• AbstractPWM

  • Eyestrain From Screen Refresh Flickering On Moto G54

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.

      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.

                  George357 The G55 is essentially the same phone as the G54

                  Youre right, I found at least 2 bad feedbacks regarding G55's screen

                    George357

                    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

                          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.

                                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?

                                  moonpie non-LTPO

                                  Agreed. I also think, LTPS (a-Si) much better than LTPO / oxide TFT

                                    • qb74

                                      • Post #39
                                      • Edited

                                      George357
                                      This is an excellent observation you've noted.
                                      Every transition on your display may exhibit flicker / brightness oscillations.
                                      This could very likely be a much larger culprit to eyestrain complaints than the software dithering talks on these forums.
                                      Adding VRR (variable refresh rate panels) on top makes this even worse.

                                      For example, desktop OLED displays have a 25% brightness drop every refresh cycle (if 240hz display => every 4,17ms)
                                      If you were to use it at 250cd/m2, it would drop by 80cd/m2 every 4,17ms (not a full on-off cycle, but on-semi off)

                                      This is sadly an issue that very likely plagues a 99% of smartphone display models and even some desktop displays.
                                      This can only be troubleshooted with proper G2G response times testing setup, using an oscilloscope and a good probe, the OSRTT or similar devices.

                                        dev