Maxx I'm really curious if you are able to get your hands on a Sonim XP Pro. I personally tested out that screen and found it the best available in the phone format. If you try it, be sure to leave some commentary here. Otherwise, I can recommend the G 2025. The G 2025 is superior for comfort to most phones, but the XP Pro is superior to the G 2025.
My suspicion is that most phones are too thin and minimalist to give the user a properly comfortable screen experience. The XP Pro is a more thorough offering that is LCD done right without trying to cater to a silly consumer market where maximally thin and maximally light is the goal.
If you know how LCD works, you know that trying to do the LCD panel as thin as possible is bound to compromise screen comfort. Therefore, although I'm a fan of the Moto G 2025 for offering superior comfort to most phones, the XP Pro is in a league of its own.
In fact, I have been accused of being a Motorola salesman. Therefore, my praise of the XP Pro carries considerable weight.
Moreover, I will praise and promote any product I feel is the best. Therefore if manufactures desire my promotion, they simply need to deliver to the public a superior screen for long-lasting eye and brain comfort. I promote what works best for me.
I thought the Moto LCD phones were the best until I tried the XP Pro.
XP Pro is a more expensive phone to be sure, but it is worth every penny when you appreciate the specs and ruggedness of the unit, and software support until summer of 2030. My only complaint is the lack of a headphone jack. That annoys me more than it will most others.
That said, it is the only phone I've yet tried where the screen is as comfortable as paper, at least when avoiding reflections in outdoors environments. My eyes relax with that screen without any stinging. I don't feel the same comfort with any Moto LCD although they are all better than most other phones, and the Moto G 2025 is a worthy competitor, especially if one wants a budget offering with a headphone jack.
Another plus: the Sonim XP Pro has no flickering IR light like the Moto units have. Some have posted credible complaints that the blinking light on Moto units causes them eye and/or brain issues. With the Moto units, you can disable sensors using a Quick Button, but when you do that all the sensors are disabled, so in practice what I've done is leave the senors on until I am doing some extended reading, at which point I click the Disable Sensors Quick Button.
XP Pro has no such nuisance.
Also, when I say the screen is comfortable as paper, it is important to recognize this:
It does not look like paper. It simply feels as comfortable. How a screen looks and how comfortable it is are two different things. OLED often can look paper-like, as one of the members here stated, but that actually has nothing to do with how comfortable it actually is. OLED can look soft while simultaneously murdering the eyes. XP Pro looks like a good LCD screen and soothes the eyes. The screen is what I like about the G 2025 screen except significantly better.
By the way, the XP Pro has a superbly strong processor, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. A high-performance Snapdragon processor is very rare in the LCD space. The TCL is using the Mediatek Dimensity 7400. Some say all MediaTek processors cause them eye strain. Therefore, it is possible some of the reason I prefer the XP Pro to Moto G LCD units is the Snapdragon processor, keeping in mind I have not yet tried the G75 with the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3.
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 is way better than the 6 Gen 3. I don't know how noticeable are the benefits for most users, but there's something innately enjoyable about having a processor so strong in your mobile phone. It feels empowering? I mean at all times you know you have one of the very best processors continually working for you. There's something manly about it.
The screen on the XP Pro is totally different from the Moto units. The Moto devices feel like the engineers tried to make them maximally thin, which necessarily compromises screen comfort. All the consumer products seem to suffer from form over function in some key respects like this.
XP Pro is intended for rugged professionals in hard, harsh, and extreme environments. Even the Gorilla Glass on it is said to be 4X thicker than on a typical consumer phone. That fact alone could improve comfort? I feel like the only way you'd get comparable comfort with a Moto LCD screen is by using some kind of computer glasses, but then you're looking through colored lenses instead of viewing the screen directly, and that has its own caveats. I'm the sort who tends to prefer using a screen directly with no extraneous plastic between my eyes and the screen.
The XP Pro comes with a cheap plastic screen protector. I thought perhaps that was improving the screen comfort, but when I removed it the screen remained every bit as comfortable.
I'd love to know more about what Sonim right with the XP Pro to achieve superior eye comfort. In my view they are the leader in phone-based eye comfort despite never advertising it.
Keep in mind these Sonim phones are used by first responders, police, and other high-performance professionals in the most demanding environments. Sonim is a small company. This is not some Google megacorp that has all kinds of motives besides delivering superior comfort and performance to the end user. For those demanding the best screen in the phone format, Sonim's flagship XP Pro is the best I've used.
My main gripe with the XP Pro is the lack of any headphone jack, but apparently most people don't care about that because the Nxtpaper Ultra doesn't either have one. Besides that, I don't know what there is to complain about. It's a brilliant device. Edit: It's still on Android 14 while the Moto G 2025 is on Android 16, so I guess one could complain about that. Being a smaller company it takes longer to roll out updates. Far less manpower.
I believe most people liken the strain they get from phones as innate to trying to work on a screen so small. Like when I use a Moto G55 I do get some stinging in the eyes, but I sort of feel like that's to be expected when using a small computer screen. However, the XP Pro is different. The LCD is properly implemented without cutting corners for space, battery reasons, and/or economics. You can tell Sonim told the manufacturer to do a high quality LCD screen without the compromises normally exhibited by phone screens. Now pick up a Moto G and you can instantly feel the design goals of making the phone as thin and light as possible, which is bound to come with some compromises.
Basically I feel like the G phones are enjoyable to carry around for occasional use of the screens, but if you're a heavy screen user the XP Pro is the clear winner. If you're spending 2 hours or more a day on the phone screen, you want the XP Pro. Less than that and a G phone could suffice very well, but then again there are some who just have to have the best, so even then and there the XP Pro is the winning choice.
On a personal note... my favorite way to use a phone is to plug in a wired headset into the headphone jack. The XP Pro does not support that. You have to use an adapter, and the adapter does NOT deliver anywhere close to the same mic quality you would get when using a headphone jack. CAN a USB-C port with an adapter potentially deliver equivalent quality? It can. On some phones it does. On the XP Pro it doesn't.
Therefore, with the XP Pro don't even think about using a wired headset. Bluetooth is all you've got. But then again the screen is so nice for discerning and sensitive users like myself. Best phone screen I've ever used. Only the G 2025 comes close, and even then the difference is considerable.
What this means is that the XP Pro can function as a portable computer. You can do a heck of a lot of productive work on that little phone with the exceptionlly powerful processor and superbly comfortable high resolution screen.
Trying to do the same workload even on one of the more comfortable phone screens, like the G55, is going to irritate you unless you simply don't know any better. I was one of those people. I thought the Moto LCD screens were the best. Kind of like how growing up poor you could be happy with everything you know because it is all you know. You don't know what you are missing. This is as well similar to the general public using OLED phones.
The big corps have tried to make it so that the public has no LCD reference. All they get is OLED. The smartphone as they know it always has an irritating OLED screen that looks deceptively soft and luxurious, kind of like soft, fluffy fiberglass insulation that fills the lungs with terribly irritating glass particles. As an overlord, it is very comforting and satisfying knowing the general public experiences continual eye and brain issues from their smartphone addictions. Meanwhile, the overlords are using high quality LCD screens pampering their eyes and brains. This helps ensure a distinct separation between the rulers and the ruled.