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Apple lied about iPhone X, XS, XS Max screen sizes and pixel counts, lawsuit alleges

The plaintiffs are seeking class action status.

Marrian Zhou Staff Reporter
Marrian Zhou is a Beijing-born Californian living in New York City. She joined CNET as a staff reporter upon graduation from Columbia Journalism School. When Marrian is not reporting, she is probably binge watching, playing saxophone or eating hot pot.
Marrian Zhou
2 min read
iphone-xs-1

iPhone XS. 

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A lawsuit filed Friday accuses Apple of lying about the display specs in its  iPhone X series.

Two plaintiffs filed the suit in the US District Court of Northern California, alleging Apple falsely advertised the screen sizes and pixel counts of the displays in its iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status. 

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit alleges that Apple lied about the screen sizes by counting non-screen areas like the notch and corners. So the new line of iPhones aren't "all screen" as marketed, according to the 55-page complaint. For example, iPhone X's screen size is supposed to be 5.8 inches, but the plaintiffs measured that it's "only about 5.6875 inches."

The plaintiffs also allege that the iPhone X series phones have lower screen resolution than advertised. iPhone X is supposed to have a resolution of 2436x1125 pixels, but the product doesn't contain true pixels with red, green and blue subpixels in each pixel, according to the complaint. The iPhone X allegedly only has two subpixels per pixel, which is less than advertised, the complaint said. The lawsuit also alleges  iPhone 8 Plus has a higher-quality screen than iPhone X.

This isn't the first time Apple has been sued over its products. Dozens of customers in March sued the company in 59 separate lawsuits over a software tweak that throttles some older iPhones, and sought class action status. In June, Apple got hit with another suit seeking $5 million in damages over the screen of Apple Watch's tendency to "crack, shatter or detach from the body of the watch."

The plaintiffs' lawyers didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. 

First published Dec. 14 at 3:49 p.m. PT.

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