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simplex Any experience guys with the G45?
Eyestrain From Screen Refresh Flickering On Moto G54
I am sticking to Zenfone 5z for now, it's the most eye-friendly i've been able to find with unlockable bootloader. It's an older device but not slow by any means, it has good cameras and the best audio i've ever encountered on any device.
Another reason/issues that i've encountered with Motorola G54:
- Besides being very reflective, the screen brightness is low, which makes things even worse and makes the contrast to plummet; it's about 20% lower than some other phones but the difference is extremely noticeable. This phone bothers me more during the day than at night, where it's impossible to find the right level of luminosity and screen temperature.
- the ambient light sensor is extremely slow or of extremely low quality. Whereas the Asus would change the light level near instantly, it takes the Motorola about 5 seconds to start lowering/increasing the level of light making it very uncomfortable to the eyes. Even then, it's rarely on point and even after a week of use (when the phone should have learned my preferences) i still find myself very often regulating the slider manually.
- another point; this phone doesn't seem to have a light temperature sensor. This might be the worst thing about it. You're stuck between two options, 'natural' and 'saturated' which both seem unnatural and which work only under extremely light conditions. In all other, including indoors, cloudy, the screen colour temperature is totally out of touch and can't be changed either through the sensor (there is none) or manually the options are extremely limited and basically represent a choice from bad to worse.
So even if the screen/display on the G54 might be good on paper, it lacks the adjoining technology for it to work. Besides, it reflectivity is beyond any phone i've ever used. It's like a mirror. I don't know about the recently announced G64 but i've heard that even the flagship Motorola Edge plus doesn't have a physical light sensor but uses the selfie camera instead, which is apparently unable to display/affect and adapt to the ambient colour temperature (or even luminosity), making this screen ultimately worse than some AMOLED panels with DC dimming and good ambient light/colour sensors.
For me this screen is worse than the one i had on the Asus ROG phone 5 which was AMOLED but had DC dimming and could be calibrated manually as well.
That's in short.
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George357 Besides, i forgot to add.
The Moto G54 has no hardware proximity sensor.
Instead of, it uses an infrared pulsating LED that i've been able to detect with my other phone in manual mode.
If the LED is disabled and colour conditions set to 'natural' the screen becomes 'usable', at least at night.
But then, you don't have touch to wake up and other gestures, as well the gyroscope (no auto-rotate mode) and other movement sensor related functions.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jluXxsnftgU
I'd say that flickering LED produces 50% of the eye strain.
moonpie It's the infrared sensor pulsations.
simplex One of the things i noticed is that the Moto G54 screen was much 'thinner' compared to the screen on the Zenfone 5 or Redmi Note 8. If you press or know it strongly, it sounds 'hollow'. The screens on the Redmi/Asus sound like thick glass when you know on them. Whereas when turned off, the former screens look black, this one looks somehow 'grey'. Its reflexibility under the sun is insane, it's just like a mirror. That ads onto top of the other topics.
Cirrus2709 G45 is basically the same phone as the G34 with some very minor upgrades so expect it to have the same display as the G34 I tested above.
simplex The G55 is essentially the same phone as the G54 with some minor upgrades, expect it to have the same display as the G54 with the same problems. Any hope for something with a different display will have to wait until the next generation.
Cirrus2709 I no longer have the G54 so can't test your theory about the IR LED but I am reasonably confident that the display flickering in my oscilloscope traces was the cause of my problems with it. Flickering displays are my main problem, along with Android's default text renderer settings.
simplex I don't know what that means.
I wrote about this phone some months ago...
It has extreme reflectiveness due to a thin layer of glass (cost or weight saving measure or screen type I guess). Meaning, whatever flickers in the environment (and it always does, especially at night) you'll have it on your screen, despite the screen not having PWM per-se.
Second, the phone doesn't have a proximity sensor but uses the infrared one instead. Meaning you have an infrared light constantly pulsing into your eyes (just try it with your other's phone camera on slow motion anyone, it's next to the selfie camera).
https://youtube.com/shorts/jluXxsnftgU?si=5m3s_a7HfPcSLK6a
There you have it.
Besides, it has a poor outdoor brightness and no colour temperature sensor either, meaning there are 4 detrimental factors for the eyes, despite no having PWM.
To top it all, it has no brightness sensor either, using the selfie camera instead, making the auto-brightness mode extremely slow and/or inaccurate and necessiting user input/corrections most of the time.
Last but but least, some users reported that it has something to do as well with the MediaTek processor and their Miracast technology producing high-frequency flickering.
Btw it is a lot more usable in 60hz, neutral colours and with the infrared sensor disabled but all the other issues remain.
Cheers.
Cirrus2709 MediaTek processor and their Miracast technology producing high-frequency flickering.
Do you mean MiraVision? Miracast is just a device to TV casting protocol like AirPlay, you're probably thinking of MiraVision
Try enabling developer settings, then turn on "Disabling HW Overlays"
I still believe "flicker"/PWM is a red herring when it comes to display issues
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George357
I bought new OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite in 9th January for 158 euros & I flashed LineageOS 2 hours after buy. It just got official LineageOS status in 4th January.
It works very well without any noticeable bugs in my usage, I like it (even VoLTE works).
It's flicker-free when I compare it with Poco X3 NFC, which had some flicker below 65% brightness. Nord didn't have any across all brightness range. But note that I didn't use some more professional tool to compare it, just a camera with 1/4000 shutter speed.
For me, I don't have eye-strain with it compared to Poco, but experience may vary.
It's the only new PWM-free phone I know which has custom ROM support.
fiftydinar Thanks for sharing that. I've looked an Nord CE 3 Lite in the past but always decided against because there didn't seem to be any good stable custom ROM for it and the stock ROM seemed poor. With official LineageOS it's a more appealing prospect. Having exhausted almost all the other phones on my list of Potentially Usable Phones, I think I'll buy one and see how I get on with it.
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moonpie Thanks, I've read it. According to their review, no PWM but as we have found from the G54 and G34, that doesn't guarantee there is no flickering. The best we can do is to take the Notebookcheck review as a starting point for Potentially Usable Phones but to really know if a phone is flicker-free, you just have to buy one and test it yourself. But when even PWM-free phones have flickering we are entering difficult times. Will there ever be any more truly flicker-free phones?
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