Tried the Honor x7a and is very rough for me, I felt instant dizziness and eye strain, the realme x50 5G feels a lot better, only dizziness but no eye strain, really miss my Sony t2 ultra.
Usable Smartphones?
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Abeabe By chance you don't have a gadget like the opple light master or something similar to meassure pwm? maybe the x50 actually uses pwm but at a very high frequency (that cant be detected with an phone camera for example) or with a modulation depth that actually causes that dizziness.
You can also try to use setedit to force 60hz all the time (vivuldi99 posted a guide some months ago) maybe that can help..i think the x50 actually drops to 45hz in some scenarios.
sorry bad english
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nikomanuel96 I don't have a way to measure the pwm, yes they both use pwm I am very sensitive to light flicker, but I think the realme x50g is faster, plus the interface is better, on the Honor ads appear all the time and it's very slow, I always use the phones at 60hz, 90hz or 120hz feels worse, I'm going to throw this Honor away where it belongs, to the trash!, hehe
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One would usually get eyestrain symptoms from PWM, while dizziness is mostly caused by motion blur. The motion blur in this case is the dynamically changing refresh rate.
The reason why one would get dizziness is because what of your brain expects to see, verse what you see in reality do not match.
You can force the refresh rate of realme x50g to lock at 60 ,90 ,120 hertz to workaround this.
You'll have to experiment it out because you if lock it at the wrong hertz it will result in this thing called "overshoot" where you'll end up with slightly more noticable flickering.
Sorry for bad english and the wall of text: guys, i purchased an realme narzo 30 5g (basically an realme 8 5g but with 4gb ram) i find it pretty cheap after searching everywhere as you can only see infinix and tecnos here.
i dont have an opple to test it but ixbt says its flicker free and since this a realme 8 5g with another name i guess this is using the same panel, so its probably flicker free or using very high frequency pwm in the worst case.
The things is..i am not so sure if it will work for me :/, i am strained from my other phone (an crappy moto e5) so i will have to wait for my eyes to "reset" and test this for some weeks to make a conclussion..but there is something i find unconfortable about the colors, but i am not sure what it is exactly.
I change the color mode, play with the temperature slider, set the 60 hz mode...but i cant make the colors look 100% confortable for me, in 2021 i had an moto one fusion (i sold it) and i always set the vivid color mode on that (i know is the other way around for most of you) and it was more easy to look at that display than this one :/.
The disconfort is more clear on the settings section, if i use dark theme it looks unconfortable for me..dosent matter if i set on light gray, dark gray or pure black, the one fusion had easier colors imo
so for now i will rate this way (regarding eye strain)
Moto one fusion 8/10
Moto e5 play go 3/10 trash
Narzo 30 5g 5.5/10 not sure yet
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Tobiyas I forgot to tell that my dizziness as I call it, is the faint spell type and it is not like the feeling of everything is spinning type, maybe I will not call it dizziness anymore, when I see any flickering light or my nervous system detect invisible and fast led PWM it gives me faint spells (when you feel your head is beign pulled back) and some times I feel my ears clogged too, so it is not motion blur the cause, this can be triggered by any static image in a display where the led backlight is using pwm of any speed, my nervous system is detecting too some kind of frequency that the new displays are emitting that the old screens were not, thats why my brain gets messed up.
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For me OnePlus Nord 3 is usable. The pwm values I saw on a Russian video are not so good. And there isn't any option to prevent flicker. I don't think there's even DC dimming.
But for some reason nothing special is happening to my eyes. And my eyes are "weak" because I really need to change glasses. One more reason for an AMOLED cause even more harm to my eyes. But it's not doing that.
Comparing Nord 3 to the LCD phone I use for work maybe a feel a little more effort. Like less than 5% more effort. But totally usable (at night). During the day I don't use Nord 3 (I use my work phone). But I got to test Nord 3 during the day because I was more and less ok at night using other phones AMOLED phones with high PWM dimming and had problems during the day. But Nord 3 is by far the best at night.
This post was all written on Nord 3. That would be very difficult with most AMOLED phones I had.
But if someone wants to try be sure to buy from a place where they accept returns. Like I said I saw on a Russian video high values from radex lupin.
Because of this I still have sealed in the box Motorola Moto G73 (LCD screen). If Nord 3 continues to be so eye friendly I'll return Moto G73 without even testing it.
In a few days I'll give some more feedback. I've read people using other amoled phones for a few days with no problems and suddenly PWM started causing problems to them. So I'll keep testing.
Rui Thank you for the update.
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Rui Interesting. 4-5 years I had tried to install Paranoid Android on a OnePlus but without success. It looks like the phone has become harsher on the eyes over the last few years?
How is the camera? Thanks.
An update on the narzo 30 5g:
I discovered that in the "power saving" mode there is an option to dim the screen without using all the other features (of that mode), when i enable it the light from the display becomes less "harsh", i think this option is available on all realmes!
Before enabling it the light from the screen was too "intense" even at 10% brightness, but now i can go up to 25% brightness and the screen feels less "itense" if that makes sense.
That in combination with the option of " make the launcher icons follow the dark theme" + 60 hz makes the display easier on the eyes...but still far from perfect (still dosent match my old one fusion)
But the other problem that i didnt mention before is that i cant concentrate on what i am reading on the screen, but i cant tell if this is a fault on the narzo display because i already had that problem since last year (probably for using the crappy e5 play for so long) the bizarre part is that i am finding more difficult to read text on the narzo than on the e5 play (that is already difficult to begin with)
Finally, today i installed the Color Calibrator App and it helped an little more, i dim the screen even more with it (it seems more pleasent than lowering it on the systen settings) and also make the whites more likeable for my eyes.
For now i boost the score from 5.5 to 6.8/10. It is improving, not perfect, not better than the fusion but now usable!
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I haven't had the chance to test the cameras since I only started using more frequently Nord 3 in the last few days. But I guess they seem ok. In the paste I valued a lot the cameras. Nowadays not so much. I rarely take photos.
Now I'm in a dilemma (1st world problem…)
1 - Keep Nord 3. No eyestrain, no headaches. Just a tiny pressure and only sometimes and only for a few seconds. If I didn't know about PWM, I wouldn't care about it and assume it's from looking to a small screen. Even if I don't have problems with Nord 3, I believe all amoleds are not good for our eyes in a long run, whether you are pwm sensitive or not. So to keep my mind in peace, I should chose Moto G73.
2- Keep Motorola G73 (LCD). Box is still sealed. There are LCD's that also give problems, like for example Poco X4 GT. Opening the box an realizing that would make me return moto G73. And it's more difficult to return a used phone. Also motorola has a bad update policy. But I always liked motorola, it has an LCD (so more chances that I don't have problems in the long run, if it has a friendly LCD) and it's the perfect size for me (6.5").
In the next days I'll have to make a decision…
Just keep the Nord since it's fine. You'll get used to the slightly larger screen fast. You can change the colour profile to srgb. You can also change the refresh rate and other settings.
LCDs are not wonderful across the board.
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Rui Just keep the nord and dont open the g73, the g73 dosent have very good feedback here and on ther sites (there are still sensitive people that can use It tho) but if the nord if working fine for you then opening the Motorola is risky, there are high chances It Will give you problems. Just keep the nord and if you want you can buy an cheap LCD phone that have more chances to be Safe (for example.. honor 70 lite ir realme 9 pro)
Sorry bad english
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Some people on MacRumors say the iPhone 15's will have a 480hz PWM, I wonder if that will help. Looks like the 14 was 60hz and the 14 Pro's were 240hz.
wlmsn Some people on MacRumors say the iPhone 15's will have a 480hz PWM, I wonder if that will help. Looks like the 14 was 60hz and the 14 Pro's were 240hz.
Quoting myself to include this video that discusses PWM in their "first look" at the iPhone 15 -https://youtu.be/0AHVQL01KPs?si=v8WzVJaNPXHwZMCi&t=1044
I've never heard of this guy before but he seems to mention PWM in all his videos so I'm glad to see it getting more notice.
Rui Is your oneplus nord 3 is it Dimensity 9000 version and is it usable for you longtime use any headache, eyestrain I am going to buy it?
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I use more my work phone (Samsung A32 with LCD). But when I use OnePlus Nord 3 I have no problems. But be careful. Radex results are not good for Nord 3, acording to this Russian video:
https://youtu.be/PQ2cambZkZk?si=UVygzl2125RJO5DG&t=535
But despite having problems with all amoleds (except Xiaomi 13) for some reason I don't have problems with Nord 3, yet…
I have tested many phones have to sell it because of pwm 90% lcd didn't give me any problem if it has no pwm
Result:
Oneplus Nord CE3 lite 5g=despite having lcd its bad for me after changing to 60hz and night light it's usable for some limited usage but still some eyestrain using for past 4 months because no other option
Nothing phone 1= really bad pwm not usable
realme 11 pro plus 5g =not good returned it despite having 2160hz pwm
samsung m34 5g = lot better than samsung A52s it give less eyestrain but after use give mild headache still it give some eyestrain but usable for limited time
Samsung A52s 5g = worst pwm in all phones
realme x3 superzoom= lcd but really great no eyestrain but not 5g
samsung m31=usable for long time but not 5g
Vividblu99 I got a realme 9 pro a while back and have been using it occasionally around the house. It seems to give me headaches/tinnitus, especially when I use it in the dark. I wanted to see which version I have (your old one or your new one) so I loaded up the same comment and took a screen shot. I took one screen shot with "eye comfort" turned on (I think on the left) and another with it turned off (I think on the right). Unfortunately neither of my screen shots matches yours. I used the small font, but I wonder if there are other differences in our settings.
I've now turned off "eye comfort" and I'll wait a few days for the headaches/tinnitus to go away and then I'll give it another shot.
