watch!

Looks good.  Keeper.

Mine look like a bit wash out...

solar version brightness @ 40%

What does it looks like at an hard angle like this ? : 

do the colors start do invert? There are watches out, they start to invert colors at this angle. Black becomes white/white becomes black.

Well look what my wife got me (shocker).  I dreaded opening the box when I opened the package, because I've gone through 4 of these with Smurf Blueberry backlights.  Well look at this.  I didn't think it was possible.  100% backlight and absolutely BLACK and the color pop.  I can see colors as if they are high def.  Even at the sharpest angles, they stay sharp!   Even though I need LTE, how could I return this?   Guess back to wearing 2 watches again.   This is a 6x pro sapphire with leather band.  Serial 634078xxx.

Moral of this story, regardless of who says what, there should NEVER be a washed out or blue backlight.  Don't settle for anything less than perfect.  If this was a bargain watch, I would think differently.