Usable Smartphones?

beat

deepflame Did you have any problems with some of the iOS11 versions (especially the later ones)?

daniel_mate

beat My worst discomfort was coming from the iPhones for year, but I kept using them. I think at some point at iOS11 became worse and now with iOS12 not tolerable at all. I'm on iPhone X and recently just for any case disabled the face recognition too (in case infrared interferes too since on macrumors people complain about it)

Same with the MacOS, it felt bad for years but after High Sierra it felt worse, where not with Mojave even worse.

After ~10y of being primarily Apple user starting to look at alternatives now since these days I can't handle these devices more than a minute. Even that minute is painful and after that need few minutes to recover.

This weekend at BestBuy took a look at iPhone6. It's LCD and felt milky, I don't remember having that experience when had it in the past. Took at look at XR too. Both were as bad as my X.
Took a look at Galaxy9 and Pixel 3. I don't think they are good either but both felt much easier on my eyes

deepflame

beat I have an iPhone 6 Plus which is unbearable. Currently it has iOS 12 on it, before iOS 11. It was not usable at any time but think that iOS 12 made it even worse.
Cannot remember that I had iOS10 on it.

tfouto

I made a video with a cheap microscope.
There seem to be background noise on HTC one, with max brightness, seems on backlight.

On Sony XZ 2 not on max brightness there is lots of ficker. Dont know how reliable is the camera.

HTC One: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ai2kKt-CrSGog4la7Kj7wzV3pRnu9Q

Be careful watching the following video, too much flickering:
Sony Xz 2: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ai2kKt-CrSGog4lbfMO-b1Gfo0iNqA
Original file: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ai2kKt-CrSGog4lcKNFY32S7Z0H0lw
For some reason when converting to mp4 didn't convert it to the end.

It's crazy, watching the Sony Video on Computer seems to trigger the symptoms. Have to rewatch it later. Seemed that i had strong symptoms just watching the Sony Video on computer.

Does anyone feel anything by watching the second video?

Seagull

tfouto

What do you think the cause of the flickering is?

andc

tfouto

That's great - I actually started doing the same thing here: https://ledstrain.org/d/409-screens-under-microscope-in-slowmo-dithering-frc-tests/36 - please post your results / videos there, so they're easier to find. Based on what I found out there - many devices tend to flicker on lower shades of R G B, they may flicker on brighter shades too, but my HTC 10 could only see the flicker when it's darker.

tfouto

I don't know.

If the camera is reliable. If is the backlight. If leds itself are unstable. Some kind of dithering. Don't know.

Seagull

tfouto

I have often wondered how visible lcd flickering due to inversion is, may be a factor.

http://www.techmind.org/lcd/index.html#inversion

andc

tfouto
I may move it (PWM will still be visible) and I don't have to make photos - just invoke this quick shutter mode and observe what can be seen on phone's screen. When you'll spot it it should be clearly obvious - black stripes over the screen that get bolder as the frequency of shutter goes up or brightness of target screen goes down. Not only screens can be tested this way - you should see flicker on lights if they tend to have similar frequency.
It will depend if your phone allows you to take such quick shutter photos, but if it does just try it out on a few laptops at computer shop and you should quickly find ones that have PWM.

degen

degen @KM The OnePlus 3 is better for me than the iPhone 8 Plus.

diop

daniel_mate Which iOS is that iPhone 6 using? Maybe an older version.

I can't remember which version of iOS 11 I upgraded to from 10.3.X but it immediately looked different, the text is slightly out of focus now, and the colours look off.

Also I could use my phone for hours at a time but after iOS11/12 it's just hard to focus - also looking in the mirror after a 'session' on iOS12 my pupils are dilated quite a lot - this doesn't happen on my good devices - quite scary to see - why do these devices make your pupils dilate? Am i being hypnotised? 🙂

tfouto

KM How did you measure ripple ficker percentage? What's the device?

KM

tfouto I must have done that with the Fauser LiFli flicker meter. The device outputs flicker percentages on a scale in 1.5% increments, which is probably why I wrote "on the verge of 3%". It is important to know the LiFli is not meant for display measurements but room lighting. It needs a certain brightness.
For more precise measurement I would use my PicoScope 2204A USB oscilloscope. It has AC mode, which is important to see very small ripple. I didn't have that oscilloscope yet at the time I wrote the comment.

Edit: the formula I use for ripple flicker is, amplitudes, "(max-min)/max".

tfouto

Devotee Interesting. My 27'' monitor Samsung SA850 2560x1440 is also PLS, and dont give me any trouble on 0% Brightness.

tfouto

KM What probe, photodiode do you use it with PicoScope 2204A USB oscilloscope?

Do you find the values matches your eye sensitivity?

KM

tfouto This with a battery: https://ledstrain.org/d/312-homemade-oscilloscope-to-detect-pwm-diy-guide/42
I did not find a universal pattern between eye strain, flicker frequency and waveform yet.

Edit: I re-used the probes from my Hantek 6022BE oscilloscope. The 2204A is available without probes, too, and I wanted to save some money.

degen

KM Do you find it ok to enable sRBG display calibration? Makes the screen a deal warmer.

I am quite happy with this phone and will be selling the iPhone. Thanks for pointing me in right direction.

KM

degen No, the sRGB mode makes the screen uncomfortable for me after a while. As does night mode and any other color-changing stuff.

tfouto I use it to measure the PWM flicker and get the exact Android brightness value at which PWM turns off. The default brightness sliders are less accurate, as they don't display any numbers, or a percentage at most. But the real values behind the scenes are 0-255, so let's use them. If you have a display that you need to keep above its PWM range, it can be quite bright in dark environments. So you'd want to know the exact minimal non-PWM brightness, even if the difference is just a few numbers.

tfouto

KM What's the point of this app? It's works exactly like the brightness slider of the OS.

tfouto

KM so, what's your display mode?

My phone says the number of % brightness.

KM

tfouto No mode that you can select. It runs the mode it's in out of the box. Probably no color profile mode at all, just the uncalibrated display.

tfouto

KM Have you tried to talk with dev's of the ROM, and see if they know the difference, for other ROM's and original?

What might it be. Color temperature, gamma, other parameters? Dithering? Different calibration which might lower the blue spectrum, increase green or red?

tfouto

KM https://www.xda-developers.com/color-rendering-android-why-all-oems-must-offer-an-srgb-mode/

"This is why sRGB calibration matters so much for Android devices. While the sRGB color space and BT.709 are an antiquated standard that is being replaced, Android displays MUST conform to the profile, or allow a choice. Samsung devices have done this for years. The Adaptive color setting is a wide gamut (think BT.2020 or similar), Photo AMOLED is Adobe RGB, and Basic is sRGB. When you say that Samsung phones have overly saturated unrealistic colors it is not that the display itself is inferior or calibrated improperly, it’s that Android just doesn’t know how to use all that extra gamut. This is where OnePlus dropped the ball, and what Carl Pei failed to understand. sRGB is not “niche”, it is the only thing your phone can properly display because it is what almost all content is calibrated to. By calibrating the OnePlus 3 to NTSC they failed to realize that instead of increasing its gamut, it just corrupted the proper colors."

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