Yellowing screens of moderns handhelds?

[Warmsignal]

All of the screens on my handheld devices seem to be going bad. I cannot find any concrete explanation, it seems to be worse on Nintendo handhelds, but Sony ones are not immune. To address a common question, no, there is no smoking or anything of that sort going on in the home, or near my stuff.

One theory is that the screens do this when they go long periods without being powered on. Which would make sense, since the Wii U is powered on far more often than the rest. However, the Vita is powered on very rarely, and the screen actually looks the best of any. The DSi has probably gone the longest without power, and yes it's by far the worst. If that theory is bogus, I can't begin to explain what else could be causing it. I pondered if there's some more insidious environmental factor that could be having adverse effects on my stuff.

 Surprisingly enough, this issue seems to be a rare thing that many people of the online gaming sphere have not encountered. I fully expect to baffle most of you with this post, but I wish I could find some answers. This is a lot of screens to replace, and a lot of headache the lies ahead of me if and when I attempt.

[aliensstudios]

That's bizarre. I haven't noticed yellowing on my Wii U or 3DS screen, but I do play those systems fairly often. I'm sort of afraid to look at my Switch since it's docked pretty much 98% of the time. The only other handheld of note that I have is a PSP system I found at a thrift store last year, and while the screen is pretty scratched, I haven't noticed any weird discoloring. Do you live in a really humid / non-humid area? Are the system's screen exposed to sunlight often?

Edit:
Those screens, especially the DSi one, are egregiously discolored. Even after looking at some of my older handhelds like the GBA SPs, and the original Silver DS system I have, none of them even exhibit the slightest yellowing, but the SP systems do have a weird issue where it's brighter in the middle and darker around the edges, likely due to the "front lighting" the systems have. I might try to take some pictures and see if it's something a camera picks up better / differently than the human eye, but I imagine if my handhelds screens were as yellow as your systems are in person, it'd be almost too much to overlook.

If it is environmental, I live in high altitude, so I don't ever see disc rot or corroded / rusted contact pins since there is simply almost no humidity here, but it seems console shells are much more susceptible to UV light and tend to yellow and discolor quickly. I wonder if that has anything to do with these screen issues

[redblaze57]

Sunlight is my first thought for that

plastics are known to yellow over time though I mainly know this happens to epoxy resin

It might also be plausible the backlights are starting to go though I would expect them to dim more then yellow outside of say some form of blue light filter. Which I don't believe any system has.

Maybe broaden your search for answers to more then just handheld. I'd imagine it could also be a problem with phones, tablets, computer screens, etc.

[Warmsignal]

My Switch is always docked, the Wii U lives on the TV console, and the small handhelds are kept in zipped up travel / carrying cases. No sunlight exposure to any. I do live at high altitude, but it can be fairly humid here, in summer months.

[bizzgeburt]

Sunlight is my first thought for that

plastics are known to yellow over time though I mainly know this happens to epoxy resin

It might also be plausible the backlights are starting to go though I would expect them to dim more then yellow outside of say some form of blue light filter. Which I don't believe any system has.

Maybe broaden your search for answers to more then just handheld. I'd imagine it could also be a problem with phones, tablets, computer screens, etc.

That was my first thought too ... comparable to old plastic cases (NES, SNES) that tend to yellow from UV-Rays (light, aka most plastics enemy), some people even blame temperature to affect plastics like that. Since we are talking about more modern (lcd-)screens in this thread, different intensity of usage may be a cause, but I'm not experienced enough with those systems to be sure about that ...

[sworddude]

This reminds me of those old school toys in them plastic packaging. those plastics often turn yellow. Those are super fragile to the enviroment

That being said, This is super rough you even have it on the current gen console like the switch this is quite horrifying 

Do you live in a above average humid enviroment or something?

Even my old ass handheld consoles don't have this yet. even my og gba or ds lite the latter which is used so much that the top screen is almost falling off in which I need to alter the screen to get an image, Mainly use my 3ds xl for ds games these days, so ds lites don't get much usage here

Eitherway, never heard of this issue, thanks for bringing it up it's definitely something to pay attention to.

Perhaps they had some bad batches while making them lcd's, which could also be a thing in which poorly made models will get this issue sooner.

One theory is that the screens do this when they go long periods without being powered on

I don't think this is the case. otherwise a majority of 2nd hand ds consoles would have a yellow screen. Since let's be real high odds of those consoles never been turned on for a very long while before being put up for sale.

[Warmsignal]

I'm starting to lean more towards the theory of air moisture levels. Whether it's too dry, or too moist I'm not sure. I know moisture is an issue here in the summer. I try to keep the rooms with my stuff air conditioned, but maybe I'm not vigilant enough?  During the winter my only source of heat currently is a gas fireplace which blows dry air constantly, so it's possible my environment might be too dry as well. Not sure which is doing the damage.

I've heard yellow screens are common in Japan do to humidity. I think what happens is, the glue used with the screens starts to break down and you get the yellow effect from the actual glue or adhesive showing. Kinda makes sense? Just sucks because I don't know exactly what to do to prevent this going forward when I replace all of my screens.

[sworddude]

I think dry climates wouldn't do much.

The only thing in which dry climates damage items is usually because such places are hot as hell. and when it's hot things break down faster.

But if you got dry plus a moderate or somewhat cold temperature stuff should last longer on average.

Dry climate is fine as long as the temperature is reasonable. To much Humidity is always bad, unless where talking about living things such as plants

[gummo]

Is the brightness turned up on them all ? The DSi looks pretty yellow , but the others look in the range of normal to me . Not all LCD screens start out perfectly stark white , you might never even notice a yellowish tint unless you compare one screen with another side by side like that .

[retromangia]

Warmsignal,

Thank you for bringing light to this matter. I have many handhelds myself, but only one with severe screen yellowing like your own, which is a white Nintendo DS system. I bought it used so I can't speak for the history of the unit, but I will try and upload some pictures in the next few days. I always thought it was a bit odd. Glad to hear I'm not alone, and I'd love to figure out how this happens.

[Warmsignal]

I'm currently going with the theory of humidity damage. I've just ordered myself some new DSi screens. I'm going to slowly but surely replace all of my handheld screens myself. This time, I'll make sure to keep the rooms dry during humidity, and store some silica packs next to them all for good measure. The kind that turn colors once they absorb moisture so that I'll know if this is happening.

[zenimus]

I've never noticed this issue before, but it does make me curious to boot up my old DS and PSP to see if everything is still normal.

[leynos]

 Reefer smoke!

[pzeke]

Humidity, plain and simple. If you have a humidifier, then that could also be the culprit.

Reefer smoke!

Yup! That, too.