iPhone X Dust/Speck Inside The iPhone X Camera Lens

[rider900]

If you’re happy with it, there’s no sense playing the exchange game.
[doublepost=1510180396][/doublepost]
If you’re not 100% happy with your purchase, you have to take care of it or you’ll never be totally happy. I know, there is always a chance you’ll be getting another with a defect, but the 14 day period is there for a reason and there are good units out there. It’s your call.

I agree, i'm not 100% happy. I've waited 2 years for this phone, paid a lot of money and i'm so disappointed in having two units that have dust in the camera and a scratch out of the box. I don't see why I should settle, I'm going to be waiting a few more days anyway until I'm free to go to an Apple Store.

What is giving me faith is that your third iPhone is all fine and still has no dust after X amount of days? Just hoping I get a decent model. There's hardly anything on the internet about this issue either, no youtube videos and nothing anywhere else. There are previous macrumors threads though from iPhone 5/6S/7 to suggest this has happened before.

 

[donster28]

I told the Apple team, they weren't that surprised! I checked out other phones and they had dust as well.

They’re probably getting a good number of complaints of dust by now, that’s why they’re not surprised anymore.

It’s a fault in the assembly line and it should be rectified and I’m hoping Apple is aware and will do a fix. The phone’s quality is superb to me except for the dust, and I’m so glad we’re getting OLED screens now which eliminated backlight problems (a common problem I encountered with the iPhone 6/6+).

[doublepost=1510181074][/doublepost]

I agree, i'm not 100% happy. I've waited 2 years for this phone, paid a lot of money and i'm so disappointed in having two units that have dust in the camera and a scratch out of the box. I don't see why I should settle, I'm going to be waiting a few more days anyway until I'm free to go to an Apple Store.

What is giving me faith is that your third iPhone is all fine and still has no dust after X amount of days? Just hoping I get a decent model. There's hardly anything on the internet about this issue either, no youtube videos and nothing anywhere else. There are previous macrumors threads though from iPhone 5/6S/7 to suggest this has happened before.

Good call and good luck.

Actually, my 5th one was the good one.

There is also a similar thread here but for the iPhone 8.

 

[RadicalxEdward]

A few days after picking up my sg256 iPhone X I too noticed a few really tiny specks of dust under the outer camera glass. At first I was starting to worry thinking I’d have to go through a bunch of exchanges to get it replaced and find one without that issue, (did this with dead pixels on an older iPhone) BUT after looking through threads on older iPhone releases I found this is a common “problem”.

Then I read this article and stopped caring. To sum it up, no lense is hermetically sealed and thus dust will always get in (despite the iphones dust rating) because they don’t assemble them in perfectly dust free rooms. The dust will come and go, all phones (all cameras in fact) will have it at some point whether you notice or not, and in all cases IT DOES NOT EFFECT ANYTHING BUT YOUR OCD.

For all of you worrying like I did, read this article and then go on with your life dust anxiety free.

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/08/the-apocalypse-of-lens-dust/

 

[donster28]

I'm OCD, but this is on some next level.

Actually, this is not OCD. Dust inside the glass/lens is a sign that there might be a sealing problem therefore introducing another problem later if not taken care of now.

As proof, I had a phone that exhibited the same problem upon purchase and got worse in time.
[doublepost=1510181804][/doublepost]

A few days after picking up my sg256 iPhone X I too noticed a few really tiny specks of dust under the outer camera glass. At first I was starting to worry thinking I’d have to go through a bunch of exchanges to get it replaced and find one without that issue, (did this with dead pixels on an older iPhone) BUT after looking through threads on older iPhone releases I found this is a common “problem”.

Then I read this article and stopped caring. To sum it up, no lense is hermetically sealed and thus dust will always get in (despite the iphones dust rating) because they don’t assemble them in perfectly dust free rooms. The dust will come and go, all phones (all cameras in fact) will have it at some point whether you notice or not, and in all cases IT DOES NOT EFFECT ANYTHING BUT YOUR OCD.

For all of you worrying like I did, read this article and then go on with your life dust anxiety free.

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/08/the-apocalypse-of-lens-dust/

My iPhone 6+ stayed dust free until I sold it just days ago.

A lot of people don’t know that dust inside can lead to other problems, that’s why Apple pushed for a dust sealing on their latest phones. So if the phone is supposed to be dust free, it should be dust free!

 

[RadicalxEdward]

A lot of people don’t know that dust inside can lead to other problems, that’s why Apple pushed for a dust sealing on their latest phones. So if the phone is supposed to be dust free, it should be dust free!

Being sealed from outside dust does not mean assembled in a dust free hermetically sealed room. Meaning there will be dust in it from day one. Just because you don’t see it (you can only see it if it’s under clear glass obviously) or don’t notice it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Anything with an ip6 dust rating has to be sealed in a vacuum and cannot allow any dust inside, there’s nothing (at least that I’ve found) in the standard or in anything about Apple’s manufacturing process that claims no dust can exist inside the device before sealing.
[doublepost=1510183076][/doublepost]If they were intended to be dust free, we wouldn’t have nearly all iPhones displaying dust inside going back to the original. Just look at older forum posts. It wouldn’t take 5, 10 ,15 exchanges to find one without visible dust, and people would be making DustGate memes all over the place. It doesn’t effect your photos unless it’s like a thick layer of dust blocking light. It’s just too close to the camera and too small. The iPhone can’t focus that close to the lens (though some regular cameras can, I have an old cannon that can focus on the dust on the surface of the lens)

And a few tiny specks (really, these are REALLY TINY particles we’re talking about) of dust aren’t going to break anything in the phone.
[doublepost=1510183182][/doublepost]If the sight or idea of it bothers people (i tend to forget until I see posts like these) then that’s a different story. But it’s not going to affect anything about the phone functionally and in 99.99999% of cases, aesthetically either.

 

[donster28]

Being sealed from outside dust does not mean assembled in a dust free hermetically sealed room. Meaning there will be dust in it from day one. Just because you don’t see it (you can only see it if it’s under clear glass obviously) or don’t notice it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Anything with an ip6 dust rating has to be sealed in a vacuum and cannot allow any dust inside, there’s nothing (at least that I’ve found) in the standard or in anything about Apple’s manufacturing process that claims no dust can exist inside the device before sealing.
[doublepost=1510183076][/doublepost]If they were intended to be dust free, we wouldn’t have nearly all iPhones displaying dust inside going back to the original. Just look at older forum posts. It wouldn’t take 5, 10 ,15 exchanges to find one without visible dust, and people would be making DustGate memes all over the place. It doesn’t effect your photos unless it’s like a thick layer of dust blocking light. It’s just too close to the camera and too small. The iPhone can’t focus that close to the lens (though some regular cameras can, I have an old cannon that can focus on the dust on the surface of the lens)

And a few tiny specks (really, these are REALLY TINY particles we’re talking about) of dust aren’t going to break anything in the phone.
[doublepost=1510183182][/doublepost]If the sight or idea of it bothers people (i tend to forget until I see posts like these) then that’s a different story. But it’s not going to affect anything about the phone functionally and in 99.99999% of cases, aesthetically either.

I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine. There are two sides to this story: ones who will bear any imperfection and ones who will not. Dust is an imperfection in manufacturing whether or not it happed during manufacturing or after, whether it affects the form or the function, and whether the user minds it or not. The ones who mind it (and Apple is known to boast perfection on their products...just watch Jony Ive mention “perfection” in any of the Apple promo videos), deserve to get the product they were advertised for.

Dust inside my lens will bother me whether from a camera from Nikon, Canon, etc. and I share the frustration of other people who bought a dust prone iPhone X in these forum. They share my standard, the standard that Apple promotes to its customers.

If Nintendo can maintain a dust free lens unit on their DS game consoles (of which I owned plenty with no dust inside the lenses whatsover) so can Apple.

 

[RadicalxEdward]

I respect your opinion and I hope you to respect mine. There are two sides to this story: ones who will bear any imperfection and ones who will not. Dust is an imperfection in manufacturing whether or not it happed during manufacturing or after, whether it affects the form or the function, and whether the user minds it or not. The ones who mind it (and Apple is known to boast perfection on their products...just watch Jony Ive mention “perfection” in any of the Apple promo videos).

Dust inside my lens will bother me whether from a camera from Nikon, Canon, etc. and I share the frustration of other people who bought a dust prone iPhone X in these forums or beyond. That is my standard and the standard that Apple promotes to its customers.

My point is that there’s no such thing as a dust free phone though. Maybe someone gets lucky and the dust doesn’t settle on the glass, but it’s not a defect in manufacturing. It’s just a reality. It bugs me too. I want my phone to be perfect, but it’s just not possible. That’s why you see all these people (yourself included) that exchange their phones, do very thorough inspections at the store and then after the phone gets moved around for a while, the dust in the phone moves around and can settle on the glass. It’s not an argument, it’s just a fact of how they’re made.
[doublepost=1510184944][/doublepost]But I totally agree, if people aren’t happy with theirs they should return it or exchange it. But if they’re expecting 100% perfection and 99.9% isn’t good enough, they’ll never be happy with any phone.

 

[donster28]

My point is that there’s no such thing as a dust free phone though. Maybe someone gets lucky and the dust doesn’t settle on the glass, but it’s not a defect in manufacturing. It’s just a reality. It bugs me too. I want my phone to be perfect, but it’s just not possible. That’s why you see all these people (yourself included) that exchange their phones, do very thorough inspections at the store and then after the phone gets moved around for a while, the dust in the phone moves around and can settle on the glass. It’s not an argument, it’s just a fact of how they’re made.
[doublepost=1510184944][/doublepost]But I totally agree, if people aren’t happy with theirs they should return it or exchange it. But if they’re expecting 100% perfection and 99.9% isn’t good enough, they’ll never be happy with any phone.

Sorry but your point is not fact: my last replacement is dust free (and scratch free, screen defect free, etc.)

We can all assume this is how these phones are made, but we can also conclude not all of them are made the same, therefore, there are flawless ones. We as buyers are entitled to what these products are “supposed“ to be made of and so we exchange and Apple is more than happy to do it. And if there are many exchanges made because of these imperfections, then there must be something wrong with the manufacturing (again, considering how these phones are “supposed” to be made).

 

[importraverxx]

I have a tiny spec on my bottom lens too lol, I’m pretty sure I inspected it closely when I got it last Friday lol. No big deals though as it doesn’t show up in pictures or video.

 

[macTW]

Just my luck, right? Gone through 1 exchange already because my very first X had a speck inside one of the back camera lenses.

My new one was perfect, except, in the evening while shopping, an even bigger speck appeared on the same lens, as if it was already there hiding, then, bam!

I’m now awaiting to have it exchanged again tomorrow morning because the Apple Store didn’t have spares until then.

I gotta give it to Apple customer service, though. They really treat you well and will take care of you.

TLDR to updates: Gone through 5 phones in 2 days. All but the one I have right now had tiny specs of white dust on the rear bottom camera. Some only showing up after having the phone for about a little bit. I am crossing my fingers on the one I have right now which is so far dust free after about 2 hours or so. If you don't get a 4th update here, all is dandy!

UPDATE 3: Got to the Apple Store and as usual, the team was more than happy to rectify the problem. I was brought a another brand new unit, opened it and checked it again...what the heck is happening?...this one has it too, and on the same bottom camera! Showed it to the sales associate, this time I was really disappointed. Then she saw it but she had to call a supervisor to verify since this brand new unit she just got for me was barely touched. Then the supervisor checked it himself but instead of agreeing, he kept saying he cannot see anything. This went on for about 15 minutes until he wouldn't want to do and exchange anymore, telling me that these specks of dust are to Apple's manufacturing standards...yada yada yada. I stood my ground and insisted on another exchange...the last one for me or I'll walk away without a phone. Then they agreed. Long and behold, the last one didn't have specs, but knowing this might not be the ultimate ending to my story, I left the Apple Store to try my luck again. So far, I got home after about an hour and no dust...fingers are still crossed.

UPDATE 2: Well, what do you know, folks. Another tiny speck showed up on the bottom rear camera again! I swear, I checked my replacement properly before I left the store and kept checking, walked around the mall a bit then checked it again after about 30 mins...and there it was. This proves that dust is definitely inside the modules ready for them to be shaken around. It's disappointing indeed. Back to the Apple Store for another replacement and possibly the last one for now!

UPDATE 1: I got a perfect replacement finally. Now let’s see how this holds up and if it’s hiding another speck in there somehow.

What a waste of Apple’s resources. This is why stock is so low.

 

[donster28]

What a waste of Apple’s resources. This is why stock is so low.

Really? You blame four phone exchanges for the low stock? And if those same phones were still available in the wild, how sure are you that none of them will be returned/exchanged?

 

[texasstar1981]

They’re probably getting a good number of complaints of dust by now, that’s why they’re not surprised anymore.

It’s a fault in the assembly line and it should be rectified and I’m hoping Apple is aware and will do a fix. The phone’s quality is superb to me except for the dust, and I’m so glad we’re getting OLED screens now which eliminated backlight problems (a common problem I encountered with the iPhone 6/6+).

[doublepost=1510181074][/doublepost]

Good call and good luck.

Actually, my 5th one was the good one.

There is also a similar thread here but for the iPhone 8.

5 (!!!) iPhone X exchanges... ok ..... surprised they still let you into the store.

 

[pdxsellers]

Sent my iPhone in yesterday and Apple already shipped out a new replacement with serial info.

I checked my serial and it shows a different factory than the original phone.

Curious to see what you guys have..

http://www.chipmunk.nl/cgi-fast/applemodel.cgi

My original is from Zhengzhou
My replacement is from Chengdu

Update you all tomorrow if its dust free.

 

[texasstar1981]

Sent my iPhone in yesterday and Apple already shipped out a new replacement with serial info.

I checked my serial and it shows a different factory than the original phone.

Curious to see what you guys have..

http://www.chipmunk.nl/cgi-fast/applemodel.cgi

My original is from Zhengzhou
My replacement is from Chengdu

Update you all tomorrow if its dust free.

White envelope replacement units are always Chengdu - my X is and my 6s+ was

 

[Miltz]

My new X just came and it also has dust under both lenses. My 6 and 7 never had this issue.

 

[jasonklee]

I've taken dozens of photos in bright outdoor settings and thankfully nothing shows up. I've inverted colors too and no artifacts. As long as they don't show up in photos, that's all I care about.

 

[camhabib]

If you're worried about aesthetics, I get it, but if you're worried the dust is going to make a functional difference, it would have to be several orders of magnitude larger before you started noticing it in photos. If you have a dSLR you can try this for yourself with a small post-it on the lens.

 

[currrr]

can someone tell me how this is possible for my lens? i can’t wipe it off. seems like a blur of some sort. OMG the hunt for a new iphone begins again.

 

[seven30]

View attachment 734175 can someone tell me how this is possible for my lens? i can’t wipe it off. seems like a blur of some sort. OMG the hunt for a new iphone begins again.

I have the same issue, but not quite as noticeable as yours. I’m going to get it replaced tomorrow. Hopefully you can do the same.

 

[currrr]

I have the same issue, but not quite as noticeable as yours. I’m going to get it replaced tomorrow. Hopefully you can do the same.

I can’t even tell what it is. Fingerprint from the inside?!

 

[seven30]

I can’t even tell what it is. Fingerprint from the inside?!

That’s definitely what it looks like.

 

[jyrisa]

If you're worried about aesthetics, I get it, but if you're worried the dust is going to make a functional difference, it would have to be several orders of magnitude larger before you started noticing it in photos. If you have a dSLR you can try this for yourself with a small post-it on the lens.

Mine had dust inside the rear camera, and I guess one particle had gotten inside the sensor too, because it was visible as a spot in the photos. If it wasn't then I definitely wouldn't have had it swapped.
I actually didn't accept the first replacement either, because it had a huge "crumb" under the glass, a lot bigger than the ones in my original device, but the one I got now is pretty much spotless and the photos taken with this one are clean.

 

[Prospekt]

I passed by the Apple store today and decided to ask about it. He said that they would exchange it no problem (but they didn’t have any in store to replace with) so he made a note on my account and pretty much told me that I can go in whenever during the next two years and they’ll replace it no problem

 

[chekz0414]

I just discovered it on my iPhone X... which is Space Grey 256GB very few specs that appear when I use my Photon Light. Luckily I don’t see anything in images... it could be worse tbh, plus I’ll be upgrading next year so I’m not too mad.

 

[convergent]

two phones arrived, they both had a speck of dust in the lens. other flaws I saw in both were scuffs around he bezel of the rear lens assembly. at first I was getting ready to battle up and start the exchange war with apple but then I made my self a bet, if my 6s, a phone that I've used since launch, and its been wonderful, has a speck of dust and just never noticed, then I'll let it go and just accept it. Well sure enough it did. I mean if 2 had it already, I can't imagine how many times I'll have to exchange and that could be a real nightmare and absolutely waste of time. so I just ended up picking the better one which has a speck to the side rather than the middle. and it really light, you need a magnifying glass to see, and yes, I inspect every apple device I buy with a magnifying glass the moment I open it. When your older I'll tell you about the time I went thru 4 apples watches in a week with a different flaw on each one.

p.s. why doesn't MacRumors let us use Emojis?

I could never work for Apple because I'd never be able to deal with customers that are so picky that they look for dust specs with a magnifying glass.