By default, dither is disabled for performance reasons. For gradient textures that are experiencing really bad banding, try adding this to your sprite creation:
Sprite splash = new Sprite(0, 0, splashTextureRegion, mEngine.getVertexBufferObjectManager()) {
protected void preDraw(GLState pGLState, Camera pCamera) {
super.preDraw(pGlState, pCamera);
pGlState.enableDither();
}
};