iPhone 16e PWM

m1ngw

That's very interesting thanks. It's contrary to the past where we have been told to increase brightness to reduce pwm.

Clokwork

wlmsn My gosh you hit the nail on the head with how you described that. I didn't have words the describe the way the white screens looks on modern apple displays.

"It feels like I'm starting at a white snowbank on a sunny day."

seakerofsense

I don't quite understand. So, what’s the advice? Should we keep the brightness level between 75% and 100%? Thanks for posting this.

NewDwarf

seakerofsense 0-20% brightness is good to me.

Same is for 75-100% brightness.

I avoid using brightness in the middle of these ranges.

seakerofsense

@NewDwarf Thank you. What’s your opinion on the "Reduce White Point" option? Are you using it?

NewDwarf

seakerofsense No ways to fool PWM. I tried to use "Reduce White Point" but PWM is adjusted to these changes. So, it is not an option at all.

Regarding dithering. It is difficult to speculate about dithering without having reliable tools to measure it.

I am skeptical about measurement of dithering by means of microscope and 240fps camera.

Again, the iPhone 16e's screen is totally usable to me if the brightness level is 70%+ or 0-10%.

seakerofsense

Also, do you think the temporal dithering is the issue with the iPhone 16e?

Clokwork

seakerofsense If it has an XDR display then its likely going to be an issue for a lot of us. There's something about that panel, even with the base iPad which uses sRGB that gives me issues. I have heard rumblings that our issues could go beyond temporal dithering. It could be the LEDs used in modern displays, but I have no direct proof so take this with a grain of salt.

seakerofsense

NewDwarf By the way, are you using any specific screen protector? Also, have you checked the manufacturer of your display?

macsforme

I tried an iPhone 16e in an Apple store. At 100% brightness (under the blinding ceiling lights in the store), the display seemed comfortable, even with True Tone on and with the latest iOS (or close to it). With True Tone disabled, the display definitely took on a heavy blue tone and seemed slightly less comfortable (the opposite of my typical experience). I did not try reducing the brightness.

Clokwork

I haven't given the 16e a chance in person. The specs alone scare me off, but I guess I would need to objectively give it a shot. It's a XDR display that supports wide P3 color. I can't see how it isn't flickering like crazy.

NewDwarf

seakerofsense No, I don't use a screen protector. How can I check a display's manufacturer?

seakerofsense

NewDwarf

seakerofsense It begins with G9Q

seakerofsense

NewDwarf Interesting.. Your is most likely a Samsung, I'm in the EU and had a GVH (LG or BOE) and cannot stand it….Based on various discussions/feedback on Reddit, displays from different manufacturers can have different patterns of PWM

AshX

For what it’s worth, I looked at the iPhone 16e at a store it at least it didn’t immediately make me feel like I was going to drop like a rock lol. But who knows until you open one for yourself.

alwaysconfident

NewDwarf hard to believe at certain brightness some colors don’t flicker

lock brightness to a certain percentage

use a software (try color blind function?) to turn pwm colors into non pwm colors / a screen protector to block pwm colors

completely pwm-proof?

AshX

alwaysconfident

Are we sure this isn’t dithering interacting with PWM? This could be what is occurring on the MacBook Airs, but in a different manner because it is an LCD IPS screen.

alwaysconfident

NewDwarf please try and let me know:

lock brightness

use a software to turn flickering colors into non flickering colors

e.g. brightness 30% settings-color filters-color tint adjust hue and intensity

brightness 100% settings-color filters-color tint grayscale/other options

NewDwarf

alwaysconfident I afraid I am not sure what you mean.

…but, attempts to fool PWM using some tricks don't work.

Let's take base colour - Red, Green, Blue.

Each colour has its own PWM pattern for the full brightness range.

It doesn't matter what colour filter you will use, red pixel is still red pixel (the same is for green and blue). The tricks you proposed just change intensity of radiation of the specific pixel.

So, PWM is totally brightness dependant property.

As I already said, I don't feel any bad effects of PWM if I use brightness level 0-20%, 70-100%.

alwaysconfident

NewDwarf set brightness to 100%

use a software method so that when displaying any image, what originally is a blue/peach color gets displayed as a non blue/peach color

ergo there shouldn’t be flickers

1 possible ‘software method’ is: settings-color filters-color tint-grayscale

there are other options in color tint,please try