Right now, if this battery transplant for my HTC m8 doesn't go well, the plan is to try something else... at present, that "something else" will likely be the iPhone 7+ running iOS 10 (if I can get one) and similar settings to degen. With a matte skinomi protector. I'd prefer not to abandon the Android ecosystem, but since new devices aren't shipping with (nor do they support) Lollipop, and the newer Android OS'es are problematic...
Usable Smartphones?
Nokia 6 is a 720p PWM-free IPS display on Nougat. Don't know anyone with one, but worth considering.
Nokia 6 gave me eye strain after 30 mins of use. I found Nokia 5 much more pleasing to my eyes, but i had not been able to use it more than 15 mins.
Also for the forum, i tested Sony Xperia X for a couple of days. The eye strain and headache was so intense that i could not sleep well at night. The screen seemed to me very harsh at any brightness grade, although no PWM is detected according to https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Xperia-X-Smartphone-Review.170397.0.html
I am also in search for a new smartphone. My 3 year Vodafone device which is very easy on my eyes (TLC was the manufacturer) has become very very slow even though i have uninstalled half of the apps.
4 days later
Can confirm the Moto G 4 and Moto G 4 plus are better, but still ultimately product eye strain after extended use.
Guys what do you think it is about Android software that can cause eyestrain? Never considered OS on phone could be a reason for eyestrain.
Is nougat 7.1 safe?
Does anyone know if the LG G6 uses temporal dithering on Android 7.0 or higher? From what I know its pwm free.
Well I don't know how, at the size it is, you'd be able to tell without a REALLY good camera, but my son's G6 is... better than most but still unpleasant for me to look at.
I've seen people report that Nougat 7.1 gives them severe eye strain. I have an HTC U Ultra that comes with Nougat 7.0, and it is the absolute worse eye strain I have ever got. But I do not know for sure if that is caused (or solely caused) by Nougat 7.0. The only way to know for sure if you have a phone that you can use absolutely without eye strain, then you upgrade the OS to Nougat and suddenly you get eye strain. And if you downgrade the OS back, your eye strain disappear. That is the only way to know for sure if Nougat (or anything) is the cause of your eye strain.
LG G6 has PWM in the range of 2,400Hz, which is not detectable if you use smartphone camera (which can only detect around 240Hz PWM). A PWM of 2,400Hz can be detected using oscilloscope. Just google LG G6 PWM and you can see the result.
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Maybe we should ask the question the other way round, is there anyone here who can use ANY smartphones with Android Nougat at all, either 7.0 or 7.1, without any eye strain?
If yes, please share what phone make and model it is.
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Kray
- OnePlus 3 on Android 7.0 (OxygenOS): no eye strain
- same OnePlus 3 on Android 7.1 (OxygenOS): strong eye strain within minutes (red, burning eyes)
- same OnePlus 3 on LineageOS (Android 7.1x): same eye strain
- same OnePlus 3 on both older OxygenOS versions (Android 6) and CyanogenMod (Android 6): no eye strain, UNLESS the color profile is set to anything other than the default setting, or apps are used that change colors by using the "draw over other apps" permission (even when I set such apps' color slider to default, zero); same for Android 7.0
I think LineAgeOS uses sources from the manufacturer's OxygenOS. Whatever eyestrain-causing is happening there since Android 7.1, LineageOS seems to have copied it.
Or it's really the core Android 7.1 itself, but for this device it's not Android 7.0.
Interesting. I assume you do not get eye strain on display with PWM? Because I read the review of OnePlus 3, and it has PWM at 240Hz range. If you can use this phone with Android 7.0 must mean you dont get eye strain from PWM. Unfortunately, I do.
Anyway, the new Huawei Mate 10 is out already. It has a different chipset (Kirin processor, instead of Snapdragon), different GPU (Mali, instead of Adreno) and different OS (using the new Adroid Oreo 8.0). Mate 10 is using IPS LCD, their past models does not have PWM. This might be an interesting model to try.
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I suffer greatly from PWM. I can only use the phone when selecting a brightness outside of the PWM range. The display uses PWM at lower brightness settings, and when you increase the brightness in steps (there are 255 steps) there's suddenly a point where the PWM abruptly stops (at 68). Unlike for example most Samsung AMOLED display which flicker at even full brightness (255).
I also discovered that flicker seems to not trigger me when the difference in amplitudes is very small. Like the leftover 60 Hz flicker AMOLEDs generally seem to have when PWM brightness control is disabled. The OP3 has it, and the guy who created the "no PWM" kernel for the Galaxy S7 wrote about it, too. OLED TVs seem to have the 60 Hz flicker, too, but usually their flicker spike is much larger than on AMOLED phones. It can be seen in notebookcheck.com and rtings.com reviews, and also with digital cameras and the flicker tester app. On most devices low brightness PWM flicker is basically just on/off, which is the highest possible difference. I'm even triggered by 100 Hz of some smaller incandescent bulbs. I tested the bulbs with Viso System's flicker tester smartphone app, which showed me that they had a noticably larger flicker index (difference between amplitudes) than standard sized bulbs. Everyone probably has different flicker thresholds. I remember the AMOLED 60 Hz leftover flicker has a much lower flicker index than standard incandescent bulbs (yet those light sources are not directly comparable - one is wavy, the other is rectangular). What I want to say is that the leftover flicker might be that small that it might not be triggering anyone, not even people like me who on top of all this are affected by certain home or office non-LED lightings.
I have purchased a Samsung S7 Edge, installed the PWM-free kernel from the guy in XDA forum, running it on Android 6.1 and also on 7.0. Even though the PWM is gone, unfortunately still gives me eye strain. Not sure if that is caused by the 60Hz refresh rate, or something in the Android 6.1 and 7.0, but it is a no go for me.
After reading what you wrote, I am now tempted to buy a used Oneplus 3 just to see if it gives me eye strain or not.
8 days later
Kray Even though the PWM is gone, unfortunately still gives me eye strain
Remember, PWM is not a defined root cause of eye strain. It's just a suspected culprit. That said, if there a known way to determine which brightness setting on an individual device will stop using PWM? would be good for more testing
I can say after some recent testing that Android 7 causes MUCH worse eye strain than Android 6 on the same device. MUCH worse.
Update: Have been using iphone 7 since over 1 month now with no strain issues when used for reasonable amounts of time, like 30-40 minutes at a time. I avoid going beyond that. IOS updates have not changed this. The 2017 ipad is usable for 3-4 hours without any strain. No luck with any android phone so far. I do not use night shift or colour correction. I just use 'Reduce white point' to 80% and this yields 0 eye strain over the aforesaid time periods. Trying to changethe 'reduce white point' setting to 50-60% did result in mild strain hence I just leave it at 80%. I also use low brightness levels. Generally I don't go above 30% except in sunlight. I also use a matte screen guard (Tech Armor) to reduce reflections, though until I installed it (3 days after purchase) I hadn't noticed any significant strain.
I read that the iphone 8 has the same screen tech hence maybe some people would find that equally good. I tested the screen tone feature on iphone 8 at a store and found it gave rise to eye strain instantly, so that should probably be avoided.
I hope we see some usable android phones soon with the cost of iphones going thru the roof. Do post here if anyone has similar results with the iphone 7 or 7 plus or 8 series using the settings I mentioned. Iphone X too.
I can use my girlfriend's iPhone 7+ for short periods. I haven't spent any serious time with it, though.
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ensete is there a known way to determine which brightness setting on an individual device will stop using PWM? would be good for more testing
With a digital camera (also smartphone and tablet cameras) you can see stripes if the PWM frequency is low enough. For current AMOLED devices it's low enough (240 Hz). The PWM frequency normally doesn't depend on brightness levels. It might simply disappear at a certain brightness level, and that's where the stripes disappear, too. And hopefully the eye strain.
I suggest you start at 100% brightness and put the camera in AE/AF locked mode (on Android and iOS usually by touching and holding any point of the screen for a while). Then slowly decrease brightness until suddenly (additional) stripes appear. I say additional stripes because the 60 Hz small amplitude stripes might be visible all the time.
I did this and it proved to me that I'm sensitive to 240 Hz PWM (at least when the percent flicker is high http://www.ledbenchmark.com/faq/LED-Flicker-Measurement.html). It also helped me in finding the exact point of my OnePlus 3 where PWM deactivates. I suggest using this Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsypa.brightnessmanager Don't let the bad reviews fool you. It's perfect for our purposes because it displays the full range of Android brightness levels (0-255) as opposed to most apps' percentages.