"I Always Prefer LCD"

K-Moss

"After dealing with clusters, migraines (ever had an unbroken migraine for months? I have.), photophobia (yup, I wore sunglasses indoors, tried the blue light filtering lenses, the whole works), I found that PWM bothers me, high refresh and high contrast is an issue (no turning lights off while using a device in bed) and my caffeinated soda intake was causing me to be more sensitive to triggers. This was a 15+ year process for me. I owned several OLED phones without realising they directly coincided with some of my worst "bad periods" because we are also surrounded by sources of PWM in the form of cheap LED lightbulbs and poorly made monitors, laptops and televisions.

There's so much bad information in this sub. There's a reason I have to keep making the knife metaphor: When you're stabbing yourself, you're not going to get relief by using a shorter blade. You get relief by eliminating what is causing the issue. As much as you possibly can. And it can be more than just the screen. And sometimes that means admitting that one's self is the cause of these issues, be it psychological and/or physiological, environmental and/or self inflicted.

I currently use a Moto G100 and Moto Edge 2021 as a backup device. I've been able to use Mediatek based devices by turning off high refresh, color saturation and hw overlays (even though there's evidence that some Motorola Mediatek based devices have no PWM or TD), I've used software stock, I've used custom roms (and developed as well), I've used absolute shit-tier $35 devices and holy grail $800+ devices...

Today there's very little that separates the devices across the entire price range beyond performance and the screen itself when it comes to how they are manufactured and how they work. You're not going to feel better in any way paying more for the same thing that already bothers you unless your sense of self worth is tied to how much you spend and making sure other people can see it. And even then, you're still stabbing yourself with a knife, just a more expensive one.

And when it comes down to it, I will always prefer LCD because there are plenty more reasons why OLED screens are terrible beyond PWM.

TLDR: Stop stabbing yourself and take steps to figure out what is really happening."

Excerpted from: https://www.reddit.com/r/PWM_Sensitive/comments/1jkqi8o/comment/mjzmi2t/

K-Moss

"OLED screens with PWM flickering (or any other type with pwm) are very harmful, even if the user does not notice it. The screens are bombarding high intensity light impulses when the pupils are dilated (because the screen seems dark) which causes eye strain and headaches for many, but the unhealthy effects are there for everyone.

And as you also pointed out - the subpixel layout also makes the effective resolution worse.

I avoid OLED at all cost. Franky speaking, OLED is utter trash in laptops and smartphones and it is a shame that the industry pushes such screens."

K-Moss

"3kHz is still in the range of flicker sensitivity for humans.
OLED has 2 issues, which make me hesitant to recommend to people:
1.) PWM brightness dimming flicker

This is the part that's advertised as 3kHz. Most smartphone exhibit this, even at 100% brightness sadly) as a power saving measure.

I've personally had issues with 2.5kHz - 3kHz PWM brightness dimming flicker on LCD displays, hence why I said it's a band-aid. It reminds me of this great quote from Malcolm X:

“I will never say that progress is being made. If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that's below, that the blow made. And they haven't even begun to pull the knife out, much less pull, heal the wound... They won't even admit the knife is there.”

The same can be said for PWM. It needs a drastically different approach to not be an issue.

Take a look at this explanation to understand why the PWM value should either be 0 (no major variation in brightness) or a much larger value: https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=6519

2.) Refresh rate brightness dip

There seems to be a ~25% brightness drop every refresh cycle, which can be a contributor to eyestrain as well.

This seems to be a inherent hardware design of current OLEDs, regardless of TV, smartphones or desktop displays. The actual reason behind it, I haven't been able to find out. I've seen theories thrown around, such as this being an issue with the nature of capacitors (not fast enough to empty/fill themselves) but I haven't come across nothing conclusive.

That's why I refrain from recommending any kind of OLEDs displays for now, until these 2 issues are resolved.
I don't think anyone should try to forcefully "adapt" themselves to OLED. All humans show sensitivity to flicker, whether they perceive it or not. It's better to just opt for a safer IPS LCD phone.

As for your Xiaomi dilemma, it seems that the 14T Pro has both of what I've mentioned.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Xiaomi-14T-Pro-smartphone-review-Amazing-value-amazing-screen-brightness.907877.0.html

This can be easily seen in Notebookcheck's review.
Yes, OLED's and smartphones as a whole (due to heavy RF emission) can cause "sick feelings" and dizziness.
I haven't seen people mention the neck symptoms however.
You could consider doing neck exercises (basic neck extension & flexion, 3x a week, be extra careful & slow when performing them) for overall wellbeing.
Hope this helps."

https://www.reddit.com/r/PWM_Sensitive/comments/1fr8444/comment/m08to38/