Hi,

recently, I got a gift - a new Samsung A52 phone. I was glad because my favorite Moto G6 was already starting to slow down a bit. My joy did not last long. It turned out that when using the new phone I have standard symptoms: headache, tinnitus, increased heart rate, tired eyes. I can look at the Moto G6 screen for hours without problems, so I did a little research. It looks like the infamous PWM is the problem.

This is PWM for Moto G6 (works only below 17% brightness, so it's like no PWM for me)

And this is for A52

Is there any solution for this problem? Some eyes training, some app which can turn off PWM? Do you have some recommendation for a new phone without PWM?

Yikes. The mighty low PWM frequency shows its' ugly head.

IIRC there is an app called OLED Saver which runs your screen at full brightness, but dims it by controlling the pixel's colours. You might find that helps? but it depends if your phone will behave different at 100% brightness.

OLEDS aren't great for flickering, because they are emissive, they always flicker at the display refresh rate. What do I mean? every time a pixel updates from one frame to another it goes dark.

I got used to my Samsung J5 2017, to a point. I used OLED Saver so it doesn't have any PWM apart from the 60hz flicker from the frames updating. I can use it for short bursts without issue, but get discomfort when using it for longer periods. However, I rarely use it for longer periods, perhaps if I did regularly I would become more tolerant.

I have noticed for myself, that if a device does not cause a migraine, just normal headaches and eye pain, I can develop a tolerance. But if it does cause migraine I cannot develop a tolerance.

Some AMOLED phones don't use PWM (usually 240 Hz) above certain brightness levels. Finding current gen devices is a different story.
However, even when they don't use PWM, they do flicker a little in the frequency of the screen's refresh rate (60 Hz, 120 Hz, ...). I think this is due to the scanline that updates the screen, and its amplitude height varies with models.
While to some extent I can get used to that smaller refresh rate flicker, I can't get used to the PWM. Red, strained eyes quickly each and every time.

The problem would be simple if the only thing to worry about was PWM. But there are other factors that can cause eye strain, too. Plus it frequently happens that reviews like the ones you got the pictures from only show one side of the brightness range (the PWM screenshot) and not the other one, where there may still be some flicker, just the author, perhaps as a result of him not knowing how sensitive users can be, decided it was not worth to be mentioned.

a month later

It turned out that my A52 has a PWM of 180Hz. It's almost obvious that this is causing the problem. But the A52s 5G has a PWM of 230Hz. What do you think, does it make sense to replace A52 with A52s for 50Hz more?

    No, I don't think so. It does make sense to replace it with a device that does not use PWM, or at least one that is known not to use PWM at and above a specific brightness value. I don't know if there are modern AMOLED devices that do that.

    CorvusCorax It's almost obvious that this is causing the problem

    If there is one thing I have learned it is never assume anything is obvious with this condition. It might be PWM, it might not. Real life testing with different devices is the only way to find out. There could be something wholly different than PWM going on that is causing your issue.

    If I had a nickle for every time I swore I found "the trigger" I would have retired to Cabo by now

      dev