Below 35%, the phone switches to 720Hz PWM dimming to ensure the display still retains a high-quality image and correct color accuracy.

And that is where sensitive people need more support from the manufacturer. They don't care about high-quality image and color accuracy at all. What they need is an option to disable the PWM completely, no matter how much the image quality degrades. I don't get why the manufacturer goes kind of a long way to implement his "flicker-reduction" just to stop at the most important part: low brightness conditions.

    KM

    Its a technical problem. The light output of LEDs at low voltages is much more varied than at higher voltages. A bunch of identical LEDs at a high voltage may have a similar brightness, but the lower the voltage goes the more different they will be, till you get the point where some be brighter, others will be dimmer, and some may not light up at all. I believe this applies to OLEDs as well, and most likely MicroLEDs if they become commercialized.

    Accommodating this without PWM will lead to higher costs / low production yields. Presumably it is possible though.

    They hard-coded the value to whatever 35% translates to. A few years ago, a developer has proven with a Samsung Galaxy smartphone that this is not a technical limitation and he managed to set it to 0%, effectively enabling pure DC dimming for the full brightness range. Sadly, I don't find the link anymore. But I think many of us remember it. Those arbitrary limits are done to hide panel imperfections, but those with eye strain don't care about that and should have an option to enable the full range down to 0%.

      a year later

      KM All these implementations have the objective of saving battery, only. We with sensitive eyes are f*ck*

      If it's and Android phone try turning on developer options and disabling HW video rendering That helped a lot for me

      Xiaomi low budget series work best for me. Right now I have Xiaomi 13, not as good as previous generation, but completely usable device, no eye strain at all.

      4 months later

      Mahdi Hey, I had the same problem, and found out that a Smart phone with LED or OLED display with an added privacy-screen protector removes all head-pain inducing radiation. Try that out!

      Mahdi I would say blackberry or Nokia 3110. Not kidding, you can still use those. And cell phone operators will not shut down old bands because many of the security and other sensor networks communicate via those old technologies.

      • JTL replied to this.

        Donux And cell phone operators will not shut down old bands because many of the security and other sensor networks communicate via those old technologies.

        That's not the case with all networks in all countries.

        I'm moving the majority of my phone usage to a boox palma, yes this requires me to carry an additional device, but it seems to be worth it.

        7 days later

        I have tried so many phones after the first device to ever cause me eye strain, blurred vision, headaches and nausea was a Samsung Galaxy S21 5G. The best smart phones by far with no Dithering, PWM and no weird contrast or depth issues are the Redmi Note 8 and Note 10s - perfect screen I could look at for 10 hours with no problems.

          Zen242 The redmi note 10 was safe to look at? what about the pro model as well? they appear to both be "Super amoled"?

          This is no one smartphone

          Try disabling HW Rendering in Developer options, tht has helped me a lot with some phones

          5 days later

          I'm keeping my eye on E-Paper/E-Ink phones. They seem like a step back in terms of image quality, but on paper, it seems like a good choice in general for those suffering from modern displays.

          dev