So I spent some serious time with my girlfriend's iPhone 7+ last night. I had intended to try the HTC10 first, but we were just laying around after a movie and before bed and I wasn't feeling great (too much sugar during the movie) and she wanted to distract me, so she installed one of my games and handed me her phone and cuddled up to me. Ok fine, I'll test hers first!
Test Scenario: My eyes were already tired, it was around 11PM. My usual routine is to play a little casual gaming (I like tower defense games) on my phone and then to either read or meditate or whatever before bed.
So the bad part first - it MIGHT have fucked with my sleep. I slept fitfully for the first few hours, although I did eventually get a solid night's sleep (it's vacation for me, which is why this was a good time to experiment). So whatever happens, a blue-light blocker or the iPhone version of f.lux (night shift? Whatever Apple calls it) would be in order. However, take this with a grain of salt - I've had a couple nights now of not sleeping well for a couple hours, then dropping off HARD after that. Need to reset my clock before I go back to work in January!
The "so-so"? I had to REALLY screw with the brightness. The iPhone 7+ is a SUPER BRIGHT phone. I had to put the brightness to around 30%, to not overpower my eyes given the ambient lighting in my room (which is a bedroom, the ambient lighting is... intended for bedroom activities, so pretty dim). For those of you with PWM sensitivity, I have no idea how it would perform with a gamma adjuster at full brightness. I wasn't going to install a gamma adjuster on my girlfriend's phone. But I also didn't play with "night shift" or "black level" or whatever Apple has around adjusting brightness with software, so YMMV here.
The good part, though? I played on it for an HOUR AND A HALF. My eyes DID get tired, but there are several caveats here. I played with my glasses OFF. On my HTC m8, I do this because I can hold the phone at EXACTLY the right distance to see the whole screen in focus without it being uncomfortable. The iPhone 7+, having an extra INCH of screen, I could not do that. Having it all visible without refocusing required it to be a LITTLE further away than I can comfortably focus without glasses (yeah, curse my aging eyes). So I chalk up a lot of the "tiredness" to just having to refocus over and over. Also, the game I was playing required a lot of refocusing all over the screen (it was Kingdom Rush Frontiers, for reference, played on default zoom) and moving the play area around. Lots of tapping, pinching, moving the phone, etc. So it wasn't an "ideal conditions focus test". I actually prefer it this way.
The even better? She just has Zagg ballistic glass on it. Meaning that I tolerated it, with no lingering ill effects that I can see, for 90 minutes... unfiltered. I can toss a Skinomi or even just a blue-filter on top of it, still!
But the general idea I get here is that I can use an iPhone 7+. Verizon will happily sell me one for $25 a month. If for whatever reason the one I get is not as good as the one my girlfriend has... Apple phones are universal and we can just swap SIM cards.
I'm going to give myself a day or two to 100% reset and then try this HTC 10 and report back.