iPhone SE seems a lot better than my iPhone 8. Unsure whether it's the device or iOS 14+. Both seemed to help.
Looking for people with similar reactions to certain Apple devices
AGI have you tried to film the screens of these notebooks with the camera of your smartphone in slow-mo to check if they flicker?
Quad43 iOS 14 better than 13?
Has anyone tried the new iPad Air 4? Very curious if it’s usable for us or not. The iPad Pros were awful on my eyes, I’d love to use the Air if possible.
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Sofista90 No, to be honest. In the past I did use flickering devices all day long and never had issues.
Moreover, I develop awful symptoms also in front of some modern displays which are claimed to be flicker-free.
I suspect that for me it is something more subtle than flicker. For instance, in the case of my iMac, which I can now tolerate better, I can sort of see the pixels glowing. It is like I see each single tree of the forest and this drives my eyes and brain insane.
I should add that in the past I turned unusable screens into easy on the eyes by reducing the resolution from native to 1024 x 768. I do not think that reducing the resolution diminishes the flicker.
In any case, thanks for your suggestion. I will give it a go as it is not difficult to try!
AGI
the devices that do not give you problems and the unusable ones have the same operating system?
Quad43
I agree! I used my girlfriend's iphone xs just updated to ios 14 for an hour and I had no problem! it is comparable to my iphone 6 with ios 10! while before with ios 13 I felt discomfort already after 5 minutes! further confirmation that many problems are caused by software rather than hardware!
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It’s interesting — when I got the iPhone SE 2020. it was near unusable. I had eye tightening in my left eye and side of face almost immediately. I had a real bad feeling about it. When I got home, I upgraded it to iOS 14, and it was immediately better. I chalked it up to a fluke, because since when as an iOS update made ANYTHING better for us? Definitely going to check out the iPad Air 4 in the coming days. iPad 8th Gen was no good for me, much worse than iPhone SE 2020, even on iOS 14. My expectations are very low. Tablets are for extended use .. I only use my iPhone SE for 1-2 hours a day total screen time. Trying to switch as much usage as possible to my eye-friendly desktop setup and use the iPhone SE as a minimalist setup. Was sometimes averaging 5+ hours on my Huawei Mate 20 Pro and getting nothing done.
Last night I upgraded my 6S to iOS 14.1 - wow, there is a difference! The text seems much crisper and less blurry, scrolling seems more natural (text stays still when scrolling but it almost had a 'wavy' effect before).
I don't use my phone for extended periods now as since 2018 it became unusable for anything but checking e-mails, phone calls and the occasional YouTube video. I still advise people here don't use your phone for extended periods. The blue light spike is simply not good for you.
bkdo
Is this you in the Notebookcheck comments for iPad 8th Gen?
"Jero 10 days ago
This is so strange, I have used the iPad 7th Gen for a year now with no issue, but the 8th gen gives me eye strain and headaches after 20-30 mins of use. I don’t understand how this is possible, considering the 7 and 8 seem like the exact same except for the A12 chip. Is there anything that I’m missing that could be causing the eye strain? "
5 days later
I was using my 2017 Macbook AIR for 3 years. I am able to use it for many hours non-stop
4 months ago I have bought a new 13 inch Macbook Pro. I get the eye strain after 20-30 minutes, though it is not so bad as I had with my Dell XPS 13 (2019). Dell XPS was giving me literal pain in my eyes after 5-6 minutes and i returned it to the shop.
Any ideas about why it is happening?
I am able to use my Ipad 3 gen without problems (yeah, it is really old) but the new iPad (2020) is giving me the eye strain after 20 minutes too.
Tom220 Very sorry to hear about your problems.
If I recall correctly, DELL XPS was judged one of the few completely eyestrain-free laptops by more than one user on this forum, at the point that I was considering getting one. Many people cannot instead use MacBooks later than 2015.
My conclusion is that there is no common denominator at all for our visual issues and no one really knows what is going on wrong. The individual may be lucky and skilled to find a good solution for himself, but this is almost never going to apply to another person. It is super demoralizing.
Sorry for sounding this negative. I know I have not answered your question. I guess no one can.
16 days later
I tried my grandma's iphone 8 max with ios 13 and it is usable, although not as comfortable as my iPhone 6 with ios 10. my girlfriend's iphone xs with ios 13 was unusable, usable with ios 14. now i try to update the iphone 8. are there any differences between ios 14 and 14.2?
2 months later
You can use iPad min 5? That's great! I would love to be able to use a tablet. I tried it previously and it was no good. Maybe I had a bad panel. What iOS version are you on?
24 days later
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New iphone 11 user here. I'd like to share my experience after 4 days.
Edit: Face ID was not the reason. I turned it off but nothing has improved. It is definitely the screen. iPhone 11 screen causes significant eye strain just like my laptop (before I disable temporal dithering on that laptop), so maybe it is also a dithering technology applied to the iPhone screen as the root cause here.
(So my eyes have a thing with PWM and dithering and I struggled when buying laptop. I managed to settle down with an HP laptop that does not have PWM, and uninstalled the Intel driver to get rid of the dithering thing).
3 months later
I have iPad 6th generation and all is fine, I watch movies, reading, playing games for hours without problem at all. However, recently I reset the iPad (all settings and data) and suddenly I can’t watch the iPad for more than 10 minutes without getting this weird pressure on my forehead and my eyes. So I tried my brother’s iPad with the same gen, totally fine. So I am guessing it had to do with the software I guess. Another comment I read when people update to macOS Big Sur on Mac also cause this kind of pressure and headache. It’s like there is something on the screen but we can’t see it. Anyway I have reported to Apple through their feedback and hope others do too because this problem is annoying and sadly I can’t use my iPad anymore 
a year later
I had the same issue on MBP 13" 2017 and on my current MBP 16" 2019. Screens are ok, all you need to do is to reset SMC and NVRAM. And do it several times ! I succeed only after 5th try and only when my battery was discharged.