You do know that LCDs also use Pulse Width Modulation? All sorts of digital devices used it to control something.
I think I’ve read somewhere that LCD is something like 2500Hz PWM whereas the OLED iPhones can drop as low as 240Hz.
Depends a lot on the screen and the quality of its backlight (which in a LCD is what is usually controlled by PWM)
I believe the OLED are supplied by Samsung and just lightly tweaked colour wise by Apple. I don’t think they do much else to them.
I can’t find the article again and goodness knows where I found it to begin with, but it’s buried somewhere in that long thread, but apparently Apple has some sort of patented implementation they impose on Samsung via their specifications. Their special implementation is supposed to reduce burn in risk and increase longevity of the display (and reduce power consumption if I remember correctly) but it does impose an odd kind of power up power down of the pixels and that may be why the flickering is more problematic on an iPhone.
That probably explains quite a lot, since the iPhone X was my first and only experience of an OLED I just assumed if I had a problem with one kind of OLED I’d struggle with them all.I can’t find the article again and goodness knows where I found it to begin with, but it’s buried somewhere in that long thread, but apparently Apple has some sort of patented implementation they impose on Samsung via their specifications. Their special implementation is supposed to reduce burn in risk and increase longevity of the display (and reduce power consumption if I remember correctly) but it does impose an odd kind of power up power down of the pixels and that may be why the flickering is more problematic on an iPhone.
I also own a Pixel 2 and the pwm of its Samsung display does give me eye strain but does not trigger my migraines the way an iPhone OLED display does. Same with an older Samsung phone I had. My last Samsung and my current S9+ haven’t caused me any problems. Though after my short time with an XS Max, I was highly sensitized to any pwm and had to avoid certain lighting and avoid my S9+ display for a month.
Samsung is in the habit of putting much larger batteries in their flagship phones so I think they don’t try all the fancy tricks to reduce power consumption of the display. They don’t seem to bother trying to extend the life of the displays, either, beyond the standard trick of moving “static” parts of the display subtly over one pixel to avoid burn in.
That may be why I can comfortably use their latest displays. I don’t know, I’m neither an engineer nor a neurologist so I’m giving it my best guess.
One of the galaxy phones, I think it’s the 9 gave me a headache. Ifixit had some article about oled and pwm and graphed the pwm. I’m general the article said Apple has much less pwm than the Samsung displays.I can’t find the article again and goodness knows where I found it to begin with, but it’s buried somewhere in that long thread, but apparently Apple has some sort of patented implementation they impose on Samsung via their specifications. Their special implementation is supposed to reduce burn in risk and increase longevity of the display (and reduce power consumption if I remember correctly) but it does impose an odd kind of power up power down of the pixels and that may be why the flickering is more problematic on an iPhone.
I also own a Pixel 2 and the pwm of its Samsung display does give me eye strain but does not trigger my migraines the way an iPhone OLED display does. Same with an older Samsung phone I had. My last Samsung and my current S9+ haven’t caused me any problems. Though after my short time with an XS Max, I was highly sensitized to any pwm and had to avoid certain lighting and avoid my S9+ display for a month.
Samsung is in the habit of putting much larger batteries in their flagship phones so I think they don’t try all the fancy tricks to reduce power consumption of the display. They don’t seem to bother trying to extend the life of the displays, either, beyond the standard trick of moving “static” parts of the display subtly over one pixel to avoid burn in.
That may be why I can comfortably use their latest displays. I don’t know, I’m neither an engineer nor a neurologist so I’m giving it my best guess.
Some people unfortunately do struggle with them all. A lot of people also mistakenly assume it’s a vision problem and are left kind of stranded when they consult their eye doctor. Vision isn’t just about the eyes but also how our brains interpret what the structure of the eyes convey to it. I had a discussion with my daughter’s former teacher about dyslexia once. She’s an expert on the subject and it’s too long and complex of a discussion to relay here but she was the one who helped me realize how complex vision actually is and why sometimes a vision problem we think is “an eye problem” is actually something we need to be discussing with our neurologist.
I can only go on my own experiences, however soon after I got an iPhone X I started to get frequent headaches centrered around my eyes. Sometimes these headaches would get so bad that I would take some pain killers and go to bed very early.
Have you actually ever looked at the XR screen, either in isolation or against the XS or any other Android flagship? I’m 35 years old with 20/20 vision and it is very hard to pick apart the differences outside of the XR not being able to reproduce those super dark blacks. Detail and color reproduction is first rate on the XR. It’s an excellent display.
