Usable Smartphones?
Taken from NotebookCheck review of the Xiaomi Black Shark 2 with DC dimming:
Due to the OLED display, Pulse-Width-Modulation is used for brightness control. As soon as the display is set below maximum brightness, the screen flickers at a frequency between 81 and 245 Hz. A range that could be bothersome to sensitive users. Xiaomi came up with something in this regard, namely an option that is quite hidden within the settings and is called "AMOLED low brightness flashing protection". This can be found within the display settings, in the sub-menu corresponding to color reproduction. This option should reduce flickering at lower brightness levels. We tested this mode more in depth and were still able to identify flickering that remained at a quite constant level of around 60 Hz. The amplitude becomes flatter with the increase of brightness. It's feasible to think that this mode will lead to fewer complaints due to its more even flickering, albeit at a lower frequency. The response time of the AMOLED display isn't impacted in a negative way by this.
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AGI I have installed it on a OnePlus X, but that's even older. Didn't use it for too long, not thoroughly tested, it's just a backup device.
We tested this mode more in depth and were still able to identify flickering that remained at a quite constant level of around 60 Hz.
Seems like a technology requirement. The PWM-free Galaxy 7 Edge Kernel has it, too. So they probably just do what @Wootever once did, a software change.
KM I have installed it on a OnePlus X, but that's even older. Didn't use it for too long, not thoroughly tested, it's just a backup device.
Hey, one thought. My Samsung Galaxy on5 stopped working in February. I tried to resurrect it via Odin without success (I got recommendations from a forum of Samsung nerds, so I quite sure I did all that could be done). Basically, the phone turns on, displays the Samsung and model number logo - sometimes it has gone a bit further and showed the T-Mobile carrier logo (phone is unlocked though) - and gets stuck. Any chance to install Paranoid Android on it??? I had no problem at all with this phone till an update on May 2018. I would love to test a different OS. Anyhow, I have nothing to lose. What do you reckon?
@KM Looks like the answer is no. Only some brand/models allow switching OS?
AGI That ROM was created only for a few select devices, unlike major ROMs like LineageOS. But the reason it works so well is probably simple: I think unlike others the Paranoid devs simply didn't copy the display changes (perhaps the default color profile) OnePlus had done to their public source code at some point (transition to Android 7.1). So it is doubtful the ROM would help with other devices. Worth a try for sure, but yes, your Samsung is not listed.
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'Paranoid Android is a custom ROM aiming to extend the system, working on enhancing the already existing beauty of Android and following the same design philosophies that were set forward by Google for Android Open Source Project.'
I understand they have Google's "approval". Is that why installing Paranoid Android does not invalidate the warranty? At least for a listed device?
KM But the reason it works so well is probably simple: I think unlike others the Paranoid devs simply didn't copy the display changes (perhaps the default color profile) OnePlus had done to their public source code at some point (transition to Android 7.1).
Have you ever mentioned to them your issues with Android and asked why Paranoid Android is easy on your eyes?
KM Worth a try for sure, but yes, your Samsung is not listed.
There is no worse scenario than an already "dead" phone. Besides, I paid only USD 150 including 50 bucks of credit for that phone new. Samsung wrote me to ship it to the US for repair. Non-sense.
What shall I download and try to install in your opinion? And would I have to use Odin? Thanks.
Just wanted to mention an Android thing.
The other day, I stealth-rooted my unlocked device using Magisk. It works really well, didn't interfere at all with Google Pay.
With that in place, I installed my favourite colour management software on Android, cf.lumen. It lets you do anything you want (best results when it can use superuser mode), so I set the master control to 5500 K and it's so much nicer to look at now that it's not a 7000 K blue. Works with Netflix too. Give it a try if you have an unlocked device with a custom recovery.
About iPhone XS - still using this since November 2018 few hours a day without problem. Two days ago I've decided to change for new Mat-screen protector and without protector it gave me direct eye and head pain so for me it's some thing with contrast and accommodation. After applying new one also strange feeling due new mat coat so I've polished it a little to look as old one and now I can use this as before.
AGI My current device is still the HTC One M8, though I do have an iPhone SE arriving today to test and will review later. The color controls in other devices are very dependent on what the oem decided to include. Some are just labels like Natural, Adaptive, etc. Others are a warmth slider, and so on. cf.lumen, makes available all the filters Google included in the OS and its own. The list is red only, green only, blue only, amber, salmon, greyscale, invert, temperature (shows a macbeth grid and a slider for you to adjust the temp) and manual channel adjustment where you can individually adjust the R G and B channels from 0 to 1.000. There is also a calibrate function but I have never looked at it, the slider is fine for me.
Today is one of the days when I'm really feeling the need for bifocals or reading glasses of some type. Other than the fact that I need a new prescription quite a lot, I've been taking my glasses on and off to look at things up close and farther away. I can tell that this is playing a role in how tired or not my eyes feel trying to focus on a surface. My two eyes have a different focal distance, so even without the glasses on, one focuses clearly in a different focal plane than the other. So all this is interacting with how big a screen is and how tired they get trying to work with small vs large elements.
So, the iPhone SE. Apple this year started selling them again through their clearance site, and through Costco. This one is from Costco. The device arrived with a battery completely drained. It has a manufacture date in 2018 and came with iOS 11.3 (too bad, I was hoping for 10.3.3). After recharging it yesterday and letting it settle a bit, today I put it in DFU mode and did a full firmware update to iOS 12.3 through my PC just to make sure it was fully fresh. The 12 series is better than the 11 series due to optimizations on older devices, so if you can only choose between 11 and 12, you want 12. Scrolling is fine on 12.3, I don't notice any hitches in scrolling or with the animations.
The good, it's very light and very easy to hold one handed due to the 4" diagonal of the screen. Screen has good brightness, at max setting is brighter than the M8, is better colour calibrated and has a little better black level.
The screen is the same one as the 5, 5C and 5S and they are all interchangeable. At one point Apple had 3 panel suppliers for this, Sharp, Toshiba and LG (https://seattledevicerepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/20151226_122418.png). They eventually went down to 1 supplier in order to prevent the third party repair shops from being able to get access to panels. The panel used today, is whatever they had left in their spare parts bin to make the SE re-issue, I don't know who the manufacturer is but I suspect it to be Sharp based on the colour temperature.
The bad, it is one of the panels that has a flashing strobe on a pixel-walk inversion test pattern (vertical alternating lines). It is lower resolution 1136x640. This gives you a PPI of 326 like the 4S, but the problem is that when moving the device and due to the lower resolution and the pixel walk issue, I can see a subtle screen-door pattern on otherwise smooth areas. Looks like this basically: https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/messages-image-904848875-1-png.660647/ when it is supposed to look like this under ideal perfect conditions https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/messages-image-2753589014-1-png.660649/ Would someone else notice this? Probably not, the effect is subtle and it wouldn't be considered abnormal for this device if the majority of the panels have the issue. Is it useable, yeah. Can you get used to it? I think one could but am not sure if I want to bother because of the other shortcomings.
It's iOS and I've been using Android heavily for the last few years so I've gotten used to a few things which I'd like to be able to continue doing. It was the same way when I had been using iOS 5 & 6 for a few years then was on the Android learning curve. There are some nice things about iOS though too. So it's pros and cons.
I want to like this, but I think the small size in 2019 may be harder to deal with if you're a heavy web surfer and video watcher. You probably won't play games on this because of the size. Even when I was using the 4S and stuff was made back then for devices of that size, I did find gaming and videos to be too small.
For most of you, I think if you had no choice, you could get used to the SE if you gave yourself time to adjust to the changes but I wouldn't recommend it for heavy users, only for people who need small and light. I think I am going to return it, but I will think about it for a couple days.
The current new device that everyone is word of mouth fapping over (6" notchless LCD screen, 3.5mm jack, 5000 mAh battery, etc., etc.) is the Asus ZenFone 6. I have to admit I am tempted, but I'm also feeling cheap. This is a flagship device and is priced as one. I think I will wait for a panel review (likely notebookcheck) before I chance it.. would be much much harder to return something like that, unless it was available on Amazon.
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So last night I was high and started comparing all screens on-hand with photos. Was kind of fascinating.. started getting quite tempted by the 3a because for photos it really is quite nice and the speed of the device compared to my old ones is definitely nice but I realized with certainty this morning that I can't keep the 3a because I figured out that the slight 'green' cast I kept noticing is because there is a subtle gradient. I checked it in the dark now and there is definitely half of the screen that is pink tint and the other half green tint. On the white background I can see very subtle clouds. I'd be fine with the whole screen having a slight pink cast to it but not subtly Neapolitan. It also might be slightly too big.
So yeah, OLED screens have colour calibration issues and maybe QA issues as well.
Postscript: One of the screens I pulled out was the BlackBerry Z30 which I haven't used in a long time and has an OLED panel (with an RGB stripe, not pentile). Not sure if it's degraded or what, but it was all dim and muddy. I don't remember it being quite like that before, or maybe I was just used to it or maybe it just looked that way because it was near a massively brighter display. Looks terrible now.
There's some more information about DC dimming implementation as implemented by Xiaomi here.
According to Xiaomi product director, Wang Teng, there are currently three DC dimming hardware solutions:
Fix the screen dimming level to the brightness mode switching node to ensure that the screen PWM dimming mechanism is not triggered. Then use the Qualcomm platform’s pcc+dither scheme to compress the color data output to the screen while ensuring the screen display effect remains stable. The gray scale value achieves the effect of reducing the brightness.
Fix the screen dimming level to the brightness mode switching node to ensure that the screen PWM dimming mechanism is not triggered. Then modify the alpha channel in the HWC hardware module, by adding a mask +dither solution with adjustable transparency, compressing the color grayscale value output to the screen to reduce the brightness of the screen
Fix the screen dimming level to the brightness mode switching node to ensure that the screen PWM dimming mechanism is not triggered. A third-party display chip is used while ensuring that the display effect is stable.
No idea if by "dither" he's referring to temporal dithering or something else. There's a chance if kernel source for one of these devices comes out with DC dimming integrated I might be able to port it to other devices, assuming I had one of said device to test with.
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I think I tried more than 15 smart phones; all are hurting my eyes. This week I tested the Huawei P30 Pro and this was the first phone which gave me no eye strain, BUT, it makes me nausea....the only thing what I could try is the P30 instead of the pro. Maybe the curved side on the pro gives me a dizzy feeling when scrolling - I hope my brain gets fuzzled due the curved sides. It seems the nausea / dizziness is a more common issue than the eye strain, called"cyber sickness". Hopefully this will lead to something....