Vividblu99 Firstly I will say that compared to a lot of people on this forum I do not appear to suffer with as wide ranging or impactful symptoms when looking at a screen. Simply intense eye strain / tiredness and nausea. Naturally the strength of this varies and also the length of time it takes my eyes to recover from hours until the following day.

I was aware the Poco M5 was no powerhouse however I found the phone slow and software buggy upon initial setup with prompts appearing on screen in relation to this. I factory reset it and tried again however still was not happy and coupled with some strong eye strain I decided even if my eyes got used to the screen I wasn't happy with the initial experience of the software and hardware.

I genuinely do not know what the issue is with screens that causes my symptoms. I am fairly confident it is not PWM as I have had issues with devices that do not have PWM. I also have issues with LCD screens so do not take too much notice of the LCD vs OLED debate.

In the past I have returned the iphone SE (2016) and Sony Xperia Z3 Compact (2014) amongst other LCD handsets. I have been using a Google Pixel 3a for around 4 years now which is OLED. I recently looked at a friends iphone 15 Pro Max (OLED) and it didn't appear to cause any issues but that device is way out of my price range.

The other challenge for me is I prefer small handsets so around 6 to 6.2 inches so options are limited however if I found a 6.5 incher that I could use then I would still be very happy. I have just bought a refurbed iphone XR from Ebay as well as a screen protector for the first time to see if it helps though I doubt it, I know you have had success with screen protectors on some devices.

      jayd
      You might be suffering from motion blur eyestrain, which is a very real thing.
      OLED's have much faster response times compared to LCD's (both in monitor and smartphone space)

      The compact phone market is definitely dry. You could try one of the newer Zenfones (9/10), the old Sharp R2 Compact (LCD), or IPhone 13 Mini. That's as close to "compact" as one might get nowadays.

          qb74 Thanks for the advice I have been reading up on this and read that it isn't just moving objects / pixels that cause this but also static pixels if what I have read is accurate. My symptoms kick in just by looking at the home screen on a device so I don't even need to scroll up or down. This is also the same on the Windows home screen on a pc sometimes.

          I first spoke to an optician around 2014 about this and she said it is related to a communication issue between my brain and my eyes most likely. Last year I spoke with another optician who suggested I have pattern glare but I do not think the majority of opticians are aware or fully understand the issues we are experiencing, I do have rare issues with patterns on clothing such as checkered patterns and zig zig patterns and I did mention this to him so I think this is why he made the pattern glare comment.

          I have attached a photo of the screen on my kitchen airfryer and even this display caused some very mild issues the first few times I used it.

          I am thinking of eventually trying a refurbed iphone Pro Max as although the screens are larger I think I might get lucky with them based on my friends model.

            jayd Yes miui is one of the worst interfaces I've used. A complete resource hog, and every software update seems to slow down the system even more.

            However I love their eye care/paper mode.

                jordan Not sure about flickering, as I don't have an opple or similar device to enable me to check.

                However, the paper mode 3.0 used in some older miui device like the poco m3 pro 5g/poco m4 pro 5g, and a few of the budget redmi devices, worked very well in terms of eye comfort and reducing saturation. They also worked well with a matte screen protector.

                However, the same cannot be said for their newer devices like the Redmi 12 5G. That display is awful. My eyes just cannot tolerate it, regardless of any of the colors modes/eye comfort modes that are selected.

                I have a suspicion that it's using PWM, but I haven't been able to detect this using a slow mo camera/shutter speed.

                Likewise with the Honor X7B. Also a horrid display, and i suspect this may also be using pwm, even though Honor's customer service team claim it is "flicker free".

                I'm quite irritated at the fact that these are supposed to be cheap budget LCD devices, so one would expect them to be pretty usable for sensitive individuals (like previous budget LCD phones), but unfortunately this hasn't been the case.

                They're evidently using some new type of LCD tech, or some additional under screen layer, or the issue could be software related.

                    I mentioned earlier that I had very good experience with Poco x5 pro 5g. But several days ago there was an firmware update that changed MIUI to HyperOS (new OS by Xiaomi) and also new Android version (14 vs 12). And the experience became much worse (( probably new driver or smth else… now i cannot work comfortable more than 5:min. And no ways to rollback to previous system. So dont allow such update!

                      valex13 you should be able to manually flash the old firmware. I think on Xiaomi forums they post them there

                          jordan it is very complicated as I have to unlock the boot, and to do it i have to get the unlock permission from Xiaomi. But they don't give it for hyperos firmware. It is very complicated process now.

                            Hi. I also post this on another forum I found today. And I find this forum too. Can please anyone recommend good eye ache free phone

                            I try new OnePlus 12 for few days and it causing me lot of aching eye and very strong headache. I try all brightness colours setting but aching eyes still too much. I cant use for more few mins because eyes hurt too much

                            Before I also try honor 90, magic 5 pro, Xiaomi 13 pro, s23 ultra, Moto edge 40 pro pixel 8 pro all in1 year but I return all as same ache and headache

                            I read review of OnePlus 12 which said good for eye but for me not true. I am now sending back too.

                            Is any new phone with good camera eye ache free with no headache? I need good camera for pictures videos but I need headache free phone cause I use a lot for work things

                            I was using a Hisense A5 procc until i bricked it. Now a normal Redmi LCd phone and it sucks. Especially at night. Will get the TCL nxtpaper 40 soon and see how that goes. if not good then ill buy the hisense a9 eink phone

                              Vividblu99

                              It seems like the HyperOS update for the Redmi 12 5G has slightly improved the comfortability of the display.

                              The toxic backlight issue is still very present, especially at lower brightness levels, however, xiaomi have included a new "contrast" option within the developer settings. I've fiddled around with this (standard, medium, high), and i feel improvements after selecting the medium/high setting. The improvement is solely to do with the readability of web text. Web text appears more refined and easier to read/focus on.

                              Still, the display doesn't feel 100% comfortable, especially using it under 50% brightness, but after the HyperOs update, there does seems to be a marked improvement.

                              However, the HyperOS update has restricted disabling/uninstalling apps via ADB commands, which is a huge shame. This means debloating is now almost impossible. I think there is a workaround, but it entails creating a xiaomi mi account and registering the device first.

                                  vegeta97 I've had a negative experience with the Nxtpaper phones.

                                  They both use PWM, confirmed by TCL's tech team/customer support.

                                      Redmi Note 12 5G Pro looks interesting for me: just small background discomfort compare to other smartphones that trigger strong reaction from first seconds

                                        Vividblu99 really? sucks to hear that. Which model did you use? Am waiiting for the 50 models. So theyre not like eink at all? in terms of less eye strain i mean

                                            I still think we need some sort of 'poll' feature where (within reason) we can list phones (maybe different polls per year as there are a lot of devices released) we can then all vote against devices to say who can use / cannot use them etc.

                                            Query I've got for everyone though, on an android device you can use, please list the screen resolution and if it supports HDR / wide color gamut or not?

                                            Download 'devcheck' (its free) as it'll say there under hardware display.

                                            I have a theory that HDR and wide gamut uses more dithering, often on more budged phones with HD / HD+ (not FHD) we do not see HDR support so less dithering and less eye / headache pain?

                                            Also if it has PWM, some people PWM does not affect but I cannot tolerate it or much HDR as its all flickering to me and flickering = severe migraine headache pain (any OLED based phone is very likely using PWM)

                                            FYI Android 13 extra dim mode is similar to IOS reduce white point, makes screen even dimmer

                                            Latest from me, Moto g23 possibly usable with time, symptoms not so bad with night mode / eye shield warmer display + extra dim mode (LCD HD+, no HDR or wide gamut, cannot detect PWM) surprisingly fast for a phone with emmc storage though.(android 13)

                                            Moto g54 symptoms worse, (LCD FHD+, wide gamut and HDR enabled) unsure if usable long term (android 13)

                                            Samsung A32 5G, totally fine (LCD HD+, no HDR or wide gamut, cannot detect PWM) surprisingly slow for a phone with UFS storage though, samsung bloat / launcher / OS issue maybe? (android 11)

                                            vegeta97 I've had the opportunity to try both the 4G and 5G.

                                            I purchased the 4G model outright, and returned it soon after.

                                            If you click on my username, and scroll through my posts, you can read the review I made about my experience.

                                              ashento899

                                              Throughout all of 2023, the Honor 70 Lite was the least problematic handset I've tried, and has provided the most comfort.

                                              It's followed closely by the Honor X8A, however the X8A display has a very high saturation/contrast, so it may not be suitable for everyone.

                                              I've found both of these comfortable when using them at a fixed 60hz refresh rate only.

                                              It must be said that the performance/specs for both of them are trash, but that was something I was willing to overlook for eye comfort.

                                              Other devices that i've found comfortable to use in the past include the older Realme LCD based phones such as the 9 Pro, 7 5G, 8 5G, X50 5G. Everything realme has released after these has been uncomfortable.

                                                  dev