I'll share some of my recent experiences as well. I had the iPhone 12. It was not great. There was a red tint that was emphasized by viewing angles. During this time I'd been testing the iPhone 11 of my wife and it strangely enough seemed like an overall better phone. Better battery life, better colors and a more uniform display.
It was a real bummer, because I enjoyed the squared edges that brought me back to the iPhone 4S era. The worst thing about it though was that it gave me a constant pressure in the eyes at low brightness. I was hoping that the iPhone 13 series would be better with the 120hz display, so I ordered the 13 Pro. It seemed like a nice upgrade from the 12, but I was not sold so it went back. The weight balance combined with the massive camera bump felt cumbersome for daily use. I could live with that, but it also seemed to oversharpen the photos to the point where they didn't look natural.
I then ordered the normal 13 hoping to be positively surprised, but it actually ended up being worse than the 12 and the 13 Pro when it came to eyestrain, dizziness and nausea. It was actually really terrible even if it supposedly has the highest PWM-frequency of the series. It took some time to really understand and feel it, but eventually it became so off-putting that I couldn't look at the display without feeling nausea. I wanted to like it, but when I realized that my eyes started having symptoms of astigmatism after just looking at it, it was time to let it go.
I recently bought the Phone 11 and it's such a relief to the eyes. Zero blurry text or letters jumping here. I don't game on a phone, so the performance doesn't really matter to me. Regarding the 120hz of iPhone 13 Pro. It's nice, but having used 144hz monitors for a long time, it can't be compared to the jump from 60hz of monitors to a higher refresh rate. iOS is very smooth even at 60hz compared to Android. Unfortunately this one came with some dust behind the camera lens, and the battery was at 0% upon receiving it, so I'll most likely have to send it back.
I also think it's good to keep these threads alive, because flickering/PWM is an issue that is generally not well-known. I can only imagine the amount of people who have no idea why they're having random symptoms because they can't understand the culprit being their OLED smartphone, because nobody talks about it. Hopefully the 14 series or the upcoming SE will be better in this aspect. It seems to me that the only way to send a message is if enough people continue talking about it and actually give feedback to Apple. Here's a link for those that are interested: https://www.apple.com/feedback/
It was a real bummer, because I enjoyed the squared edges that brought me back to the iPhone 4S era. The worst thing about it though was that it gave me a constant pressure in the eyes at low brightness. I was hoping that the iPhone 13 series would be better with the 120hz display, so I ordered the 13 Pro. It seemed like a nice upgrade from the 12, but I was not sold so it went back. The weight balance combined with the massive camera bump felt cumbersome for daily use. I could live with that, but it also seemed to oversharpen the photos to the point where they didn't look natural.
I then ordered the normal 13 hoping to be positively surprised, but it actually ended up being worse than the 12 and the 13 Pro when it came to eyestrain, dizziness and nausea. It was actually really terrible even if it supposedly has the highest PWM-frequency of the series. It took some time to really understand and feel it, but eventually it became so off-putting that I couldn't look at the display without feeling nausea. I wanted to like it, but when I realized that my eyes started having symptoms of astigmatism after just looking at it, it was time to let it go.
I recently bought the Phone 11 and it's such a relief to the eyes. Zero blurry text or letters jumping here. I don't game on a phone, so the performance doesn't really matter to me. Regarding the 120hz of iPhone 13 Pro. It's nice, but having used 144hz monitors for a long time, it can't be compared to the jump from 60hz of monitors to a higher refresh rate. iOS is very smooth even at 60hz compared to Android. Unfortunately this one came with some dust behind the camera lens, and the battery was at 0% upon receiving it, so I'll most likely have to send it back.
I also think it's good to keep these threads alive, because flickering/PWM is an issue that is generally not well-known. I can only imagine the amount of people who have no idea why they're having random symptoms because they can't understand the culprit being their OLED smartphone, because nobody talks about it. Hopefully the 14 series or the upcoming SE will be better in this aspect. It seems to me that the only way to send a message is if enough people continue talking about it and actually give feedback to Apple. Here's a link for those that are interested: https://www.apple.com/feedback/
