Hi all I am someone who suffers from the effects of low frequency PWM, I discovered this from forum posts on here when I had my iPhone X which I traded in for the XR as soon as I could, it was confirmed when I got an Apple Watch Series 3 and spent ages on the first night messing around with the new shiny toy in my possession, and fully confirmed when I discovered the LCD screen on my cheap Lenovo X230 laptop also has PWM at around 240Hz which i totally did not expect with it being an LCD.
Going forward after the iPhone X I had an iPhone XR which was an amazing phone until it had issues with the signal on the o2 network when iOS 13 was released which I had reported during the beta and were ignored, 5 months later Apple & o2 admitted there was an issue which was very annoying as I had already upgraded to a launch day iPhone 11 because of the issue which I wouldn’t have done otherwise, but thankfully my friend purchased the XR for the price of the rest of my contract so I didn’t loose any money.
My iPhone 11 has been a great phone apart from recently it too has been having signal issues on the o2 network whereby if I’ve been driving about a bit I will stop and go to use the 4G (LTE) data and it would either be completely frozen or very slow until I toggle airplane off and on, so this issue combined with a battery that had dropped to 85% capacity (pre iOS 14.5 recalibration) and would be begging to be put onto low power mode by around 1500 most days I decided that maybe a new iPhone with the Qualcomm modem would work better for me, however this leaves only OLED based iPhones to choose from which means PWM torture again.
So why did I choose a new iPhone which would give me headaches again over simply changing my Network Provider to something that would work better with my iPhone 11? Well there were a few factors:
1: I’ve been with o2 for multiple years and get large discounts with them, their signal does reach very well into rural areas where I often work, I also have multiple devices on their network for myself and the rest of the family and my Apple Watch Series 6 is still under contract with them.
2: PWM is only really an issue in dark environments with the screen dimmed, well I figure since I have other devices (iPad Pro/iPhone 11) I would just use those when I am at home and use the iPhone 12 Pro Max when I am outside at work, especially with handoff and calls that ring on multiple devices.
3: Dark mode is now a thing which it wasn’t on the iPhone X at the time so I figure if I have it in dark mode then I could run the screen a bit brighter due to less blinding white interface elements which should reduce the PWM effect.
4: I figure that now I’ve suffered PWM headaches I know when to put the phone down before it gets too bad, so I can manage it.
So that is the backstory, so now you’ve made it this far how is the iPhone 12 Pro Max?
As a phone the iPhone 12 Pro Max is absolutely fantastic, the Qualcomm modem and 4 antennas vs Intel Modem & 2 antennas absolutely wipe the floor with my iPhone 11. In most places my network speeds are significantly faster and I am even picking up 5G in areas the coverage maps say I shouldn’t, my house for one as the 5G signal is meant to be outdoors only and is meant to run out a couple of streets away.
Battery life is INCREDIBLE I am finishing the work day at 1500 with over 50% battery with quite heavy usage, yesterday I even downloaded and played games on the battery and still had 30% when I put it on charge at my 2200 bed time with only the 10 minutes of Carplay connection to top up the battery, by comparison my 11 would’ve probably died as it was usually down to 20% by 1500 on a normal work day WITHOUT big downloads and a little gameplay.
Camera is great, but the 11’s wasn’t bad either.
General performance is very little difference compared to the iPhone 11 and definitely wouldn’t be worth the upgrade if my 11 had better cellular performance.
So the elephant in the room how is the screen and how bad is the PWM?
BAD! But with a few tweaks for me personally is manageable. Under the slow mo camera on my iPhone 11 flicker is present at ALL brightness levels including 100% which sucks, but until you drop the brightness to around 20-30% the flicker isn’t too pronounced below this it becomes a proper disco.
So on the Sunday after I got it I did have a proper nasty eye/headache, turns out with me I don’t notice the symptoms as I am using the device and the headaches come on after I’ve put it down for a bit. It seems like each use adds a little to the headache and then in the evening it feels like Mike Tyson has punched my eye sockets in.
So will I be returning it? Nope!
I appear to have found a way to make using the iPhone manageable and the headaches go from Mike Tyson punching my eye sockets in with minimal use to a mild sting after lots of use.
I have done this by running the screen at 100% brightness at all times and disabling auto brightness and then using a 100% white point reduction when I am in dimly lit situations. As I said above there is flicker at 100% brightness but its minimal, and with the 100% white point reduction it dims the screen quite well whilst the flicker is only slightly worse than when it is at 100% brightness. These settings along with dark mode and night shift seem to work quite well in my situation, and I have used it extensively over the last couple of days without the painful eye/headache. It is a bit brighter than I’d usually have it when I am reading stuff in bed but its not too uncomfortable either.
Obviously this isn’t as good as an LCD iPhone, however the 12 is the far better iPhone when I am out of the house due to the better connectivity on my network of choice and the trade off is worth it to me. I am keeping the iPhone 11 so if the eye strain does get worse I can switch to that when I need to.
I do believe PWM and light flicker is an issue that is all around us and only going to get worse, modern car headlights flicker like crazy (as seen in my reversing camera) lights in shops flicker, some LED lights in houses flicker, heck the dashboard in my van flickers like mad too as I tried to take a photo of a warning indicator for my boss and i had to try a couple of times as due to the flicker it appeared off in the first photo.
If the iPhone 12 Pro Max had an LCD or a higher PWM frequency it would be the perfect iPhone but with the work arounds I have implemented it is a decent phone with a nice looking screen which isn’t a complete torture device.
I will post some slow mo videos on here showing the flicker at 100% brightness, 100% Brightness with 100% white point reduction, and minimum brightness. The difference is rather alarming, at minimum brightness the screen reminds me of strobe light mixed with an old ZX Spectrum loading screen.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope my experiences help those who suffer PWM when considering an iPhone 12.
Going forward after the iPhone X I had an iPhone XR which was an amazing phone until it had issues with the signal on the o2 network when iOS 13 was released which I had reported during the beta and were ignored, 5 months later Apple & o2 admitted there was an issue which was very annoying as I had already upgraded to a launch day iPhone 11 because of the issue which I wouldn’t have done otherwise, but thankfully my friend purchased the XR for the price of the rest of my contract so I didn’t loose any money.
My iPhone 11 has been a great phone apart from recently it too has been having signal issues on the o2 network whereby if I’ve been driving about a bit I will stop and go to use the 4G (LTE) data and it would either be completely frozen or very slow until I toggle airplane off and on, so this issue combined with a battery that had dropped to 85% capacity (pre iOS 14.5 recalibration) and would be begging to be put onto low power mode by around 1500 most days I decided that maybe a new iPhone with the Qualcomm modem would work better for me, however this leaves only OLED based iPhones to choose from which means PWM torture again.
So why did I choose a new iPhone which would give me headaches again over simply changing my Network Provider to something that would work better with my iPhone 11? Well there were a few factors:
1: I’ve been with o2 for multiple years and get large discounts with them, their signal does reach very well into rural areas where I often work, I also have multiple devices on their network for myself and the rest of the family and my Apple Watch Series 6 is still under contract with them.
2: PWM is only really an issue in dark environments with the screen dimmed, well I figure since I have other devices (iPad Pro/iPhone 11) I would just use those when I am at home and use the iPhone 12 Pro Max when I am outside at work, especially with handoff and calls that ring on multiple devices.
3: Dark mode is now a thing which it wasn’t on the iPhone X at the time so I figure if I have it in dark mode then I could run the screen a bit brighter due to less blinding white interface elements which should reduce the PWM effect.
4: I figure that now I’ve suffered PWM headaches I know when to put the phone down before it gets too bad, so I can manage it.
So that is the backstory, so now you’ve made it this far how is the iPhone 12 Pro Max?
As a phone the iPhone 12 Pro Max is absolutely fantastic, the Qualcomm modem and 4 antennas vs Intel Modem & 2 antennas absolutely wipe the floor with my iPhone 11. In most places my network speeds are significantly faster and I am even picking up 5G in areas the coverage maps say I shouldn’t, my house for one as the 5G signal is meant to be outdoors only and is meant to run out a couple of streets away.
Battery life is INCREDIBLE I am finishing the work day at 1500 with over 50% battery with quite heavy usage, yesterday I even downloaded and played games on the battery and still had 30% when I put it on charge at my 2200 bed time with only the 10 minutes of Carplay connection to top up the battery, by comparison my 11 would’ve probably died as it was usually down to 20% by 1500 on a normal work day WITHOUT big downloads and a little gameplay.
Camera is great, but the 11’s wasn’t bad either.
General performance is very little difference compared to the iPhone 11 and definitely wouldn’t be worth the upgrade if my 11 had better cellular performance.
So the elephant in the room how is the screen and how bad is the PWM?
BAD! But with a few tweaks for me personally is manageable. Under the slow mo camera on my iPhone 11 flicker is present at ALL brightness levels including 100% which sucks, but until you drop the brightness to around 20-30% the flicker isn’t too pronounced below this it becomes a proper disco.
So on the Sunday after I got it I did have a proper nasty eye/headache, turns out with me I don’t notice the symptoms as I am using the device and the headaches come on after I’ve put it down for a bit. It seems like each use adds a little to the headache and then in the evening it feels like Mike Tyson has punched my eye sockets in.
So will I be returning it? Nope!
I appear to have found a way to make using the iPhone manageable and the headaches go from Mike Tyson punching my eye sockets in with minimal use to a mild sting after lots of use.
I have done this by running the screen at 100% brightness at all times and disabling auto brightness and then using a 100% white point reduction when I am in dimly lit situations. As I said above there is flicker at 100% brightness but its minimal, and with the 100% white point reduction it dims the screen quite well whilst the flicker is only slightly worse than when it is at 100% brightness. These settings along with dark mode and night shift seem to work quite well in my situation, and I have used it extensively over the last couple of days without the painful eye/headache. It is a bit brighter than I’d usually have it when I am reading stuff in bed but its not too uncomfortable either.
Obviously this isn’t as good as an LCD iPhone, however the 12 is the far better iPhone when I am out of the house due to the better connectivity on my network of choice and the trade off is worth it to me. I am keeping the iPhone 11 so if the eye strain does get worse I can switch to that when I need to.
I do believe PWM and light flicker is an issue that is all around us and only going to get worse, modern car headlights flicker like crazy (as seen in my reversing camera) lights in shops flicker, some LED lights in houses flicker, heck the dashboard in my van flickers like mad too as I tried to take a photo of a warning indicator for my boss and i had to try a couple of times as due to the flicker it appeared off in the first photo.
If the iPhone 12 Pro Max had an LCD or a higher PWM frequency it would be the perfect iPhone but with the work arounds I have implemented it is a decent phone with a nice looking screen which isn’t a complete torture device.
I will post some slow mo videos on here showing the flicker at 100% brightness, 100% Brightness with 100% white point reduction, and minimum brightness. The difference is rather alarming, at minimum brightness the screen reminds me of strobe light mixed with an old ZX Spectrum loading screen.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope my experiences help those who suffer PWM when considering an iPhone 12.
Last edited:
