Usable Smartphones?

degen

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

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

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."

tfouto

I ordered this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DVP43RJ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If it darkens the screen, it might help.

daniel_mate

tfouto I have noticed that reflection bothers me too. I had tested some privacy screen but it felt that one worsened the reflection so I gave up after few days.

I like matte filters tho, Skinommi is the best one I have ever tested and still use.

Polarized glasses seem to help a bit when using screens outside, inside not much.
Non polarized sunglasses did not help in both cases.

Tho non of these things was a game changer, just slight less discomfort on short usage.

tfouto

I played with the Iphone XS on the store. I made this video, with XS:

You can see the led's effect. The first phone being recorded is the Sony XZ 2, the second is the Iphone XS Máx. I dont know what it means, or if it is relevant.

Here's the video. One reason i dont like iOS is that you cant share videos easily from iphone to Android. So i have to record the video on XZ 2.

https://youtu.be/lUCB3WMWdeY

Looking at the IPhone XS, that screen is really confortable to my eyes. I dont know if it causes strain at the medium long term.
By default it uses True Tone enabled. It has a warm tone, but feel natural. If if turn on the night shift (Flux-alike) the screen seems to reddish and dont confortable.

Black letters on white background on browser are defined. I put máx. brightness on Iphone XS, my phone Sony XZ 2, and Iphone XR.

The Iphone XR was the worst in definition. The letters were somehow fuzzy, the edges. Dont know if is dithering, FRC, whatever. Sony XZ 2, was also not looking good, altough not as bad as XR. But clearly not defined. XS was really good. Really defined. The OS is the same as XR, so the screen makes some difference. I dont know if it is because of PPI. bigger resolution of XS than XR.

Also on máximum brightness on XS seems less then XZ2. I dont understand why. Even if i disabled the true tone on XS.

XS:
X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximum: 659 cd/m² Average: 637.4 cd/m²

XZ 2:
X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximum: 646 cd/m² Average: 632.4 cd/m²

But to my eyes the XZ 2 was way more brightness. Also XZ 2 screen, máx. brightness after few seconds i can feel the pain in my eyes. On XS i could use the screen máximum and no pain. Even if it was more confortable to lower the screen by half. But with XS i didn't feel the need to lower much the screen as i need on XZ 2.

Maybe the XS has more green and red spectrum, and brightness is different.

I think that XS has on the 470-490 more higher spectrum than other phones, so maybe it contracts more the pupil. That would explain why the XS perceives to my eye more darker at full brightness.

True Tone is an interesting concept it adapts the screen to the surronding light in white balance and lower light environments in order to less eye strain.

https://www.imore.com/why-you-should-use-true-tone-your-iphone-or-ipad

So i cant say that Iphone XS is eye strain free, because i would have to used for one, two days to be sure, but first impression was really good.

The PWM that iphone has dont seem to bother me. I am usually ok with PWM on low frequencies if they aren't digital. If they are sinousoidal i am ok with it.

AGI

tfouto True Tone is an interesting concept it adapts the screen to the surronding light in white balance and lower light environments in order to less eye strain.

https://www.imore.com/why-you-should-use-true-tone-your-iphone-or-ipad

That's tons of precious information and insights, thank you! However, I see True Tone has already been around for a while and I could not stand the Iphone X, so I doubt that is the game changer.
Do you know if PWM has been reduced from one to the next generation of OLEDs? I remember Iphone fans pointing their fingers at PWM and infrared light from the FaceID feature as to the reasons why they could not tolerate the X coming from previous devices which were okay...

tfouto

Iphone has some interesting options. Maybe they can help.

Besides the true tone, they have:

Reduce White Point (less colors to help eye strain). It makes the screen less colored, more greyish, dark.
Color filter: On filter is greyness. Everything becomes black and white. It was almost like watching a old newspaper.

I dont know if it specific iOS version, but maybe who have iphones can try and see if any of the above is helpful.

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.

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