How dangerous would it be to buy a color tamagotchi with dead pixels?

[Mimitchiiiiiii]

How can I know it won't get worse over time?
Would you do it at a good price?

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Dead pixels on a standard TFT LCD (Thin-Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) don't tend to spread - they're there at the point of manufacture, and that's about it. They're just a flaw that can naturally happen, which is why manufacturers typically have a policy about how many dead pixels they will allow to occur on a retail unit of their product.

If the device uses an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display, dead pixels will spread and the entire display is guaranteed to die at some point or another because the pixels are organic (my personal feeling is that OLEDs are the great tech-snob con - it hardly matters that certain colours are more vibrant than on an equivalent TFT if it's guaranteed to die and generate a bunch of e-waste). I'm not aware of any colour Tamagotchi models currently using these, but I will note that I'm not an expert as I'm not usually very fond of the colour devices, so I hope that someone who knows more than me can confirm this one way or the other.

The price would depend on one's tolerance for where the dead pixels happen to be - if they were in a really annoying or distracting spot I most likely wouldn't bother, but if they were out of the way (say, towards a corner, or anywhere else where they won't catch your vision too much all the time) that would be tolerable for a fair discount.

 

[Mimitchiiiiiii]

Dead pixels on a standard TFT LCD (Thin-Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) don't tend to spread - they're there at the point of manufacture, and that's about it. They're just a flaw that can naturally happen, which is why manufacturers typically have a policy about how many dead pixels they will allow to occur on a retail unit of their product.

If the device uses an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display, dead pixels will spread and the entire display is guaranteed to die at some point or another because the pixels are organic (my personal feeling is that OLEDs are the great tech-snob con - it hardly matters that certain colours are more vibrant than on an equivalent TFT if it's guaranteed to die and generate a bunch of e-waste). I'm not aware of any colour Tamagotchi models currently using these, but I will note that I'm not an expert as I'm not usually very fond of the colour devices, so I hope that someone who knows more than me can confirm this one way or the other.

The price would depend on one's tolerance for where the dead pixels happen to be - if they were in a really annoying or distracting spot I most likely wouldn't bother, but if they were out of the way (say, towards a corner, or anywhere else where they won't catch your vision too much all the time) that would be tolerable for a fair discount.

It's a good price (around $50), the tamagotchi is a 4u+ and has dead pixels in the lower icons area (not too annoying). But I'm afraid it will end up spreading all over the screen
I'm also wondering if I could have some kind of fix without changing the screen.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

It's a good price (around $50), the tamagotchi is a 4u+ and has dead pixels in the lower icons area (not too annoying). But I'm afraid it will end up spreading all over the screen

I'm pretty sure that the colour models from that time just use TFTs. I've never heard of dead pixels spreading on that screen-type.

I'm also wondering if I could have some kind of fix without changing the screen.

Unfortunately not - if dead pixels are there, they're there. That's why large manufacturers of electronic devices have the dead-pixel policies that I mentioned before - it's to determine whether something warrants being replaced.