Usable Smartphones?

Staycalmsyndrome Thanks for reporting this. I also have G100, and it has been comfortable for a year. (If you read my other posts, you know I have currently some weird problem that all displays irritate my eyes, G100 included, but it seems that it is probably a ciliary spasm that might resolve in time)

Very important to gather the information.

Could I ask you to report this to Motorola service desk, so they would learn there are others like me, where G100 is OK, but OLEDs and even the new g200 is not.

logixoul What device you use to measure PWM frequency?

Anyone use the iPhone SE 2022? For some reason it’s still causing headaches, although not as bad as other pwm phones. I have another 4 days before I have to return the phone. Wondering if I should return it and try a larger android phone. The small screen sucks.

Maxx This one. Well, to be precise, I had an engineer friend make it for me, and he enhanced the original design by adding a "transimpedance amplifier circuit" - I suppose this increases the accuracy.

logixoul

how is it better than a DSLR? Does it measure really high frequencies like 100Khz like the ones that Notebookcheck uses?

Maxx It will be limited by sound card sample rate, and I don't think it'll go that high.

John615

Yep, i had to return it after 2 days. Only after a few minutes of looking at the screen it hurted my eyes. Seems too aggressive dithering.

Now i'm using a Oneplus 8T. Amoled but 460Hz PWM and it has DC dimming which is very rare nowadays and it's very comfortable to my eyes.

Maxx I know of two benefits of this device over a DSLR:

1. It'll show you the flicker waveform (rectangular-ish waveforms are worse/harsher than e.g. triangle-ish waveforms - see here)
2. I doubt most DSLRs can detect a PWM frequency as high as 10 KHz (or 20 KHz). This device does.

Btw I don't have a DSLR.

And it can (I suppose) detect 100KHz if you have a professional soundcard that supports such high frequencies. (this excludes any cheap built-in soundcard).

I don't know scientifically, but I've used DSLR for years and sometimes I see tens of bands in one picture of 1/4000 shutter speed. If there is 10 bands, Wouldn't it be 40Khz? But yes, it would be handy to have an oscilloscope. My soundcard does 196Khz, so that would be enough. Personally I've confirmed multiple times that at least 2.5kHz PWM strains my eyes, but I have doubts that say 10x that would bother me anymore. After that it must be related to the same as with any new laptop, e.g. temporal dithering

Maxx I don't know scientifically, but I've used DSLR for years and sometimes I see tens of bands in one picture of 1/4000 shutter speed. If there is 10 bands, Wouldn't it be 40Khz?

I don't think so. In fact, I'm not sure if you can detect PWM by shooting a photo with a DSLR. I think that, instead, you'd need to look at the problematic screen through the electronic viewfinder and look for visible flicker.

But I haven't researched this recently so I may be wrong here.

logixoul It depends on the frequency of PWM. Low frequency like 240Hz is easily detected by just the image, as there will be one or more black bands in the image. If it is very high frequency and the time the pixels are off, it is difficult to detect as in a 4k screen there would be just one thin line that is "off".

But yes, best way is to take a 1/4000 shutter speed video on manual settings and actually watch the video on a big screen. I was able to detect my Ring Light flicker that way. It has a PWM in the Khz range and in the video I'm able to see slight banding, which I was not able to see in the DSLR screen.

And of course, the Ring Light produces eye strain if I use it for video calls for say 1-2 hours a day. Just noticed it a year or so ago, when I got it and was wondering why my eyes were strained after using it.

Frustrating that they put PWM into everything and claim it is problem free if the flicker is in the Khz range, because it just is producing eye strain.

My theory is that as the light is ON in full power even for a fraction of a second, the optic nerve recognizes this high power light and the pupils will try to constrict like they would when watching a bright light. After an hour or so, when the pupils are trying to accommodate the bright light by fully constricting, the eyes get strained and red.

My experience on the DSLR PWM testing goes back over 10 years and with at least 50 different screen.

When ever notebookcheck, laptopmedia or TFTCentral reports a PWM, even in the Khz range, I'm able to detect it easily with a DSLR. With the more recent Notebookcheck PWM tests, if they say there is no PWM, I'm not able to detect it with a DSLR either. It has been fairly convenient way also to take a DSLR to the computer or TV shop and test the screens on-site, before buying.

But all this has of course failed over the past few years as most new laptops do not have PWM or do not have it in the high brightness levels, but still produce similar eye strain as PWM, though not as bad as a 240Hz Oled PWM.

Nobody seems to know what is it that they do with the modern screens that produces the same symptoms as PWM, though there is NO PWM. This is really a mystery and I wonder why nobody is able to answer this from the manufacturer side. I've tried to ask this question many times. And like many of us remember there was the Intel forum thread where this was discussed but the Intel engineers denied there was anything they do with the display adapters or drivers that could affect this. I am biased to think this is true, because I can connect an offending laptop to a good screen and use it without problems. But a bad screen does not become good with Linox or older windows version. So I tend to think there is something that is done at the panel level, which all manufactures adopted some 5+ years ago

zsdd89

Can you tell me what version android you have on the OnePlus 8T? I read that they got rid of the dc dimming in android 12.

How about this one? https://www.notebookcheck.net/Xiaomi-Redmi-Note-11T-Pro-Plus-receives-DisplayMate-A-rating-for-its-144-Hz-IPS-LCD-with-no-PWM.621174.0.html

Staycalmsyndrome Ah I see. Was the minimum brightness to avoid PWM an issue at alll?