FWIW I’ve already come to the conclusion that the auto-brightness works better than the unintended workarounds as long as it doesn’t get too dim. It’s ironic since HDR content is the most comfortable, but it’s the PWM that’s causing us issues and not the intense brightness level.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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One of the telcos here has an additional trade in credit offer of $300 in addition to the trade in value for the 11, which makes it better than selling privately.
It’s tempting me to try one of the 15 series. I would normally choose the 15 Plus, given the Lupin results, but people’s experiences with it and the 15 Pro Max are tempting me to go with the 15 Pro Max.
I’m generally getting more comfortable with the idea of giving the 15 series a try, and if it doesn’t work, going Android, until the iPhones are usable. In a sense, getting used to Android life, in case this situation doesn’t get better in the next few years, rather than hoping, continuing to use Apple’s products, but in a few years having to make the move regardless.
On my way back from holidays, I might be able to pick up a Honor 90 in transit (it’s not available in my country). The 3840Hz PWM is making me itch to measure the values with the Lupin.
It’s tempting me to try one of the 15 series. I would normally choose the 15 Plus, given the Lupin results, but people’s experiences with it and the 15 Pro Max are tempting me to go with the 15 Pro Max.
I’m generally getting more comfortable with the idea of giving the 15 series a try, and if it doesn’t work, going Android, until the iPhones are usable. In a sense, getting used to Android life, in case this situation doesn’t get better in the next few years, rather than hoping, continuing to use Apple’s products, but in a few years having to make the move regardless.
On my way back from holidays, I might be able to pick up a Honor 90 in transit (it’s not available in my country). The 3840Hz PWM is making me itch to measure the values with the Lupin.
I’m thinking of trying the Motorola Razr+ since it’s at least unique from an iPhone with its foldable design and offers a flicker reduction setting. It’s just not suited to testing like this since most smartphone promotions imply some sort of commitment.
iPhone 15 Pro may be the best yet, but definitely not symptom-free for me at least. I do still feel sensitivity to the PWM that is there.
Still, I will accept a significant reduction in sensitivity from iPhone X as Apple’s display team applying some level of R&D to making PWM better generation-after-generation if they have to use it.
Yes. I have no problems with it and my wife has no issues with her SE 2000. But I appreciate some folks would like to be on the 15.
Here in Australia, carriers don’t do commitments anymore. They just offer you interest free payments over a period of time, in addition to any incentives.
Of course if you leave, you have to pay out the remaining amount. But since I’m generally happy with the carrier, regardless of which phone I use, it’s an option, given the value of the iPhone in a private sales.
Still a bother and unnecessary running around, but at least not a significant loss of cost.
That would be next on my list. A few people have had good results with it, and it gets the best PWM reviews from Sutrich at AndroidCentral. And the fact that there is a flicker free setting at least means the manufacturer has some idea and tries something.
I have no problems with Android. I quite enjoyed my Samsung Galaxy S10e for three years. I was then going to get the Galaxy S22 or S23 but I read quite depressing and worrisome stories about PWM. And where I live the phones can not be returned unless they are defective.
If you check through another smartphone camera with 1/8000 shutter speed and do not see the banding size increase, that means there is no change in duty cycle %.
Over at reddit I had a discussion with another member. I came to the conclusion that the way how the workaround dimming method we are familiar with is no longer as effective as before.
Its seems that display driver is attempting to override our workaround by measuring our actual nits brightness presented on screen and use modulation manipulation(in the vertical axis of PWM) to give us the brightness level we desire.
They would not touch our screen duty cycle screen ON time exposure (unless screen is dimmer than it supports then it’ll decrease it subtlely) though, since this will trigger the duty cycle percentage (horizontal axis of PWM) within the PWM
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It is disappointing that we can't test out other phones from our carriers as easily as we are able to from Apple.
Am I correct in that most carriers are like mine, where there is a restocking fee if you return the device?
My carrier is offering $600 trade-in right now on my 13 Mini if I were to buy a 15 or 15 Pro, which is SO tempting- but I can't realistically do that until I am able to test one of these for a week or so to ensure I'm comfortable with it.
I think I mentioned it in another thread, but I'll have to buy one from Apple, test it out, and if I am good with it- I will still have to return it and then go and purchase from my carrier on this trade-in deal.
With the flicker free setting, is it still likely to be a toss-up on whether someone who is sensitive may still be bothered by it?
This phone is intriguing, both for the flicker free setting and for the design, it looks like a great phone.
Same here, but it makes purchasing significantly more inconvenient since taking advantage of the best promotion I.e. through Motorola requires more steps than buying and returning on Amazon.
I suppose they get quite a few returns for this reason, as I’ve heard of people returning iPhones purchased from one retailer to get a better deal at another retailer or carrier promotion.
I suppose iPhones get returned for much more nonsensical reasons than PWM sensitivity, which isn’t nonsense and the only way to truly know is to test at home unless they do eventually get rid of PWM and it doesn’t take another six years.
Refurbished iPhones are worth quite a bit since they hold value so well, and I’d like to think at this point two days after launch they need to build up their refurbished stock for various reasons.
Thanks for sharing the above.
Based from the above graph, we find can the following:
Iphone 15 pro max has a pwm hertz of 480 hz; consisting of the following:
240(+-20) hertz with a modulation of 14.5%
And another
240 (+-20) hertz with a modulation of 9%.
As for samsung flip:
250 hertz (+-20) with a modulation of 47.85%
We can allow more tolerance for sine wave curve (with samsung flip here) as long as there are more highs than lows. Therefore, we can take 47.85% and times 0.6. This is to make a conversion comparison to non sine waves.
Therefore samsung flip at this said brightness of 50% is tentatively around 28%. That’s still 2 times higher than the iphone 15 pro max while at the same brightness level
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Is this the first time they’ve used two different, erm, frequency bands?
iPhone 15 Pro does feel different than iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro, and I’m curious why. I like this size and I’m curious how it feels once pocketing it, but I wouldn’t mind having the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max ironically just for the larger OLED display.
All of the data and hands-on experience I’ve had leads me to believe that workarounds increase the modulation almost at a proportional amount to having Reduce White Point or a Low Light filter on, as you’ve already noted. These also disable HDR, which looks amazing and causes less sensitivity. So going forward I’ll leave auto-brightness on and perhaps just program it to avoid the first ~ 10% of the brightness range.
I like that I’ve stopped thinking about the brightness and settings, and I’ll even program the Action Button to a non-PWM-related shortcut. But it’s still not perfect and my eyes/head don’t love this display. Well, turn on Avatar: The Way of Water and it looks better than a theater but that’s beside the point. Text/iOS is still more difficult to focus on than any Liquid Retina display.
It’s flicker reduction and not flicker-free unfortunately, but it looks quite stable. I think a flicker reduction setting on iOS would be enough to make this comfortable for now until they figure out how to get rid of PWM.
I have seen reports of people still having issues with the setting, so it still is prudent not to take it as a guarantee that it will work for you.
I had a look one at a few of the Motorola Edge 30 series phones in a store, and measured their %. They were all in a much more stable range across the brightness spectrum, and the general values were lower than the iPhones. From memory, the lowest % was about 3, and then it went up, but still remained under 10%, except for, I think, essentially the no brightness at all in a completely dark environment setting.
I don’t remember the flicker free setting to significantly change the %, so perhaps it has a different purpose/mechanism.
I’ll take a mental note to test the Motorolas when I’m back.
It’s as simple as manually setting the brightness under certain lighting conditions with auto-brightness enabled and the sensor will begin to remember so that it can adjust based around that preference.
I.e. manually set the brightness above 10% in a dark room consistently and it will use that as its minimum brightness. Or if a user is consistently setting the brightness to 50% in their living room it will remember the ambient brightness and begin to adjust to 50% under similar conditions.
I’m on the fence. This display still isn’t super comfortable for PWM-sensitive users. At the same time, the persistent tension headaches I usually get have been decreased significantly thus far.
So… keep going Apple and good job on trying to reduce the effects at least but I’ll be ecstatic once there’s a flicker-free modern flagship iPhone again.
It should be as comfortable as staring at an iPhone SE, or an iPad, or a Pioneer KURO plasma for that matter. Flickering in smartphone OLED panels is still a significant step back in brightness modulation.
So… keep going Apple and good job on trying to reduce the effects at least but I’ll be ecstatic once there’s a flicker-free modern flagship iPhone again.
It should be as comfortable as staring at an iPhone SE, or an iPad, or a Pioneer KURO plasma for that matter. Flickering in smartphone OLED panels is still a significant step back in brightness modulation.
I just returned iPhone 15. Symptoms remained stable. Light pressure. Fortunately no headaches this time around. But my eyes were getting tired…. not as much as in the past but sth was still there. I was feeling it……
After today’s comments i am gonna hold on trying pros. They are so expensive and in my country no return policy. I have to sell it by myself each time…..
So i am gonna by an iPhone 12 Pro next to test my luck as some users were ok with it…..
After today’s comments i am gonna hold on trying pros. They are so expensive and in my country no return policy. I have to sell it by myself each time…..
So i am gonna by an iPhone 12 Pro next to test my luck as some users were ok with it…..
At that point just get an iPhone with an LCD display.
I think I have seen this similar pattern in (at least) one of the iphone 14 series before.
I have also observed such patterns with the Sony Xperia 1 V(also claimed 480 hertz but different patterns) and some of the Xiaomi Redmi phones.
When below 80% brightness, they’ll split apart into two different frequencies.
Honestly, I do not even know how to call these different frequencies that were implemented.
In the lighting flicker studies, these kind of peculiar pattern were never mentioned. Since lighting bulb rarely had such.
With waves patterns though, we just call them irregular waves.
I wonder if these above were based on the similar design, made as a workaround to increase flicker hertz , without triggering the fundamental flaw of OLED’s screen burnt-in.
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DXOMark explains the different rashes here. See the graphic at Flicker comparison:
https://www.dxomark.com/flicker-the-display-affliction/
(There are further explanations from DXOMark in the comments.)
Here are the measurements for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13:
https://www.dxomark.com/apple-iphone-13-display-review-some-big-strides-forward/
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I think that's how Notebookcheck came up with the wrong value of 60 Hz. Four waves were summarized in the third graphic. But that is the refresh rate of the display (60 Hz) and not the pulse width modulation at 240 Hz (which can also be clearly seen).
https://www.notebookcheck.com/iPhon...odulation-fuer-das-OLED-Display.503323.0.html
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Actually, these different deflections (what's the technical term for it?) should also be visible on opple's measurement graphs. But they aren't?!
https://www.dxomark.com/flicker-the-display-affliction/
(There are further explanations from DXOMark in the comments.)
Here are the measurements for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13:
https://www.dxomark.com/apple-iphone-13-display-review-some-big-strides-forward/
---
I think that's how Notebookcheck came up with the wrong value of 60 Hz. Four waves were summarized in the third graphic. But that is the refresh rate of the display (60 Hz) and not the pulse width modulation at 240 Hz (which can also be clearly seen).
https://www.notebookcheck.com/iPhon...odulation-fuer-das-OLED-Display.503323.0.html
---
Actually, these different deflections (what's the technical term for it?) should also be visible on opple's measurement graphs. But they aren't?!
Today begins the 4th day with my iPhone 15 Pro Max.
I still have no complaints other than a little eye fatigue.
But this only happens after 2-3 hours of use, before that I don't feel anything.
But this eye fatigue is certainly normal when you stare at a smartphone display for hours.
I don't have any headaches, no nausea or any other symptoms like I used to.
I couldn't use the iPhone 13/14 Pro/Max for 10 minutes without experiencing severe eye pain and discomfort.
I'm still excited, and if it stays that way, the iPhone 15 Pro Max will remain my smartphone.
I'll continue to report how I'm doing over the next few days. I can highly recommend the iPhone 15 Pro Max so far.
I still have no complaints other than a little eye fatigue.
But this only happens after 2-3 hours of use, before that I don't feel anything.
But this eye fatigue is certainly normal when you stare at a smartphone display for hours.
I don't have any headaches, no nausea or any other symptoms like I used to.
I couldn't use the iPhone 13/14 Pro/Max for 10 minutes without experiencing severe eye pain and discomfort.
I'm still excited, and if it stays that way, the iPhone 15 Pro Max will remain my smartphone.
I'll continue to report how I'm doing over the next few days. I can highly recommend the iPhone 15 Pro Max so far.