I picked up a 16gb touch yesterday from the bluewater store and immediately noticed the screen problem with dark scenes. It seems that this problem is not exclusive to those shipped in America.
It was wierd as it did at times seem better than others but overall the quality was not as crisp as my 5.5 pod even if the screen is bigger. What I did notice was that the viewing angle was very narrow and looking at it flat on was not the best angle. I found tilted very slightly backwards (as it would be if viewed on the enclosed stand) was best. Overall though it felt like viewing a computer monitor that has one of those screen privacy filters fitted.
Overall apart from the screen it is a great piece of kit and I have every confidence that Apple will fix this either via firmware (if possible) or an exchange. Having logged in at the ilounge it seems people in the states have been exchanging them only to get the same thing, more worryingly the problem appears to be widespread over there. If it is hardware and does need replacing I am guessing it will be best to wait until new batches come in. If Apple fail to address this then imo the quality is not acceptable and I will take it back for a refund within the 14 days (will try and get this pre-agreed when I take it into the genius bar later on). Given their reputation for quality however I would right now say that I trust them to get this right and would be happy to persevere with my current model if I knew for sure that this was the case.
It was wierd as it did at times seem better than others but overall the quality was not as crisp as my 5.5 pod even if the screen is bigger. What I did notice was that the viewing angle was very narrow and looking at it flat on was not the best angle. I found tilted very slightly backwards (as it would be if viewed on the enclosed stand) was best. Overall though it felt like viewing a computer monitor that has one of those screen privacy filters fitted.
Overall apart from the screen it is a great piece of kit and I have every confidence that Apple will fix this either via firmware (if possible) or an exchange. Having logged in at the ilounge it seems people in the states have been exchanging them only to get the same thing, more worryingly the problem appears to be widespread over there. If it is hardware and does need replacing I am guessing it will be best to wait until new batches come in. If Apple fail to address this then imo the quality is not acceptable and I will take it back for a refund within the 14 days (will try and get this pre-agreed when I take it into the genius bar later on). Given their reputation for quality however I would right now say that I trust them to get this right and would be happy to persevere with my current model if I knew for sure that this was the case.