Usable Smartphones?

Devotee

After reading about the J3 doing ok, I have had a great time with the Samsung J7 Max, which had a Mali GPU, Mediatek CPU, PLS screen NOT Amoled (all other J7 models have amoled). No issues at all on low brightness.

Gurm

Devotee Are you in India? GSMArena indicates the J7 Max is only for Indian markets?

Gurm

Frustrating that the J3 and J7 here use low-end Snapdragons and have lousy cameras, they're basically super-low-end versions of the same phones. Grr.

Devotee

Gurm Yes its in India. But there is an online purchase version which may be available elsewhere? It's called On 7 Max I think, again you have to check if it has the exact same config...

Gurm

Scrolling up I see that JTL uses an LG V20. Sadly, Verizon Wireless doesn't offer it any more this year, they offer the V30 and G6. The G6 is a fine phone - my son has one - but not awesome in this regard. The V30 is AMOLED (spits). I wish they kept phones in stock a little longer on the Android side.

ryans

Gurm Do we know for a fact that Android phones use temporal dithering to create 8-bit color?

Riva

randomboolean I am sorry for the late reply, my Sony Xperia Z3 has android 4.4.4 which is quite old version. however, my previous Z3 and Z3+ which are eye friendly had newer version, as I remember was marshmallows for Z3 and lollipop for Z3+. The Xperia zx had the latest android as i remember bcos i did updated it. You can find Xperia z3 in ebay, search for D6633.

Gurm

ryans Not for a fact, no. I suspect they use some kind of color profile fuckery.

ryans

jasonpicard Now that you're back Jason, what smartphone do you use now? Is it comfortable?

jasonpicard

ryans I have a Yotaphone 2. I can use both sides no issues. E Ink one side OLED on the other side. I find the EINK sucks in artificial light. I only use it in the sun. I use the OLED indoors. I think companies like Onyx may have fixed the E Ink contrast thing with there new tablet monitor. The contrast on the Eink side of this phone is just terrible unless in daylight.

martin

I tried a friends Huawei P10, it seems good as long as its set above 50% brightness, below gave me horrible headache, I suppose PWM.

Peter

martin

I also tried P10 and P9 a day with each with no success.

The latest news from me is that I tried for a day as my main phone Samsung J3 (2017) and it is not usable for me.

I have been "tricked" many times with phones that seem usable when I play for an hour or two but when I use for a longer time they cause me eye strain and headaches. For me the benchmark is to try for at least 24 hours.

KM

I just stumbled upon this upcoming E-Ink device, "Light Phone 2":

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2-design#/

It is going to have a black/white E-Ink screen, custom OS with reduced features and no camera.

michiel

Great ! Earlier I wrote about the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017) which didn't heart my eyes. After the Android April security patch the eye strain returned. How is this even possible ? Hopefully i can find a way to downgrade.

Phone software details (without eye strain)

phone software details (with eye strain, after update)

Gurm

I guarantee you that as part of the "security update" (which is really just an important-sounding name for a x.x.# revision) they screwed with the color profiles. Seems that this was introduced in Android 6 and REALLY screws with people. Versions of ROMs that don't contain color profile setting seem to be much easier on people's eyes. For HTC, this means staying with Android 5. For other phones it was 6 or even 7, clearly with the J3 it's ... the March revision of 7.1

ryans

Gurm This can probably be resolved by flashing the device with ROM like Lineage OS?

Gurm

Probably. Or just unlocking it and flashing back to the older official Samsung ROM. XDA Developers forum is a great place to start, but lots of reading to get up to speed.

ryans

Gurm It could also be dithering or some other unknown flicker or cause of eye strain. It's obviously the software. What makes you suspect the color profiles? Are iOS devices usable for you?

Gurm

ryans I suspect color profiles because one user higher up in this thread reported that he could flash Paranoid Android onto his phone and it was fine... and the only difference in display drivers between Lineage and Paranoid Android (they had the same kernel and codebase) on his device was that PA didn't have color profiles. This jives with HTC, in Marshmallow they introduced color profiles to compensate for different screen resolutions. And other users have seen color profiles be a problem for Windows monitor drivers as well!

ryans

I tried searching the forums, but it looks like no one has tried Lineage OS for eye strain?

KM

ryans It's always worth a try and may work for some devices. Unless they copy the same stuff that made the manufacturer's stock ROM unusable. Try all ROMs you can find.

ryans

KM Maybe with Android 9 it will be better.

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