Conclusion: we don't have a 100% tight causality between Pwm/TD and our complaints? I have tested the Nokia G60 and same bad feelings arise….
Usable Smartphones?
Sure.
Here is an example of the TD I captured using a slow mo bust of 960 fps on my sony camera for the Oppo A74 5G - magnified through a cheap usb microscope at the highest setting.
This is definitely temporal dithering right?
For comparison, here is the same set up captured for the Realme 8 5G
For some reason, I'm noticing a sharpness increase after the update 
I'm on a Beta version though. I haven't received the stable update yet.
The cause could possibly be a reaction to advanced display technology in & of itself.
Older devices didn't cause me strain, but in retrospect, I didn't use my phone as much as I do now.
The reliance on smartphones has magnified substantially within the last 6 years. From banking, social media, trading apps, to reading ebooks, messaging apps. People use their phones way more now.
There was not this type of reliance before.
Yes, I could easily use computers & laptops for hours on end without issue pre 2015, but displays back then were mediocre (in comparison to what is offered now).
Now, it's common for full HD/4K super ultra high resolution definition displays, billions of colors, with all the bells and whistles etc. Maybe we're not used to it & our eye's aren't accustomed, or maybe we're not meant to be using it at all for long periods of time....
There are NO concrete health studies looking into the long term effects of this type of high definition advanced technology, especially being used at such close proximity for lengthy durations.
If someone is not resonating with either Amoled/Oled/LCD, it's possible it could be an actual sensitvity to advance display technology itself, & unfortunately, It won't matter what type of display tech is used, as the person will feel some negative impact, regardless.
Keep in mind, the vast majority of manufacturers all use displays that are produced and designed by the same companies, in the same factories, and are slightly tweaked in terms of specs & display optimization.
Notice how in 2022, there is a resurgence of the water drop display notch in budget devices such as the Nokia G60, Oneplus N300, Realme 9i, Xiaomi Redmi 10, Poco M5, Oppo A77 5G, Samsung A23 5G, Honor X8 5G etc etc), this isn't a coincidence, it's because these are all being designed and manufacturered by the same ODM's - and all use similar parts, specs & displays.
So in essence, the differentiation between them all is very minimal, with the most changes being software based only.
As this is the case, there won't be much difference between the handsets released by competing popular manufacturers each year. Therefore if someone is using a recently released device, there won't be a change in comfortability when switching to an alternative recently released device, as they all basically use the same parts & displays.
Vividblu99 yes, i agree.
There is one thing on our hand; problems with screen is now widely acknowledged. Having said this,3 years ago my eyes were hurting…now days it is mainly a nausea/dizzyness/headache issue. It could be the manufacturers "repaired" the eye strain, and this headache thing is a byproduct.
Sometimes I think this platform should not be used, instead we all should move to apple or Samsung forums. In these days the mantra is: problems are only problems if they are present online (&trending). And if they are mentioned in a "talkshow", than it is a real "problem". I would say all manufacturers are sensitive to their online branding. Just a thought as an alternative solutions for testing a lot of phones (as I do…)…
Greetz.
Ps when I return a phone I always mention "due headache" as I am sure it will appear in some statistic, hoping there are more people with this reason for returning….with the aim the expensive returns will be presented to the national importers/manufacturers
7 days later
@Vividblu99 I ordered and tried a Realme 9 Pro and it's up there with the worst devices I've tried. It feels similar to symptoms dithering gives me which is not just eye strain. Not sure why it's so bad for me, but it's going back.
- Edited
JTL I believe the vast majority of past Samsung AMOLED mobile displays used around a ~240Hz PWM frequency, and what could be different between them is the "duty cycle" of the waveform, often expressed as flicker coefficient by some light meters.
Yes, I think you are right. The flickering looks exactly like my Dad's S21 FE which Notebookcheck.net says flickers at around 240Hz.
@JTL @Vividblu99 can you tell anything about the frequency and duty cycle of the device from the footage captured from the screen?
Because notebookcheck.net says that the Galaxy a80's display "uses PWM and flickers at about 240 Hz over the whole brightness range of the display" but when I capture the screen of my mom galaxy A80, above around 30% the lines that are moving across the screen stay the exact same but below 30% they become bigger and bigger as you reduce the brightness.
If this has to do with the frequency, then this literally means that the same device could have a completely different screen tech from another one of the same. This makes everything so damn complicated.
bz12 I ordered and tried a Realme 9 Pro and it's up there with the worst devices I've tried. It feels similar to symptoms dithering gives me which is not just eye strain. Not sure why it's so bad for me, but it's going back.
This is really crazy. Just like how I felt with the Realme 7 5G. Could it really be that the same device could be produced with a different screen in different places of the world?
I think We need to buy a microscope and start testing devices ourselves. I don't dare to buy a new phone anymore.
Leachim38 yes, i agree.
There is one thing on our hand; problems with screen is now widely acknowledged. Having said this,3 years ago my eyes were hurting…now days it is mainly a nausea/dizzyness/headache issue. It could be the manufacturers "repaired" the eye strain, and this headache thing is a byproduct.
Sometimes I think this platform should not be used, instead we all should move to apple or Samsung forums. In these days the mantra is: problems are only problems if they are present online (&trending). And if they are mentioned in a "talkshow", than it is a real "problem". I would say all manufacturers are sensitive to their online branding. Just a thought as an alternative solutions for testing a lot of phones (as I do…)…
Greetz.
Yes! We absolutely need to do this. There are enough of us here now experiencing these issues to know that we are not crazy. And these companies know themselves what kinda new crap they are introducing into their display's so if we get their attention enough they will have to speak out and end are maddening confusion.
Wayfarer86 some people tried Oled Saver or PWMfree (outdated), someone use reducing blue light and protonomaly.
me and some people complain about the "Flashlight in the Eyes" effect, after which photosensitivity appears, it is also difficult to read text on some screens, it is difficult to focus, nausea appears, we think it is due to pixel shaking (dithering).
Those apps are useless. Most devices, especially Samsung, flicker even at 100% brightness. This, I suppose, is done to reduce heat and increase battery efficiency.
Vividblu99 I didn't use my phone as much as I do now.
I really doubt it is overuse. You can not believe, how many hours back to back I would spend playing games on my Galaxy Note 5. It would get to the point where one of my eyes hurt so bad that I would have to tie it up with something and play with one eye open. But that was only after days and days of none stop playing.
Last night, though, I used my Galaxy Note 5 for barely 15 minutes. I could not sleep all night from massive eyestrain and headache till 7 am. It's been nearly a week now, and the eye and neck strain and headache have still not fully healed.
I think it's more the case of companies thinking, "Well, barely anyone is getting eyestrain from these techs, why not push it further? Why not reduce PWM frequency to get an increase in battery efficiency, and why not just slam a shitty 6bit panel into a phone and make it look as good with dithering and then sell it at the same price as a 10bit panel?"
Vividblu99 Keep in mind, the vast majority of manufacturers all use displays that are produced and designed by the same companies, in the same factories, and are slightly tweaked in terms of specs & display optimization.
This unfortunately is true, though. And sadly Samsung has most of the screen building market, and they are probably the biggest PWM/Dithering abusers.
We really need to get our voices out or the situation will just get worse and worse. Yesterday I looked carefully at my Galaxy Grand 2 and I feel I am seeing 2 brighter spots on the screen. I suppose the screen is degrading. If something happens to this phone or if it breaks, I am literally phoneless lol
bz12 I've tried OnePlus 9 (pwm, but other users here have said it didn't bother them), Poco X4 GT, OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite, iPhone 11 and iPhone 8 Plus (iOS 16) in the past couple months and none of them resonate well with me. I'm still without a comfortable device to use.
Oh boy, this is so sad! Are you sure The Poco X4 GT strained you!!?? Notebook check has actual video footage on YouTube showing that this device does not dither at all and the PWM frequency is crazy high! 50k! That's like 20x most devices that run at 240Hz!! What could possibly be the source of strain here !!?
This phone was my last hope :"(
Are there actually any devices that were released 2021-2022 and confirmed by at least 3 people here to be painless/usable?
Bad news.
I recently purchased a new digital microscope from Amazon (Andonstar) and I've been testing all my LCD based smartphones over the past 2 days.
Every device I've tested is displaying either Temporal Dithering or some type of moving inversion/artifacts - no device has been 100% stable.
However the rate differs between each device. Some are more pronounced than others.
Incredibly - and this just might be me - I don't think I'm reacting negatively to this at all. As far am I'm aware, It doesn't seem to affect my eyes negatively, and I can still use the devices comfortably (as long as my personal tweaks/customizations are implemented).
But this is concerning nonetheless. Especially for those that are sensitive to this type of inversion/TD/moving artifacts or whatever it is.
I made sure I applied a multiple colored wallpaper first on the phones display before the tests.
The smartphones that weren't showing a very pronounced effect were an old Honor View 20 from 2019, the Realme X50 5g from 2020, and the Huawei P40 Lite 5G. There was still some type of color moving/shifting instability, but it was less pronounced.
Surprisingly, the moving colors/artifacts increased when higher refresh rates were selected (120hz/90hz), and decreased substantially when setting the devices to 60hz. Not sure why this occurred.
I've realized no LCD based device is 100% free from these effects or even 100% stable.
But I'm not sure exactly what this is - I don't think it's TD - it's more like color shifting or possibly something else.
I don't know the correct term
I hoped to test an old Nokia non smart candy bar phone, but the battery is flat and I can't find my charger for it.
The new digital microscope I've used is more advanced than my previous one, however it's still not powerful enough to thoroughly zoom in to see every individual led/pixel clearly, like the one that notebookcheck uses. Not sure if they are using one of those very expensive (£1000+) type digital microscopes.
jpark28 How to do it depends on the OS. Fairly simple in Linux, a bit harder in Windows, seriously difficult in Android. Impossible to all intents and purposes on iPhones. Let me know which OS you want to try it on and I'll post a guide. Sorry for the delay in replying, by the way, I only just read your reply. I'm new to this forum and expected it send me an email notification when someone replied to one of my posts but it doesn't unless you specifically enable that.
Did somebody try Gigaset GX6?
5 days later
I would like to change my well hated Samsung S8 to some more eye friendly device. I only can use this phone with Towsemi+bluelight filter for 5-10 mins in certain ambient light condition.
Has anybody got any experience with HTC Desire 22 Pro, HTC U20 and Fairphone 4 please?
Not a phone but has anyone tried a device with a display like that?
Hi all. I bought Poco X4 GT and at first was uncomfortable with it, noticeable strain. Then I made two things: replace film to matte and in settings>color scheme set "original color", color temperature "cool" and no adaptive colors. The image is a bit yellowish, but now I have no problems with eyes on it.
Has anyone tried the xiaomi 12T 5G yet? A reviewer from notebookcheck.net states that the display uses DC. However, it probably uses the same display as the 12T Pro, which gave some users on this forum a headache.
dawidd6 hi. I tried similar tablet but with bigger screen TCL NXTPAPER 12 PRO. No luck. Eyestrain/headache. Returned it.
Looking to test out a Realme 10 Pro 5G next month 
Motorola have also announced a new G series device - G73 5G. The specs seem quite decent (Dimensity 930/256GB Storage/8GB ram, 120hz LCD display). Not sure on pricing - but looks interesting.
Vividblu99 Yes the G73 could be also interesting like the Galaxy A14. Currently my two options for this year to try if i have again no luck with the new OLED display generation.