valex13

OLED panels don't have a backlight by the way the pixels light themselves up.

I haven't tried the A5 but Samsungs newer AMOLED screens are garbage regardless I've never seen worse PWM than on Samsungs newer panels. Even if you don't have issues like ours there's no way using a screen that's essentially a flickery mess at anything other than max brightness is actually comfortable to use (or good for you)

I assume it's because they want the screens to be as BRIGHT as possible which means the moment you start lowering it they have to massively slow the on/off cycle compared to if the screen was a lower brightness from the get go

I've seen more uniformity issues with LGs OLED but I'll take a lack of uniformity (literally the only time I've been able to see the uniformity issue on an LG is on the phone's off but charging screen where it displays mostly grey and some of the grey was a little darker) over the massive PWM from Samsung.

@Sunspark confirmed what I'm saying just a few posts up (re: v30 catching your eye - having played around on one for a while I can only see visible pwm below around 30% brightness anything higher doesn't have the signature low PWM "trail" if you move the phone. the phone still wasn't ultimately comfortable for me but much better than Samsungs recent phones since the s6 and above. Also I found it to be a fantastic phone once they drop in price I am going to get one.)

    Soreeyes but Samsungs newer AMOLED screens are garbage regardless I've never seen worse PWM

    Go try an iPhone X. Hold my root beer.

    Soreeyes Unfortunately I have all possible issues with all modern screens starting from 2015. No matter - IPS (that doesn`t has PWM at all) or OLED. So, I assume that the problem is both LED type and Android version (probably temporal dithering). It is strange that Samsung Alpha also has AMOLED screen but I can use without any problems (both with KitKat and Lollipop). So my hypothesis that starting from 2015 there was something new introduced in LED technology. And yes, last years Samsungs screens drive me crazy after 30 seconds of interaction.

    22 days later

    Yesterday I tried another popular Android 8.1 ROM, "AOSP Extended". But my eyes started to burn after a while and my left eye began to hurt. It seems that ROM is no different from recent others, at least on the OnePlus 3.

    6 days later

    Alexmam I searched for the product and found 3 different names:
    - Xiaomi Mi Note 3
    - Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
    - Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro

    Which one is yours?

      6 days later

      Gurm ryans

      Amazon was running a Prime Day special of Essentials for $250 US new. I bought one, sight unseen. I am aware it is not a perfect device due to various complaints, but none that I read were about the display. That price though.. I should have it at the beginning of August. Will be interesting to see how it is.

      As for the latest Android, this is not a complete disadvantage, one of the nice things about Essential is that they didn't lock it down and do put up lots of images, unlike other companies. So officially, I can try Nougat, Oreo 8.1 and P developer previews without having to do S-OFF or whatever. It will have P, and also supports Lineage, etc.

      They've definitely liquidating these things. The 360 camera is $19 on their website now. I can't pass that up either.

        Sunspark Please let me know as soon as you have results. I'm going to trial the LG G7 at some point, just have to get a "round tuit".

        • JTL replied to this.

          Sunspark Please let me know how Essential phone is. Unfortunately the price is back up, but I might just bite the bullet and try it anyway.

          I recently used a flicker meter to compare an iPhone 4s which is of the "usable" kind and an iPhone 4 which gives me symptoms of eye strain in just a few seconds.
          The good 4s barely touches 1% ripple flicker. It is below 1%. The bad 4 is somewhere between 1% and 3%.
          It might be coincidence at this point as I need to test more devices, but so far this is a hint that the safe flicker percentage could be lower than most of us expected. At least lower than 3%. Which means when you are sensitive and you look into a supposedly flicker-free display that in reality still has alternating light intensity from 100% to 97% (or even up to 99%), the flicker might already be too high and could cause symptoms.

          It is difficult to see such small changes on an oscilloscope output.
          All my "flicker-free" monitors are in between 1% to 7% ripple flicker (so in fact they do flicker). Only one of them is usable, and is somewhere between 1% to 3%, amongst others who are not usable. Further strengthening the theory that the safe flicker percentage is somewhere below 3%. Sadly I could not track this down further yet as the flicker meter's scale won't display other low values than either nothing at all (means below 1%), 2% (means between 1% and 3%) and 4% (between 3% and 5%). My cheap oscilloscope can not show such low amplitude flicker, not to mention the high frequencies. I had not imagined that I would need even more resolution than steps of 2%. All I cared about was being able to detect flicker of high frequencies, hundreds of kilohertz.

          I tested my OnePlus 3 with the brightness app "Brightness Manager", with which you can quickly change brightness in steps of 10. Changing back and forth from brightness level 255 to 245 is still consciously visible. This would be a flicker of just 4%. Imagine such a flicker at very high frequencies, say 200 kHz, and you have your average "flicker-free" display that might still hurt your eyes.

          Soreeyes Thanks for the info. By any Nokia Lumia phone, does that mean any phone running windows? I'm tempted to try the Lumia 950. Perhaps Windows is free of the whatever it is that people seem to report on newer android versions.

          KM I thought the Galaxy S2 had an OLED without PWM? Problem with that phone is the minimum brightness was stupidly bright.

          Also I just realised you can reply to multiple posts at once. This should put an end to my spamming!

            Seanicus I thought the Galaxy S2 had an OLED without PWM?

            Maybe, some people say so. I suppose Samsung released different hardware across the globe, because I bought a Galaxy S2 in Germany some years ago (in 2012 I believe), and if I'm not mistaken, it had PWM. At least it was unusable. I got a strong headache during the first day, burning eyes, and returned the phone the very next day. It was the worst device I ever looked at up to that day. I can imagine had it been flicker-free, I might still be using it.

            Edit: The minimum brightness was very low. Must really have been different hardware.

            Interesting. Maybe it was a second hardware revision? Sounds like the HTC M8 inconsistency problem.

            • KM replied to this.

              Seanicus Low-end Windows phones continue to be usable for me to this day. Anything with a 540p screen resolution seems to be fine, across the board, even in Android-land. I suspect it is because of the panels in use at lower resolutions. 1080p and up phones are the harshest, naturally.

                Seanicus I just measured my "bad" HTC One M8, and the ripple flicker percentage is on the verge of 3%. Another hint that 3% might already be too much.
                This is one of those "symptoms within seconds" devices. I looked at it with one eye closed, and clearly just the open eye and the muscles around it are affected now.

                  Seanicus I've not seen an OLED phone without PWM. The Galaxy S5 definitely has PWM but I'm not really affected by it. Though I do think I'm affected by other PWM -- I guess all PWM is not created equal (and certainly not at the same frequency Hz)

                    Gurm I find lower res screens are a bit better as well. Hard to know why, perhaps lower contrast?

                    KM Does that mean there's a 3% brightness variation?

                    ryans You're probably right about different reactions to different manifestations of PWM. That Wiko phone is totally PWM free as well (scroll up a few dozen messages), would be cool to hear some user feedback.

                    It's been very helpful reading this entire thread through, but I'm still a bit lost as to which phone I should try next. Iphone 6s and Pixel XL both give me ocular migraines, so it's not just a PWM thing. I suspect it's a software thing as my macbook is also bad and everyone seems to dislike Android 6,7 and 8. The only comfy screen I have is my Galaxy S2 (running 4.2). I'm tempted to try a HTC M9 next and keep it on Lollipop. Otherwise, maybe a windows phone will be free of whatever it is I'm sensitive to? Does anybody have any suggestions before I give this dodgy backalley ebay seller my money? Has anyone struggled with an iphone 6s and found a 7 or 8 to be ok?

                      Seanicus Does that mean there's a 3% brightness variation?

                      Yes, given a and b as max and min amplitude, it means (a-b)/a.

                      dev