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.
Eyestrain From Screen Refresh Flickering On Moto G54
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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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.
7 days later
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So following the tip from fiftydinar I bought a Oneplus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G and... Hallelujah! It's flicker-free! At all brightness levels. I've been using it a for a week now with no ill effects, no eye pain, no discomfort at all. Examination with my flicker detector shows no flickering apart from some very low amplitude oscillations associated with the screen refresh. The trace looks very similar to that of my Redmi Note 8 shown above which is reflected in my experience - no problems. I haven't found any complaints from others about eye problems with this phone so I think it is a safe choice for those of us who are sensitive to flickering. The Nord CE 3 Lite 5G is called the Nord N30 5G in North America and I believe the Realme 10 Pro is the same phone.
I'm very glad to hear that!
Realme 10 Pro is basically the same phone as you noted, but older. There are slight differences in design, slower charging & slightly brighter screen. I thought about buying it, but there are no selling offers for it in my country. I prefer the Pastel Lime color of OnePlus anyway, so I don't regret it.
I think that we should hold tight on this phone, because it's the question if we'll have any good choice like this in the future.
The phone we bought is 1 year & 9 months old & phones which got released after that period of time are sadly not flicker-free. Nord CE 4 Lite as a successor has Amoled & I hardly see this trend stopping.
But let's hope that I'm not correct on this & that some good similar flicker-free phone will deny my predictions.
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George357 You're lucky, I tried the Nord N30 last year after only 20 minutes of using it felt extremely tired / dizzy / brain fog. It was flicker free PWM-wise, but something else about it was messing with me. The UI seemed really blurry even when UI scaling was set to the "native" amount, it felt like everything, especially icons and lines had an unnatural shadow or blurry glow around it in addition to white backgrounds seeming too harsh. The viewing angles also seemed unnatural, like when looking at it flat on a table it seemed to have a metallic effect as I moved around that I don't usually notice on phones. After those same symptoms happened 3 times using it I had to return it.
It was on Android 13 BTW, so these problems were not related to Android 14.
Also, I don't like that on the N30 and many other OnePlus/OPPO phones the variable refresh rate cannot be locked to 120, I notice it whenever the refresh rate changes, and trying to lock it to 60 felt more uncomfortable to me than 120 did.
Possibly, there is a panel lottery for this phone, maybe you ended up with a better panel than I did (or there are potentially more differences between the CE 3 and N30 beyond just the name)
8 days later
fiftydinar It seems I may have spoken too soon. After installing crDroid on my phone it has been giving me some eye pain and it's becoming a problem. I am not sure why but I think it has something to do with the screen refresh flickering which did not seem to be a problem with the stock ROM. On the oscilloscope this flickering is at 120hz regardless of the refresh rate applied in the settings. I always ran the stock ROM at 60hz but selecting that in the crDroid settings has no effect on the flickering frequency. On the stock ROM there were just three options: 60hz, 120hz and Auto, but in crDroid I have two settings, one for peak refresh rate and one for min refresh rate with options between 30hz and 120hz so I am wondering if the implementation is different in crDroid. I thought of installing LineageOS to see if it is more like the stock ROM in this respect but maybe you can save me some time and tell me what the refresh rate options are on your LOS installation. Thanks for your help.