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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
- Thread starter Kitkad
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The G7 has PWM but is much higher frequency so not an issue IMO.
I might try apple support today and see what happens, maybe I'm wrong but being on the upgrade program may complicate it?
There are many factors with OLED displays. Amplitude is one (how much difference there is between the lightest and darkest state during PWM, which very much depends on screen brightness), the rise and fall times (how smooth is the curve? does it smoothly go between the values or is it a sharp edge where is just instantly changes) and of course frequency.
Few if any have issues with incandescent light bulbs running at line frequency (50 or 60 Hz depending on where you live) because the amplitude of the flicker is low, and the transition is smooth because there is thermal inertia that keeps the incandescent bulbs from losing much light during the low parts of the frequency curve. OLED displays tend to flicker at 240-260 Hz, and because they are LED's they naturally rise and fall instantly.
It would be interesting to see a deep analysis on the differences between the Galaxy S9 and the iPhone XS displays with measurements of flicker percent, amplitude curve, perceived resolution, refresh rate and all that fun stuff. Maybe that could give some insights in what makes a difference. Without all the info all we can do is guess and speculate. I do know that many have issues with the Galaxy OLED's as well.
So Apple support were not much help and never offered the option to return (I'm still on with them may just have to ask!) They just directed me to switch on reduce white point and nightshift.
Took some videos of my phone at different brightness levels (cannot figure out how to upload them!) and PWM varies at different brightnesses being far worse at lower settings, it never totally disappears though.
Took some videos of my phone at different brightness levels (cannot figure out how to upload them!) and PWM varies at different brightnesses being far worse at lower settings, it never totally disappears though.
Oh I see, thanks for the link. At least my 2017 MacBook Pro has no flickering - 0
Sorry but not true.
[doublepost=1539946136][/doublepost]Edit: it is already covered by Tijdelijk.
Just placed my order for the XR. Next Friday I'll know what the deal is. Looking forward to getting that baby in my hand!!!
Here are 2 examples from mine today. 1 is standard settings the other 100% brightness with reduce whitepoint enabled. Significant difference imo.
I also now have an escalated support case with Apple so will be interested to see what they say. If they offer me a refund I may take it and get the XR
If you really want to see how bad the PWM looks, try doing the same tests while recording in slow motion, it's pretty awful.
Good luck on getting your refund btw. Apple is usually very reasonable about these situations, so I'd be surprised if they didn't help you out.
I got a refund after 3.5 weeks.
They admitted to “bending the rules” and put me through to support first. The technical team asked if I’d enabled reduce white point, and asked if I’d found a brightness setting where it was comfortable. When I said nothing made it easier they were happy to return it.
Placed an order for a Red Xr while I await refund, here’s hoping I have better luck.
The symptoms are congruent with PWM sensitivity but the odd part is that many people in this thread who aren’t sensitive to PWM on other devices are debilitatingly sensitive to iPhone X/XS. So it is possible though frankly unlikely that it has been FaceID all along; regardless, the PWM implementation is still problematic.
iPhone XR will be how we can isolate sensitivity to FaceID sensors from PWM sensitivity, if the former is the issue and not the latter.
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Let's hope it's not Face id.
A workaround could be using face id without the awareness option so that you can unlock the phone with your eyes closed.
I know it's not secure but it could be a workaround
Has anyone tried putting some electrician's tape over the Face ID array to see if their eye strain improved? I can’t test this myself as I do not experience any eye strain with my Max, but I am very interested in this topic.
Is the face ID sensor on all the time or just when unlocking the phone? I would assume just when unlocking but if all the time then, after my only experiences of problems with the iris scanner on the note 8, I wouldn't be surprised if face iD is a problem for some people
Even if you don’t enroll in Face ID, the TrueDepth camera on iPhone X intelligently activates to support attention aware features, like dimming your display if you aren’t looking at your device or lowering the volume of alerts if you're looking at your device.
I’m essentially going to do this for 2-3 days when my XR arrives so that I can test the display isolated before starting to use Face ID. This will allow me know whats causing an issue if I have one.
That's interesting to know. Is it possible to turn attention awareness off on settings?
I would definitely be interested to know if anyone has found any difference in how they feel by switching this off. I'm sure the display technology implementation is affecting some people but I do wonder if the face ID sensor is the cause for others .