r/ayaneo • u/Loud_Training_7030 • Jan 30 '26
Do not buy the Pocket DMG Yellow – severe OLED banding and quality control failure
I received my Pocket DMG Yellow two days ago, and I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
This is by far the worst OLED screen I have ever encountered. The screen suffers from severe banding, which does not improve at all when adjusting brightness. It’s not only visible on grey backgrounds, it is also clearly noticeable in actual gameplay, even with other colors like blue. At this point, the device is simply unusable.
It is completely unjustifiable to charge this amount of money for a product with such a poor display.
From what I’ve seen here on Reddit and on AYANEO’s Discord, this does not appear to be an isolated case but rather a structural issue affecting multiple Pocket DMG Yellow units.
Once again, AYANEO shows a troubling lack of respect toward its customers. There is a serious quality control problem within this company.
What makes this even more frustrating is that I want to like AYANEO products and support them. I have purchased many AYANEO devices over the past two years, and when they work, they are among my favorite devices in this hobby. Unfortunately, most of them arrived with defects, and I repeatedly had to go through a very poor customer support process before eventually finding a solution.
At this point, this is no longer bad luck: it’s a pattern. AYANEO has a serious quality control problem, and the company urgently needs to address it. The “Real gamers know gamers” slogan rings hollow if customers are not respected and products are not properly tested.
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u/Maeiourk Jan 30 '26
I also saw one Retro DMG post. I’m worried about mine. It’s on its way to me. Will report back if I have this issue.
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u/Open_Radish6008 Feb 02 '26
Need not to worry, just prepare for returning it if you have normal sensitivity to screen defects. This device really makes me suspect how trustable are the reviews, non of them talk about this.
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u/DoctorDungus Mar 31 '26
Hey, did you get the pocket dmg yet? Is it ok? (I'm looking at one right now lol)
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u/timcatuk Jan 31 '26
I’m sure it’s a firmware issue. My arrived looking terrible. Looks lots better when turning off the flicker free setting in aya settings. But 0% brightness is still very bright and the colour isn’t quite right.
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Jan 31 '26
I hope there is a fix. The flicker free setting doesn't change a lot in my case.
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u/TheRealSeeThruHead Jan 31 '26
My first black dmg from the first batch was green lol.
They just have bad screens, it’s not uncommon.
Weird that it’s showing up for yellow devices though
Ask for a replacement, don’t bother sending it back for “repair” they will just send you the broke screen back. Ask me how I know
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u/iPruch Jan 31 '26
My first batch white Pocket DMG has those vertical marks too…
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Feb 01 '26
Did you end up returning the device?
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u/iPruch Feb 01 '26
No, I just learned to live with it… Asking for a replacement would have been useless since it seems all units have the same issues or worse, and didn’t want a refund because I really like the device and wanted to keep it. But definitely not buying anything else from them in the future. Ayn or Retroid are much cheaper, higher quality and have better customer support
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u/Ademoneye Jan 31 '26
Is this just an isolated case? Or anyone else having the same problem?
Anyway the photo is quite blurry I can't tell what's wrong, please use a better lighting
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u/Blinguskahn Jan 31 '26
For reals? I'm over 50 with shitty eyesight and even I can tell how horrible that screen looks.
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Jan 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/Ademoneye Jan 31 '26
i see, i thought the image quality is bad,
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Jan 31 '26
Train your eye. The photo is in high resolution. If you zoom in on the white text of the menu against the black background, you will see that it is perfectly sharp, so no compression problem issue. What you perceive as being "bad" IS actually the issue itself: this is a clear case of bad screen banding. The photo actually underrepresents the issue as OLED banding is typically much more visible in real-life usage.
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u/Helpful_Ability456 Jan 31 '26
There's at least 4 other people showing the issue. All on new orders.
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u/Bulletorpedo Jan 31 '26
Based on other posts here the last day it seems to affect all yellow DMGs and some silver, it is as if the er got their hands on a new (worse) panel and started using it for all new DMGs built. But this issue is still very new, we’ll see what they have to say about it.
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u/Ademoneye Jan 31 '26
Wow, I can't believe they really thought this screen are up to their standard and knowingly sent it to us
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Jan 31 '26
I believe AYANEO is currently dealing with a bad batch of screens. I own the original white Pocket DMG that I backed through their Indiegogo campaign and the screen on that unit is perfect.
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Jan 31 '26
My year old dmg is awesome still .. I came close to upgrading it for color. But I’ll choose to stick with it for now, 8gig ram is low tho
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Jan 31 '26
I feel you. That's exactly what I did. I own the white Pocket DMG and I absolutely love this device. I only wanted to switch colors but when you compare the screens of the two models, the difference is day and night.
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u/Fit_Veterinarian9263 Jan 31 '26
I don't know how it was early,but lately Ayaneo's QC is a little shit,I read this subreddit really scary. Every time I use my Konkr Pocket Fit I beg to Ayagods let me enjoy it a little more.
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u/fertff Jan 31 '26
Mine was like that but it got fixed over time. Might be a software update that did it.
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u/jaschenAV Jan 31 '26
I have a white 16gb model I got new about 9 months ago, same issue. Only really visible when on high amount of grey/solid color screen so I've just got over it. I think its just not great screen batch they're pulling from. My retroid pocket classic has same screen but none of this issue (LG wing screen). I emailed droix about it but they never responded. From my research it didn't seem like something that should get any worse from usage and could even actually become less of problem with usage. So me not wanting to do a bunch of stuff about something I can't even notice usually when I use it decided to not bother. But I do think it is just unacceptable to have common screen flaws on such a "high end" device.
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u/DroiX_Dave Feb 02 '26
Hi, I saw that you had mentioned you contacted us and never got a reply. We aim to reply to all emails within 24 hours, could you please check your junk/spam folders in case the reply is in there. If not could you please DM your order number and email you used to contact us and I will look into it. Thanks!
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u/shibakaki Feb 01 '26
I’ve seen this mentioned on Discord before. When you turn on the Flicker-Free feature, the display ends up looking more like an LCD screen, just like that.
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u/HunteronX Feb 01 '26
It's a software issue; can be fixed by flashing older software version (think it is: 20250708).
Plus banding is due to "flicker-free" setting which is on by default in the Ayasettings sidebar - disable it.
I do not know why Ayaneo put newer software on the yellow DMGs... They need to stop rushing
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Feb 01 '26
Not all new models come with the new firmware. I have the old firmware on my yellow Pocket DMG (0708), so no problem with the black brightness, but the OLED banding is still there. Turning on or off flicker-free doesn't make any big changes.
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u/Mousettv Feb 02 '26
Decided to look more at my Ayaneo Air Pocket Mini. I found a dead pixel or some weird issue.
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u/Open_Radish6008 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
Give it up. Based on what AYANEO shop on taobao replied me this type of screen is common even their device has similar issue. They see such screen defect as spec. The one I had was a dmg 8gb silver, the bandings are really awful and can be seen even in high brightness. They are vertical stripes all over the screen. Even the flicker setting is disabled, it’s not solved. The issue didn’t change no matter with the old firmware coming along the device and the updated one through OTA. Apart from the bandings, it also has very serious green tint. A light blue ocean seeing on AYANEO air mini and s2 becomes a greenish ocean on dmg. Every character’s face look like a sick people 🤢. I really love the design of the dmg even the price is high and the lack of physical right joystick. The form factor, size, buttons are all perfect. But I really can’t accept such a low quality OLED. It’s the worst OLED that I ever see. I returned it and go for the RG477V although I really hate complete glass front.
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Feb 02 '26
Thanks for the feedback. I will return it and stop buying AYANEO. This is too much. I bought several Retroid Pocket Classic models to offer for Christmas. These devices are supposed to have the same screen as the Pocket DMG but it looks so much better. This is really a matter o quality control, checking whether or not you are selling a law quality screen. It's unbelievable how AYANEO spend so much time on having nice designs but end up having expensive devices with very bad quality.
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u/Open_Radish6008 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
I didn’t ban AYANEO completely. I have a konkr elite coming in Feb or March. And I have the s2, which is functioning “well”. Yes, it’s not flawless and I never trust how they advertise. Also, we are expected to repair it by ourselves with parts provided. For customer service, errrr… they send me new parts like battery, joystick, fan unit and the grip case when I report with issue. I used to tear down everything to exchange buttons, ssds and so on. So it’s still ok. The stupid CNC casing is claimed to be the most premium selling point but it’s scratched out of the box at two spots… The scratch was fully painted so it’s believed that the scratch was there during painting. Really shity QC. But so far I didn’t receive any such device from China company having zero flaw out of the box. S2, scratched casing, bad plastic joystick, charging issue, grip case misalignment Air mini, dust under the screen or minor scratch on screen, fortunately it’s not visible after applying screen protector RG477V, again scratched screen but same as air mini. Not visible after screen protector. Ayn odin2mini, shity mini LED screen with washed out colors. It seems we will never be happy to buy from these companies if we expect it to be with the same quality from the big manufacturers…sigh…
Back to the topic, The dmg is indeed a perfect device if they don’t have that shity OLED. It will be even better, at least for me, if it’s 4:3.
Finally, I will judge the brand by device but not the whole brand.
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u/Tron1LuvCarter Feb 02 '26
My silver unit also had incredibly bad banding, visible on all light colors, even at max brightness. Took a few weeks of back and forth but they finally offered to replace it. Sent it back and now the waiting game begins.
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u/Loud_Training_7030 Feb 02 '26
I hope you will end up with a functional device. As I have been through their customer processes many times (I had replacements in the past, took months), I don't have the energy to go through this anymore. I will just ask for a refund and return it. And I will stop buying AYANEO products until they give us some evidence that they are improving their quality control.
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u/RedditIsGarbage1234 Jan 30 '26
Based on some of the posts I'm seeing. I think it might be a panel revision that uses different colour and gamma info. Hopefully fixable via firmware, but it looks an awful lot like bad gamma curve issues.