My guess is that in a Smartphone implementation there is more of a focus on power management. They are constantly adjusting brightness and refresh rate (on the promotion devices) on phones. I don’t think that’s an issue on a TV. But I don’t really know.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Just received my pixel 7 pro and it feels better than the 14pro after 45 min of playing with the device. Anyone else have experience with this device?
Decided to return my 14 pro and stay with my 13 mini after the former induced eye strain and nausea almost immediately. The 13 mini is pretty much fine for my eyes (even with the bit of OLED “bite” I get while scrolling; its worst effects pale in comparison to how the pro made me feel). Onscreen motion on the 13 mini also feels better-tuned on this latest 16.1 beta—scrolling especially looks less choppy/abrasive—which hopefully Apple keeps up.
I tried and loved the SE third-gen but decided to return that as well because I dearly missed the design, size, cameras, and even the display of the mini. But it (the SE) is definitely a solid second choice.
TL;DR—14 pro is the worst OLED iPhone for my personal ocular comfort since the XS (which was the whole reason I found this thread to begin with).
I tried and loved the SE third-gen but decided to return that as well because I dearly missed the design, size, cameras, and even the display of the mini. But it (the SE) is definitely a solid second choice.
TL;DR—14 pro is the worst OLED iPhone for my personal ocular comfort since the XS (which was the whole reason I found this thread to begin with).
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Since today I also have the Pixel 7pro and also confirm. Pixel 7 pro is better for my eyes than iPhone 14 pro
Nice to hear that. I can now confirm that the aftermath is the same as with the 14pro, nausia, neck and jaw tension... i even have a feeling that its worse than with the 14 pro now...... I will definitely test some more before i can draw any conclusion.
I dunno, the 11 Pro recently was pretty much no problems and the 13 mini recently gave me sharper pain than the 11 Pro, and after using the 14 pro for four days now, the 13 mini gave me more pain than the 14 Pro does now, so remembering back a year ago, it’s like every iteration they’re testing different things 🤷
Holy Cow those videos are enlightening to me. I think temporal dithering is actually a bigger problem for my brain than pwm. It would explain why I was able to use OLED Android phones for years. I did get eye strain from my S7 and S7 Edge but not neurological problems.To my understanding, DC dimming does not remove the flickering completely and will not solve the pwm problem for most of the users in this forum, only the less sensitive ones. Explanation Here.
It was painted as our Holy Grail, but it really is not.
Look at the new profile of the new Zenfone 9 for example, which is DC dimmed and I still could not use:
THe flicker is constant at 120hz, which means I did not have raging headaches straight away but only dizziness and brain fog when I tried the phone (or maybe I did not try it long enough for those crazy headaches). That did not make it usable and eventually I returned it.
What we want is something like the iphone 8 plus, which does not flicker ever never forever:
I have seen many complain about notebookcheck's results about the flicker rate, but that does not really make sense. The way you react to the flicker is very personal and might be related to other factors, e.g. tiredness etc. Trying the device is probably the only way to determine your reaction to it. Things will not likely improve unless you completely remove the flicker. A different frequence does not really change things significantly imo.
I am very sensitive it seems, specially if I am tired, and I can feel dizziness even when using devices with 50000 hz refresh rate. At work we have so many meeting rooms with flickering screens, and I am usually able to survive those without problems when rested, since I do not stare at them too long. My phone however is different, I use it for so many things and for so long everyday, that even a very low flickering will affect me in the long run.
Now, as many have complained in this thread and in here, PWM is not the only problem for some of us.
It seems that newer lcd phones and apple display also use another digital trick called temphoral dithering ( Dithering Device vs non-Dithering Device) to make that sweet million of colours reproduction. The way I see it, it is a "colour flickering" causing similar symptoms to PWM, albeit milder.
The group of people affected by dithering is even smaller than the pwm crowd I suspect, so good luck hoping that Apple will improve things in the future.
To be honest, the future is bleak for sensitive apple users.
Both technologies give clear advantages, the way I see it, being those better power management or better colour reproduction. Why would Apple not offer these things to the hundred of millions of customers that have zero problems with such displays? One of their strategies has always been to have a small lineup, it lowers the manufacturing costs, mantainance etc etc. Our group is way too small to make financially sense for them.
Ps. someone correct me if I said something factually wrong, I think we are all learning here.
I can not at all look at lasers. I mean the kinds used at concerts. I can’t go to concerts at all and I had to quit watching the TV show The Voice because they use lasers a lot in the performances and I did used to drop with seizures from how the laser beams appear to shake slightly and rapidly.
But oddly I can handle some strobe lights that are on amusement park rides. My family was always confused about that because they’d be trying to shield me from every kind of flashing like one would do for someone with epilepsy. But we found it wasn’t necessary. I may not always be comfortable, as a migraine sufferer, with flashing lights. But only a very specific kind seems to actually cause me seizure migraine.
Even my neurologist at the time was not sure we were dealing with epilepsy. She said it appears close but not exactly like epilepsy. She decided to give me the option to defer an epilepsy diagnosis because my state laws would basically end my life as I know it. She felt it was not necessary to do that to me and there was still some uncertainty on how to label my “condition”. So “atypical migraine” was the best fit.
Anyway, getting back to the temporal dithering, that little fast shaking reminds me of the kind of motion in laser light that makes me so sick.
I’m getting closer to understanding now why I was having a white flickering curtain at the edge of my vision with LCD.
What I don’t know is if there’s temporal dithering in the LCD Nintendo Switch display. That display caused me some discomfort too.
I’m not entirely comfortable with the M1 Air MacBook display. Even when I turn brightness down there’s something about it that makes it hard to focus sometimes and makes my eyeballs feel like they’re being seared. But I’m not on that display enough hours per day to be a major issue. I play games on it. I don’t game all that often. I was planning to do movie and photo editing on it but haven’t had time to really learn how yet.
Thank you for sharing those videos.
Time for a status update. I’m having mostly good luck on my 14 pro, or I should say my second 14 pro. Every once in a while though, I will get a little motion sickness or dizziness but they seem few and far between. I have not tried to go back to my 11 yet and see if anything persists.
I’ve been trying different settings than what I’m used to on my LCD screens. Thanks to DJTaurus, I am flirting with light mode and in certain situations that is helping. Currently I have promotion on but I am still messing with that to see what’s going on.
I also always used to have my display zoomed because my eyes aren’t what they used to be. But I find that makes things blurry and causes its own eye strain so I have switched on this OLED screen to standard view and just pumped up the text size a bit. That seems to have made a difference.
I’ve always had attention aware features turned off on Face ID and reduce motion enabled. I recently also enabled reduce transparency and that actually helps with the blurry wallpaper background nausea effect.
However, the thing that reducing motion and reducing transparency does is make the phone feel a bit less snappy and you don’t get those snazzy animations that are shown on Apple commercials or in YouTube reviews.
But hey, they both seem to help me.
And true tone is off at all times and I use Night Shift in the evening.
So those are all the settings that deviate from the norm that I feel that are helping me.
Hopefully some of them might be useful to any of you.
Oh yes, one final thing, I also turn the brightness down to about 55 or 60%. In the past I’ve been worried to do that because OLEDS seem to flicker more if you don’t have the brightness all the way on. However my thinking is that because the new pro screens are so much brighter that scale might be moved downward and also I remember MichaelSD saying something about flickering below 39%.
Anyway, having it a little lower seems to not have the retina melting effects. The screen is warmer on the second pro then the first one I tried out so that may also help?
I’ve been trying different settings than what I’m used to on my LCD screens. Thanks to DJTaurus, I am flirting with light mode and in certain situations that is helping. Currently I have promotion on but I am still messing with that to see what’s going on.
I also always used to have my display zoomed because my eyes aren’t what they used to be. But I find that makes things blurry and causes its own eye strain so I have switched on this OLED screen to standard view and just pumped up the text size a bit. That seems to have made a difference.
I’ve always had attention aware features turned off on Face ID and reduce motion enabled. I recently also enabled reduce transparency and that actually helps with the blurry wallpaper background nausea effect.
However, the thing that reducing motion and reducing transparency does is make the phone feel a bit less snappy and you don’t get those snazzy animations that are shown on Apple commercials or in YouTube reviews.
But hey, they both seem to help me.
And true tone is off at all times and I use Night Shift in the evening.
So those are all the settings that deviate from the norm that I feel that are helping me.
Hopefully some of them might be useful to any of you.
Oh yes, one final thing, I also turn the brightness down to about 55 or 60%. In the past I’ve been worried to do that because OLEDS seem to flicker more if you don’t have the brightness all the way on. However my thinking is that because the new pro screens are so much brighter that scale might be moved downward and also I remember MichaelSD saying something about flickering below 39%.
Anyway, having it a little lower seems to not have the retina melting effects. The screen is warmer on the second pro then the first one I tried out so that may also help?
I am tired of relying on 3rd party websites to check for (and measure) PWM in these iPhones, so I purchased some photodiodes and an oscilloscope. I'l report back when I have figured everything out. Wish me luck!
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In my case, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are both definitely NOT ok. I have both but primarily use the 8 Plus. Before I got the 8 Plus about 6 months ago, I was using a 6 Plus all day long for 6 years and that phone never bothered me one bit (except for its slowness).
Then I got an Apple refurbished 8 Plus and its been a slow downhill slog ever since. Ruining my eyes and brain. I can no longer tolerate viewing that screen with its obscene LSD enhanced colors. I now use it in grayscale exclusively. So much for Retina HD. Ive come to the conclusion that the 8 series LCD screens are garbage too. All the colors are too intense and vivid.
Nobody has been able to officially verify if it uses temporal dithering but I suspect it does, because to my eyes it seems to sort of shimmer in a barely perceptible way.
I know I can’t look at those screens very long that’s for sure.
Whenever I go back to my 6 Plus its such a relief. Natural looking colors and a much more pleasing display to look at even though it does blow out white highlights.
It's not the 6, but I have very fond memories of the gold 7 when I got it and had it for two years. it was an amazing device coming from 5s. I think the best think about it was the keyboard was bigger, haha, and I made WHOLE lot less typing mistakes.
I remember fondly the days when we could use these iPhones without issues. Although to be fair my favorite modern iPhones were iPhone 12 Pro Max in Pacific Blue, then iPhone 13 Mini in Blue, then to be quite honest I’m not sure yet for iPhone 14.
Same here. I still notice eye strain and slight dizziness but it’s miles better than the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max. It took less than a minute for dizziness to set in when using the iPhones. But I was able to use the Pixel 7 Pro for around 30 minutes.
Same here..😉
So the pixel 7 pro is not perfect.. but I can use it longer without dizziness and headaches.. With the 14 pro, the dizziness came faster.. I don't know why either..
In addition there is another app called pwm free.. you can install it on android devices. Maybe a little less eye strain
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I was looking for weight info differences between models and this webpage lists the PWM comparison. In case anyone didn’t know about this site:
nanoreview.net
Compare Apple iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 11 Pro: which is better? | NR
We compare Apple iPhone 14 Pro with iPhone 11 Pro to find out which phone has a better camera, screen, performance, and battery life.
nanoreview.net
As you may have seen, their source for the PWM info is notebookcheckI was looking for weight info differences between models and this webpage lists the PWM comparison. In case anyone didn’t know about this site:
Compare Apple iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 11 Pro: which is better? | NR
We compare Apple iPhone 14 Pro with iPhone 11 Pro to find out which phone has a better camera, screen, performance, and battery life.
View attachment 2095958
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So the group is deep into the phase of finding a phone that causes the least amount of discomfort but still isn't OK - is it worth it?
I get it, but think of your health. 🙏
I get it, but think of your health. 🙏
I found a post on Candle Power Forums from 2007 which I thought may be of interest to this group. I always thought PWM was more energy efficient than constant current in all cases. It's not true. Summary is in red, at the bottom.
Apple may be using PWM solely because of the minuscule, unnoticeable color accuracy gains. Such a shame.
Apple may be using PWM solely because of the minuscule, unnoticeable color accuracy gains. Such a shame.
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thanks for your contribution.
Apple Marketing Blabla Energy efficiency 🙈
With a constant analog current, the led would probably display diffuse colors.. This is how Notebookcheck described it in an article..
I had an 8 plus for a while and I felt my 6s had a more comfortable screen. With the 8 plus I had to set brightness manually to 80%, disable True Tone, and set it to zoomed and then it was better. Still not as good as my 6s though.
I think accurately measuring flicker is becoming harder and harder. These phones have variable refresh rates, variable brightness rates, temporal dithering etc. anyones guess how that all shows up on a measurement device. Like does the 14 pro flicker the same at 10hz and 50% brightness as it does at 120hz? Probably not… lots of variables to consider.
Very true. I plan to test these phones with many different configurations once my photodiodes arrive tomorrow. In the case of the iPhone 14 (Pro), I believe NotebookCheck said they do not use temporal dithering at all, so that is one variable removed from the equation.