Observations from an very OCD hour at the Apple Store this evening. Buckle in!
I compared my phone to over 10 display models. None of them - legitimately none of them - looked anywhere near as good as the iPhone X’s display. Funny enough, it wasn’t even that the iPhone X looked significantly cooler. It had much more of a pure white to it, whereas the newer phones had more green. If you glanced back-and-forth quickly enough the iPhone X would briefly appear heavily magenta tinted.
I was actually impressed by the consistency, even if the tuning clearly isn’t for me. My phone was basically just as warm as all of the others. I could maaaaaybe say I found 1 or 2 that looked noticeably cooler, but even after 5 minutes of side-by-side with the 2 “golden examples” I couldn’t say for sure. I did find 2 that were noticeably warmer than my phone, but again, very subtle.
Frankly, it was very difficult to see any difference whatsoever. Part of the reason for that - this might interest you
@LFC2020 - is that my screen was substantially less bright than every single display model. Every one of them. Brightness is crucial to judging white balance, so this threw me off. When the display models were cranked, they looked warmer than my screen. When they were dimmer they looked cooler.
I am damn near certain the brightness issue is a *software* thing, where the iOS running on the demo models allows them to be cranked all day long but it doesn’t allow it for us due to battery/thermals.
I also compared my 13 Pro to a couple of the lingering iPhone 12 non-pro models, though I believe they had a different panel source from the 12 Pros everyone was groveling about last year. They were definitely warmer than any 13s I saw. One 12 mini in particular looked wildly out of tolerance. Either way, 13 and 13 Pros (including my own) were undeniably cooler across the board, but not remarkably so.
Also of note for me personally is that I never hopped on this roller coaster until the 12 Pro came out. White point looked fine on all of my old iPhones as far as I can remember, and I still have an 8+ lying around as my work phone that looks different from the X but still “correct” to my eye compared to 13 Pro.
All in all, I’m actually pretty happy with my findings. If I walked in there and immediately saw that my phone was radically worse, I’d be buying myself a ticket to the screen lottery iPhone replacement game that we all know can become a rabbit hole.
Instead my conclusion is this: due to panel supplier, purposeful calibration choice, or some combination thereof, iPhone screens look different than they did a few years ago.
This is probably a new reality that many of us will have to live with for a while, at the very least until mini or micro LED tech supersedes OLED on phones.
I have found that leaving my phone in light mode during the day is helping to “train” my brain to care less, because I’m exposed to the glaring off white over and over again until it gets normalized to me. Maybe give that a shot if you all are in the same boat.
I may or may not hang around this thread much longer, depending on whether I feel it’s helping my OCD or hurting it. That is a huge part of the equation for me- as I said, I’ve been medicated for it my entire adult life, and my desire for perfection in every aspect of my new tech toys has been a facet of that struggle since I was a kid. In middle school, I would keep my gameboy between two pillows to avoid it getting “scratched” and then spend hours looking for flaws that were never there. The second that GameBoy was no longer the latest and greatest obsession, the mental grip it had lightened considerably. I’d have given up a lot to reclaim all of the time and stress I poured into worrying about it.
It’s probably high time that I accept that this phone situation is no different. You all seem like good people. Take care of yourselves.
