An update. P30 has "regular" Android eyestrain from extended use. Maybe Android 10 will change that (supposed to come to Canada in January or February), but I doubt it I have Galaxy M20, OnePlus 3 (switch between PA 7 and Pie to compare), and P30 on Pie to compare between. Only OnePlus 3 on PA doesn't have OS strain. Galaxy M20 was the worst for me as it had panel and OS strain. P30 can go very dim with no PWM. I am planning to keep it.

OS level strain is just a fact of life now it seems.

    degen It depends. I just got the December security patch on my A70 and it seems to have restored some of the text sharpness I had on the May patch. Also seems to be doing better at lower brightness levels too. Not currently using oled saver because I felt it was making the text slightly unsharp due to the extra software overlay.

    I took a quick look at the P30 Pro but only had seconds because the store was closing. Screen seems to have a bit of a screen door pixellated effect which could be due to running at a lower resolution than native. Who knows. Or perhaps being in demo mode every day. Worth another look for me but I can tell you now that I've never really cared for curved edges. They seem pointless. Nothing wrong with flat screens to me.

    More observations about the P30 (non-pro):

    The very low luminance at 0 brightness (1.72 cd/m² according to notebookcheck) combined with the DC Dimming option (there is immediate pain when turning it off), my new glasses (over magnified on purpose) allows me to get a really good look at this screen. It is just CRAWLING with movement. Various types of dithering and software gimmickry overlaid I guess? After a while it makes you feel ill. Nauseous, jerking in the legs, and pain deep in my ear.

    Feel burnout after.

    Spent a lot more time comparing phones tonight and my assessment has changed.
    Eyestrain has gotten worse over time. I believe it is worse on the P30 compare to OnePlus 3 on Pie, which itself has eyesrain more than the same device on PA 7. Would not reccomend the P30

    12 days later

    So currently I use the Galaxy M20 when out of the house. It is a slow phone with a terrible camera and has fits of touch unresponsiveness and misregistration, but it gets the job done most of the time. It is not good for long viewing but not terrible for basic smartphone tasks. It runs much better now on Android 10, almost as good as Android 8.1 it was released on. Android 9 was a disaster for that phone. I have the Latin American model with only 3 GB RAM.

    The OnePlus 3 which I have now back on PA 7 (it's just so obviously relieving to the eyes, you can't argue with it), I use at home mainly. The battery on it is quite degraded, but it's better than any computer monitor / setup I have, so I use it whenever possible. Almost all of my screen time is on this device. It is incredibly snappy and always a joy to use.

    My eyes are feeling relieved after returning the Huawei P30. That phone was very painful, even with DC dimming enabled (and confirmed on slo mo camera).

    4 days later

    somebody here has the eink Hisense. anyone else try it? not sure where it works, probably not US..

      reaganry I am contemplating getting one for ebook reading but we will see. The bands are not very North American compatible so that leaves me with 3G UMTS and 1 LTE band so I wouldn't be using it for cellular.

      @degen Yeah, it's pretty ok. I watched a movie on it last night. I'm on the December patch. I do find the device a little bit bigger than I'd like tho. Amazing battery life is a plus.

        reaganry I didn't. I'm just thinking about it. Cect-shop and jd both sell it. Be aware that it doesn't have google play services as this is a Chinese market device but that's not an issue for me.

        Guys, you're asking the wrong question. I have MAJOR LED sensitivity and I solved this problem 2-3 years ago. I can use ANY SMARTPHONE I want.
        The question should be "how can I modify any smartphone?".
        I've tried 10 different things, for me it's not frequency or blinking or blue light, it's literally the LED light itself.
        None of the commercial blue light filters or orange filters worked at all. So the solution? DARK HEADLIGHT TINT! Yes, believe it not, seems to be the only thing that filters whatever part of the LED spectrum is causing my issue.
        And for me it was 2 layers of 20% headlight tint that did the trick initially. And keeping the screen brightness at a minimum but where it's still comfortable. Obviously it's a bit harder to see outdoors even at full brightness, but that's minor for me. You'll need to cut it to size and practice applying to minimize bubbles. Touch sensitivity is fine on all phones, if you prefer you can attach a screen protector over top, but I haven't bothered. All minor issues considering you can comfortably use ANY phone. If you still notice issues, just apply another layer of tint.

        1 layer of 35% Medium Black Smoke seems to work fine. Or 2 layers of 20%.

        This is the best tint material from the few I've tested, no creases or odd patterns.
        https://www.ebay.ca/itm/12-x72-35-Medium-Black-Smoke-LED-Headlight-Taillight-Fog-Light-Tint-Film-Vinyl/282139310811

        Good luck, hope this helps.

        • vaz replied to this.

          I wonder if there is any difference between headlight tint and car window tint. Do you know? Interesting idea though. I had my car windows tinted years ago and I liked it.

          I use yellow headlight tint to make my car dashboard usable, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in this case. It's super thick, though.

          I would ask people for who tinting works is there any LED device or lighting you can use? Because I can use old iPads and iPhones with old iOS and not be bothered. I've not met many people who have zero usable LEDs in their life. I think this would only work if brightness was too high on things like dashboards since those usually aren't very adjustable. But for most displays they can be turned down so low you can't even read them in any daylight or lit room.

          The dash brightness is very high so that it can be viewed during daylight hours. It also has awful flicker due to being the cheapest possible LED's. So... yeah.

          7 days later

          Just some short info about my phone experience so far:
          Used and using Google Pixel 1 XL since it became available, without any problems.
          Just got a Samsung S10, which makes me dead after like 1-2 hours of use.
          I was trying an iPhone 11 from one of my colleges; i'm not completely sure, because it was just a 10 mins test, but i found it not really comfortable.

          Generally i'm not completely sure what makes me sick, but i have the feeling it is not related to pwm and blue light and things like that (as i already detailed in my story before), but better something like how the screen is presented, e.g. i can have problems also from an empty dark screen, or PC games, etc. The only thing i know, is that the focusing on the screen/content is somehow different/uncomfortable, for example looking around in a shop with TVs, monitors turned on with some content playing is a no go for me; instant dizziness. Sadly there is even less products manufactured in the let's say "traditional" way, which causing no trouble.

          select23

          Are you sure PWM or brightness weren't your problem? Lots of phones have PWM below a certain brightness setting so putting dark tint on and having to turn brightness high to see would eliminate the PWM. It's a physical iteration of a lot of software than cranks brightness up to eliminate PWM and puts a software overly to dim. You would need to know if your devices use PWM and at what threshold to state it wasn't an issue. Do you have problems with computers and if so what hardware and OS? Does this trick work on those too? I cannot believe window tint "removes" some "harmful" LED frequency. I would bet this is helping the real problem somehow, but now how you think.

          My xperia xz premium cracked, so I got Oneplus 7 pro with DC dimming. Eyes bloodshot immediately. The read about Huawei Nova 5t from Notebookcheck. No PWM. Confirmed also with a DSLR, no flickering. But still bloodshot irritated eyes, though not as bad. But not usable long term. Similar eye strain that I get with some laptops that are confirmed PWM free. Like Surface devices, except Sp2 at 100 brightness. So, have to fix xz premium, as that gives zero eye strain at >35% brightness.

            Maxx

            From what I have seen of testing of DC dimmed oled screens, they still kind of flicker. I often see a 60hz dip in brightness on oscilloscope outputs. I presume its an artefact of updating the current frame to the next. Owing to OLEDs being an emissive type of display, any interruption in output as a pixel updates will result in flicker. I tried an old LG Flex 2, reported to be PWM free but still had problems with it.

            I think that 60 Hz flicker is a scanline. Should be easily revealed with not 1 but 2 oscilloscope probes and then looking if there's a delay between top/bottom of the display.

            dev