Interesting, I tried several phones at the Apple Store and the one that was "least bad" was a GH3 "cosmic orange" 17 Pro Max. It wasn't as comfortable as a basic LCD phone (like a 6s) but it did seem better than the other ones.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Recently bought an iPhone Air (incredible deals at the moment). It has a G9Q screen. Very tolerable. About 90 percent okay. The color reproduction on this screen is much better than my wife’s iPhone 17 which has an LG screen. That screen has horrible green tint off axis. I think the 17 models have the worst screens. 17 air and pro better quality OLED.
I have the pwm toggle switched off.
I have the pwm toggle switched off.
jimmy_uk
macrumors 68030
I’m still reeling over the iPhone 17e situation. It came so close — initially it didn’t even feel like it was straining my eyes — but I still ended up suffering from the cumulative build-up effect after a week.
Meanwhile, my iPhone 11 is falling apart. Even though the battery health is still at 86%, the phone overheats constantly and the battery drains in real time. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery under AppleCare+, so I contacted Support and said I was willing to pay out of pocket. After explaining all the issues and the age of the phone, they advised me to book a Genius Bar appointment and push for an express replacement instead, which would cost the same as a battery replacement anyway.
At the Genius Bar they agreed, and they also noted the grey line in the corner of my display (that appeared after my last battery replacement). However, they said they couldn’t arrange the express replacement directly and that I’d need to go back through Support. They even suggested filing it under “broken rear glass” via the app, but I wasn’t comfortable doing that since Apple would obviously inspect the device.
In the end, I called Apple Support, rather than going via the app, and because of the grey line on the screen, they actually approved a free replacement under AppleCare+. Result. The only issue is that I ordered the “express” replacement on Tuesday and now it’s Sunday and it still hasn’t shipped.
If this all works out, I could probably get another year or two out of the iPhone 11 and hope something changes with OLED and PWM smoothing. In the meantime, I’d been holding out for an iPad 12, but since that still hasn’t materialised, I think I’m just going to have to swallow the cost of buying an iPad 11 to help reduce my phone usage.
What makes it especially frustrating is that, for the last 10 years, I’ve had the money to buy the best Apple devices available — but because of OLED and dithering issues, I literally can’t use them. Instead, I’m stuck relying on an old iPhone and entry-level iPads while the flagship devices are effectively off-limits.
Meanwhile, my iPhone 11 is falling apart. Even though the battery health is still at 86%, the phone overheats constantly and the battery drains in real time. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery under AppleCare+, so I contacted Support and said I was willing to pay out of pocket. After explaining all the issues and the age of the phone, they advised me to book a Genius Bar appointment and push for an express replacement instead, which would cost the same as a battery replacement anyway.
At the Genius Bar they agreed, and they also noted the grey line in the corner of my display (that appeared after my last battery replacement). However, they said they couldn’t arrange the express replacement directly and that I’d need to go back through Support. They even suggested filing it under “broken rear glass” via the app, but I wasn’t comfortable doing that since Apple would obviously inspect the device.
In the end, I called Apple Support, rather than going via the app, and because of the grey line on the screen, they actually approved a free replacement under AppleCare+. Result. The only issue is that I ordered the “express” replacement on Tuesday and now it’s Sunday and it still hasn’t shipped.
If this all works out, I could probably get another year or two out of the iPhone 11 and hope something changes with OLED and PWM smoothing. In the meantime, I’d been holding out for an iPad 12, but since that still hasn’t materialised, I think I’m just going to have to swallow the cost of buying an iPad 11 to help reduce my phone usage.
What makes it especially frustrating is that, for the last 10 years, I’ve had the money to buy the best Apple devices available — but because of OLED and dithering issues, I literally can’t use them. Instead, I’m stuck relying on an old iPhone and entry-level iPads while the flagship devices are effectively off-limits.
How will getting an iPad 11 help if you are sensitive to dithering?
At home, I've stopped using my phone for content consumption. I just use my 14" 2.3 lb Dynabook laptop which has an EyeSafe display (no PWM, no dithering, and blue light reduction). I am planning to buy the 13" 1.9 lb laptop when it's released with the latest processors this summer.
jimmy_uk
macrumors 68030
iPad 11th gen is just sRGB, not wide-gamut P3, so it shouldn’t need extra dithering to fake additional colours - right?
I don't think that follows. iPad 11 doesn't work for me. iPad 9th gen was the last iPad that was tolerable for me. Macbook Neo is sRGB but it still has dithering. Even my iPhone SE 3rd Gen has it. I recently had to power up my old iPhone SE 1st gen and the screen looked amazing.
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Yes the iPhone 11 has a bigger screen than the SE3, but if you can tolerate using the smaller SE3 - it’s a much faster iPhone and the last LCD iPhone likely forever. It’s basically an iPhone 13. I had an iPhone 11. Sold it.
Small update on my TCL NXTPAPER 60 ULTRA, the fingerprint scanner in the power button was stopping intermittently and needing reboots to kick it back in (7 months old)
I am in the UK but bought from Amazon Italy. I sent it back, they refunded the refund postage cost and I bought another which arrived in two days.
Love the phone and wanted to stick with it, can't knock Amazon customer services.
I am in the UK but bought from Amazon Italy. I sent it back, they refunded the refund postage cost and I bought another which arrived in two days.
Love the phone and wanted to stick with it, can't knock Amazon customer services.
of all the oled iphones that I tested through the years, 11 pro is still the only one that is not straining my eyes.
with 13pro/15pro/17pro few minutes is enough to have a headache for few hours.
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502
I'm wondering if all these issues have been analyzed by people in the (not sure what the right term should be, but) "scientific ophthalmology" field. I know that "flicker" has, but, it seems like there is more going here than that single issue, and, I thought that these screens were all supposed to have reduced flicker?
Don't know about the medical field yet. Unless there's a drug to push, they won't care -- who's gonna fund the research?
But this channel seems to be giving it the attention it deserves finally.
Nick Sutrich
I know a lot about displays and gaming. Covering PWM analysis and flicker awareness, as well as games and gaming accessories (Meta Quest, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch 2, etc).
www.youtube.com
- OnePlus is more important than you think, especially for people like me
- Exclusive: Ultra-bright displays are destroying our eyes, but the OnePlus 12 gets it right
- TÜV Rheinland Intelligent Eye Care certification
- Disabling dithering on Apple silicon Macs using Stillcolor.
- Flicker Sense -- Issues with flicker in LED lights and displays and how to report them
- Is the iPhone 17 PWM setting a scam?
- r/PWM_Sensitive
- r/ScreenSensitive
- https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-iphone-12-mini-makes-me-sick-literally
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502
There is definitely published research. Look in Google scholar. Here is one article that I found:
Flicker and other effects
DoE and California have funded research--on light bulbs. California has regulations that LED lights have low(er) flicker:
I can look at Motorola Stylus AMOLED across all brightness and even in pitch black rooms. Zero issues. Apple, Samsung, Google, etc can put that display in their flagships but choose not to.
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502
There was a big issue in the past regarding flicker in indoor lighting. Research was done in the 1980's demonstrating how many people are affected by flicker in traditional simple fluorescent lights. Change was hard but eventually, in new installations, organizations did start installing high-frequency electronic ballasts/dimmers that operate at 20-120 kHz, commonly 35-50-60kHz. > 24 kHz solves the problems of phantom-array effects, migraine stimulus, and also annoying high-pitch sounds that many (younger) people hear. (At the organizational level, I found it odd that many organizations dismissed the lighting-flicker problem, considering that it affects on the order of one in ten employees.) Now, fluorescent lights have rapidly been replaced by LED lighting. Unfortunately, I think the same mistakes have been made because many people don't understand the issue.
Well, it turns out that brightness control/dimming certain types of digital displays, like OLEDs, creates some of the same problems, and, for the moment, it is getting worse, because lots of consumers like the colors/contrast of OLED displays. But, don't realize that they might not like them after all. I assume that the same roughly 1-in-10 people are affected. Who is keeping a list of which cell phone models have "DC or DC-like" brightness control?
Populus
macrumors 604
Not sure if I already said this on this thread but the “Smoothen PWM” feature seems to be more noticeable since the iOS 26.5 update, at least on an iPhone 17e that I’ve been toying with.
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502
Thank you for pointing that out. I assume that it decreases battery life somewhat. Has that been noticeable? Any downside to enabling it?
Populus
macrumors 604
No, no downside that I’m aware of. Today I’ll test it a bit better in the dark to see if it bothers my eyes.
However, the screen is still rather greenish compared to my LCD iPhone SE 3, where whites are white.
I know this is a controversial opinion but for me, IPS LCD displays look better than OLED ones. Of course, blacks aren’t pure black on an LCD display, but I don’t care about it. And the IPS LCD displays Apple uses are top notch.
2010-2016 and the finding also work for any LED source including smartphones; however, no one has regulated mobile displays:
Motorola and Oneplus. Other Chinese models have weird 2-4K PWM which IMHO is worse. Stable fixed, low amplitude sine wave across all brightness that is divisible by the refresh rate is why old OLED phones were great i.e. Samsung S2/S3/etc.
jimmy_uk
macrumors 68030
I’ve been using my replacement iPhone 11 for four days now. Unfortunately, it came with iOS 26, which I really dislike — there are too many unnecessary extra layers of interaction. The battery life has also been awful. After starting the day at 6am and getting home at 6pm, I’m left with less than 30% battery, so its performance is actually worse than my old iPhone 11 with a battery that’s over a year old. Also browsing in Safari is increasingly laggy - 4gb ram with A13 is really showing its age.
The display also has much stronger contrast and a warmer tone rather than the cool white of my old phone, despite both having the same Sharp display. My eyes didn’t like it at first, but it seems OKish now.
I have to decide by tomorrow whether to keep it or just pay for a new battery in my old iPhone 11 running iOS 18. Either way, this really feels like the end of the road. Performance is now so poor that, even if I keep the replacement, I can’t carry on struggling with the iPhone 11 much longer.
The display also has much stronger contrast and a warmer tone rather than the cool white of my old phone, despite both having the same Sharp display. My eyes didn’t like it at first, but it seems OKish now.
I have to decide by tomorrow whether to keep it or just pay for a new battery in my old iPhone 11 running iOS 18. Either way, this really feels like the end of the road. Performance is now so poor that, even if I keep the replacement, I can’t carry on struggling with the iPhone 11 much longer.
Populus
macrumors 604
I would encourage you to grab a Mac or PC, and perform a clean install of 26.5 using a USB cable.
iOS 26 is apparently much more refined now and 26.5 seems to have a better battery management on certain models, or similar in others. The iPhone 15 is the only one who has been negatively impacted by 26.5 battery wise.
Also, give it at least a couple of days and be aware of the apps you install, as certain apps such as Spotify or Instagram are well known to drain the battery.
I use an iPhone SE 3, which has an A15 with 4GB of RAM, and it works flawlessly, so I doubt the 4GB of RAM is the problem. The amount of RAM will probably be an issue for next iOS iterations such as iOS 27 or 28, but at least in my SE 2022, iOS 26 runs great. Not that you have to worry about upcoming iOS release’s performance, because A13 devices will likely lose support for iOS 27.
I know it’s a dilemma, but can’t you keep both devices and manually exchange the battery from the new to your old iPhone 11? And sell the new device to recover some of the money…
I was in the exact same position. My old iphone 11 started not being supported on some Apps I was using and I couldnt use it any longer.
Try the NXTPAPER 60 ULTRA has been great for me, bought from Italy Amazon.
It is now available on UK Amazon (although Out of stock right now) however the newer and slightly smaller 70 is in stock.
Worth a go at such a low price with the option to send back to Amazon who rarely query returns.
jimmy_uk
macrumors 68030
I think I might need to try a clean install. Just need to catalogue all my used apps and settings.
I have to send an iPhone back to applecare as they have put a £400+ hold on my credit card in case I don't.
pdoherty
macrumors 68000
Seems odd to blame the apps when nearly everyone who complains about 26.x upgraded to the OS with all their apps already there/installed (which apparently weren't negatively affecting the performance/battery since they noticed it get way worse when 26.x got installed).
Populus
macrumors 604
I just say this because I don’t have such apps installed and I am not experiencing such a terrible battery life.
It may be because of other reasons, of course: my iPhone doesn’t support Apple Intelligence so that may be another battery hog that isn’t taxing my device. Or it may be the fact that I always update my device performing a clean install through my Mac. Who knows.