i share moto G symptoms with two others, one opposite side of globe, who describe the same with moto g4 plus: we get a dull throb at the back of the eyes, as if looking at something that's too close to face, similar to the 3D action movie effect for some of us. sensitive, i always have brightness on lowest setting and i've tried the filters that adjust for dawn/dusk orange/blue tint. i.e. twilight and easyeyes, they dont help with this. i also tried holding phone far away from my face and angling the light away, but none of it seems to matter. it now bothers me with 5 second glimpses every few minutes. at night, its impossible. its not the brightness!

i also have 'focus lock' with no eyepain that lasts 10-30min after looking at phone for 5-10min at wrists length (and it seems to get longer each time). so i get either focus lock no pain, or feel eye strain then brain pain, or i have a decent day if i keep exposure short/sweet.

this phone is different from other phone/tablets i've had. and it is an LCD not OLED and some group tested its flicker rate but found nothing odd about it. it doesnt use PMW if i recall.

the eye strain is over the top bad news! i popped a blood vessel in my eye in my first 10 days of using the moto g plus exactly as i did my nexus 5. it feels like how 3D action movies try to penetrate into your neo cortex to split your mind in half, causing some of us to feel fragmented, trapped in a fog, cerebrally violated, 3D headache etc.

if i look at the screen longer than 3min at a time, or in a parked car - specially if after sunset without a backlight of some kind, its as if i go partially blind, get visual auras, double vision aka can't see well enough to read anything near us or far aka can't drive or read a menu, i see trace artifacts too across all i look at. its lock focus and that alone can last 30-90 minutes, the last time lasted longer, maybe due to higher caffeine/tea intake that day.

brain/eyes demand i get any other phone. apparently, i just learned it could most likely the GRAPHICS DRIVER. something is obviously different about the moto G models - whatever it is, its not worth the savings.

will buy next phone from costco - Costco's return policy for cellular phones is 90 days from date of original purchase. that matters as 2 weeks isn't enough when busy adapting to a new device.

just joined a group ledstrain.org who are exploring the phenomena across all screens/devices, exploring multiple sources, apparently the graphics driver can be the thing to look at.

"if you look at the screen longer than 3min at a time which is what people do, or in a parked car - after sunset without a backlight or dome light of some kind, some of us go literally go partially blind, get visual auras, double vision aka can't see well enough to read anything near us or far, see trace artifacts across all we look at. this semi-blindness and fog and brain pain can last 30-90 minutes, tonight its lasting longer, maybe due to higher caffeine intake today from tea."

My father-in-law who has migraines not related to screens describes the exact same symptoms when talking about his migraines. Visual aura, tracers, partial blindness, pain obviously... Only happens to him once a month or so and Imitrex takes care of it usually.

Migraine-like symptoms or outright migraines are pretty common here.

  • JTL likes this.

I can concur, I tried a Moto G4 Play and Plus. Both are absolutely unusable for senstive people. I returned each of mine immediately. Even using screen protectors that had rendered previous phone screens bearable, these were completely unusable.

something is obviously different about the moto G models

The Gen 1 Moto G is usable for me with a Techarmor or Skinomi screen protector. The grahics chip in the G4 series is most likely the culprit here

3 months later

Hello, I read the post with interest as I also had similar problems with Lenovo phones. Do you think all the phones with these graphic chips (Adreno 306, Adreno 405) should be causing eyestrain? This might be an important question as if we find out a certain GPU is causing problems, we could evade it.

    Bobby87 There seemes to be some evidence that the video display chip is causing screens to cause us issues. The infamous Intel 5500 chip has a huge thread over at the Intel forums from users complaining about the chip causing eye stain issues. So it does seem to be part of the puzzle

      Bobby87

      You might be on to something here. I am using HTC M9+ Supreme Camera Edition right now, which I can use without any eye strain. This phone is not powered by Snapdragon processor and adreno chips, instead it is powered by Mediatek MT6795T Helio X10 processor with PowerVR G6200 GPU. Now I wonder if this is also a factor why I do not get eye any eye strain on this phone.

      I have recently purchased the HTC U Ultra, which is powered by Snapdragon 821 with Adreno 530. It does come with Android 7, which some have reported causes eye strain. But on this HTC U Ultra, the eye strain that I get is the worse of all the phones and laptops I used so far. Your title is right, I get not only eye strain, but also "brain pain". Its like my entire head is "buzzing"/throbbing/crawling, and it lingers quite some time as well after I looked away.

      As comparison, when I look at my wife's Samsung Note 5, which has PWM, I get eye strain mainly within my eye balls, and the strain will mostly go away as soon as I look away from the screen. But the HTC U Ultra eye strain is like an assault on my eyes, and it lingers for a while. Which is really bad.

      There are other phones that is using Mediatek as its main processor. The HTC U Play is one example, also comes with Super LCD 5. I think there are other phone models that are using this chipset as well. Worth to try.

      • KM replied to this.
      • KM likes this.

          Kray I don't think Snapdragon and Adreno is bad per se. I don't have trouble with my OnePlus 3 on Android 6.x and 7.0 (but did on Android 7.1). The device has a Snapdragon 820 CPU and Adreno 530 GPU. There must be other troublesome components and driver issues. For Mali GPUs, I found this in the Wikipedia:

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_(GPU)

          "Like other embedded IP cores for 3D rendering acceleration, the Mali GPU does not include display controllers driving monitors (such as the combination often found in common video cards). Instead the Mali ARM core is a pure 3D engine that renders graphics into memory and hands the rendered image over to another core that handles the display."

          "Like other" - So in general there might be cores that come after the GPU and they can do funny stuff with the video signal before we see the output.

          • Kray replied to this.

              Yes, so things turn out to be more complex than they seem... Yet maybe a certain GPU is connected with certain cores after it , so there may still be some relation but it's not easy to find it. I think we may try to find a manufacturer and device series that cause problems, as I suppose smartphones produced by the same manufacturer and in a similar line/ series/ period of time should have similar effect on eyes... As you've found out, Moto G4 series seems to be unsafe, I also had similar problems with Lenovo phones (k5, s1 lite). They must have something in common. It's interesting that after looking at Vibe S1 lite at the shop for 2-3 minutes, I got a headache at the back and felt dizzy. I also managed to look at Sony Xperia XA but didn't feel the same. Still don't know if I've looked at it enough time. But a user has mentioned that he felt headaches from Xperia XA after a period of a day. So don't know if it'll be ok for a longer period...

              KM

              That's good to know. Otherwise it would be even harder to find a potential phone we can use.

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