My eyes/head are really not liking the GVC Air today. Some days are still deceptively better than others. It’s as if my brain doesn’t want to stare at the display and has already had enough of this flickering OLED. Even without the phone on me the sensitivity reappears randomly at other times, whereas when I’m not testing an OLED iPhone I typically get zero headaches/migraines in my day-to-day life.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
- Thread starter Kitkad
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
-
- Tags
- eye strain xs max
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
This has just been announced. The problem, for me at least, is the humungous screen size.
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
m.gsmarena.com
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
Our first impressions of TCL's latest eye-care-focused phone. Just yesterday, TCL announced its latest NxtPaper smartphone – the NxtPaper 70 Pro at CES...
This has just been announced. The problem, for me at least, is the humungous screen size.
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
Our first impressions of TCL's latest eye-care-focused phone. Just yesterday, TCL announced its latest NxtPaper smartphone – the NxtPaper 70 Pro at CES...
I use the 60 Ultra and love it, been keeping an eye out for more releases.
This is smaller than the 60, theyre both huge. I have no issue with the processor speed in the 60 however the processor is faster than the one in this new 70.
I do prefer the camera bump on the 70 as my 60 it is huge.
At £300 I am still tempted to try.
There’s something wrong with iOS 26.2 on the Air. It’s flickering so slowly I can literally see it happen when the phone first unlocks.
iPhone SE is still a relief to the eyes.
Apple could, in theory, produce an excellent LCD with some qualities that outdo OLED. Completely flicker-free, colors that pop equally as much if not more, sharper, and a more uniform-looking display are just the tip of the iceberg. OLED mainly excels at power efficiency and contrast/black level specifically. Had an iPhone XR-based SE model been released, I would have begrudgingly but happily upgraded to that at this point. Now we need more drastic OLED panel advancements or a new display technology entirely.
Apple could, in theory, produce an excellent LCD with some qualities that outdo OLED. Completely flicker-free, colors that pop equally as much if not more, sharper, and a more uniform-looking display are just the tip of the iceberg. OLED mainly excels at power efficiency and contrast/black level specifically. Had an iPhone XR-based SE model been released, I would have begrudgingly but happily upgraded to that at this point. Now we need more drastic OLED panel advancements or a new display technology entirely.
I said goodbye to my iPhone after 12 years.
I had a Vivo X300 Pro for a while, and it completely won me over.
The camera is so sensational, and Vivo clearly prioritizes eye health.
I'm surprised how quickly I adapted to Android; I don't miss the iPhone 17 Pro at all.
My other Apple devices are definitely staying, but I won't be buying another iPhone anytime soon.
I just wanted something new, and the iPhone was getting a bit boring for me.
Now for the most important thing: the Vivo X300 Pro is the best
OLED monitor I've ever used. It feels just as comfortable as an LCD. Simply outstanding!
I had a Vivo X300 Pro for a while, and it completely won me over.
The camera is so sensational, and Vivo clearly prioritizes eye health.
I'm surprised how quickly I adapted to Android; I don't miss the iPhone 17 Pro at all.
My other Apple devices are definitely staying, but I won't be buying another iPhone anytime soon.
I just wanted something new, and the iPhone was getting a bit boring for me.
Now for the most important thing: the Vivo X300 Pro is the best
OLED monitor I've ever used. It feels just as comfortable as an LCD. Simply outstanding!
Good for you! I also use an x300 pro but get some eyestrain from it, do you use any specific settings?
All the Chinese manufacturers seem to put consideration towards eye care to varying degrees. Certainly more so than most western manufacturers.
Agreed. I've now been using my Honor Magic V5 for 3 months (after 15+ years of iPhone) and the screen is much more comfortable to use than the 17 Pro. I'm also surprised how quickly I got used to Android - it is much better than the mess that iOS 26 has turned out to be.
Unfortunately Vivo is the one Chinese manufacturer not available in the UK.
I do still think it’s possible to make a usable OLED. Apple is, unfortunately, doing the bare minimum but it is good to see that they’re acknowledging the issue more formally. This display would look amazing if it didn’t cause sensitivity. There’s simply no toggle yet that makes the eye strain and headaches go away entirely, as there is no avoiding sensitivity throughout use for me.
Even a 90% reduction from iPhone X still equates to constant sensitivity while using iPhone Air, and some degree of persistent tension headaches and migraines that are somewhat managed by the PWM setting. It’s a shame because I just want to be able to stare at the device without having to deal with my brain not being happy. I’m optimistic about iPhone 20…
Last edited:
Hey everyone, I figured I'd chime in here as I read through a few hundred of these comments while I was figuring out that OLED screens were causing my eye strain.
I've since put together an LCD iPhone 15 Pro that's working quite nicely for me.
Here's my original reddit post and the full discussion.
Backstory
I used an iPhone 13 Pro for several years before I knew about PWM Sensitivity and had some terrible health issues, I lost the ability to focus my eyes long distances, I constantly had eye strain and eye pain and one morning I lost the ability to focus my left eye entirely.
I was prescribed reading glasses and was told to use eye drops. Since I downgraded to an iPhone 11 my vision returned and my eye strain issues disappeared completely, I have since passed an eye test with 20/20 vision.
iPhone 15 Pro
As an upgrade I bought an iPhone 15 Pro 1TB on eBay with a broken screen for AU$610 and swapped in an EK Pro Incell LCD screen.
I decided on an EK Pro brand LCD screen as in all the reviews I could find online it was the highest quality option, EK Pro make replacement screens for all iPhone models.
I decided on the iPhone 15 Pro for this swap for several reasons:
The cost of the replacement screen decreases substantially the older the phone you go back.
An iPhone 17 Pro LCD screen currently costs $224 +tax on Aliexpress, an iPhone 16 Pro screen costs $169 +tax but the iPhone 15 Pro screen only costs $79 +tax, the price is largely the same for all other iPhone OLED models. These are for two packs so at least you’ll have a spare.
Installation
Replacing the screen was pretty straight forward, I used a tutorial from Youtube. I practiced on a couple broken iPhone 11’s beforehand and have plenty of experience working on electronics. If you can build a PC this shouldn't be much outside that skill set, the hardest part is removing the screen.
Replacing a screen is as easy as it gets as far as phone repairs go, batteries are a much more involved process and back glass being the worst on older models. I had quite a bit of trouble getting my front facing camera to focus correctly with the new screen installed which required a lot of fiddling, that being said there’s a lot of phone repair businesses around that could just install this screen for you for around $120.
Results
After the swap all original features are still present other than no automatic screen brightness and a capped frame rate at 60fps, compromises I am very happy with.
Surprisingly True Tone works straight out of the box without any IC chip transplant being required.
There’s a warning message about the screen being an Unknown Part under Parts & Service History in the settings but that’s it.
The overall quality is great, coming from an iPhone 11 the screen is very familiar, though this EK Pro screen is a little sharper and quite a lot brighter. The bottom bezel is very slightly thicker than the original but not overly so, the screen is also slightly darker above the dynamic island in light mode but isn’t a major concern.
There’s a very slight colour shift on a hard angle which is barely noticeable, the touch screen functions very well. The phone gets a little bit warm when used at max brightness outdoors but so did my iPhone 11, this is likely the nature of LCD screens.
The iPhone 15 Pro is noticeably thicker with the LCD screen installed at 9.0mm thick, with the original OLED screen installed the phone comes in at 8.3mm thick. With my Nomad leather case installed the screen is flush with the front lip of the case and isn’t a problem for me.
Battery life
In a basic rundown test, playing a video at full brightness and letting it run from 100%, the battery life seems to be less than half what it was with the original OLED screen.
OLED screens save power by pulsing the screen on and off with Pulse Width Modulation, so LCD screens naturally consume more power.
This LCD iPhone 15 Pro with 86% battery health lasts about the same length as an iPhone 11 in new condition, this is more than enough to get me through the day with normal use. Lowering the brightness obviously yields more battery life as do other power saving tricks. After using this phone for a couple days now I'm comfortably getting to the end of the way with enough battery left not to worry.
Other options
Currently for iPhone users the only official LCD/PWM-free iPhones on the market that still support the current iOS versions are the iPhone 11, iPhone SE 2020, and the iPhone SE 2022.
While the iPhone SE’s may be suitable for some people’s needs the iPhone 11 is still a great overall phone with decent cameras, swapping in a new battery made the phone a bit more responsive, that being said it is at almost 7 years old and there are better options on the market at the moment.
Other solutions
I am now completely OLED free at home.
I use an LG 38WM95C 21:9 LCD computer monitor on my Windows 11 i5-13600K/RTX4080 desktop and a Microsoft Surface 4 15” Windows 11 laptop.
I recently bought a Panasonic TH-65VT50 Plasma TV and the picture quality is phenomenal. I experience PWM related eye strain from an LG C1 OLED TV though it would take much longer use for me to have sore eyes compared to an OLED phone. I also have a PlayStation Vita Slim with an LCD screen.
Conclusion
Overall I am very happy with this conversion, I couldn’t look at this iPhone 15 Pro with the original OLED screen for more than a minute before getting eye pain. To me it's a sensation that my eyes are getting squeezed from the back and is instantly recognisable.
Regarding the phone's longevity I can't speak for it just yet as it has only been a couple days but if this changes I might make a follow up post.
I've since put together an LCD iPhone 15 Pro that's working quite nicely for me.
Here's my original reddit post and the full discussion.
Backstory
I used an iPhone 13 Pro for several years before I knew about PWM Sensitivity and had some terrible health issues, I lost the ability to focus my eyes long distances, I constantly had eye strain and eye pain and one morning I lost the ability to focus my left eye entirely.
I was prescribed reading glasses and was told to use eye drops. Since I downgraded to an iPhone 11 my vision returned and my eye strain issues disappeared completely, I have since passed an eye test with 20/20 vision.
iPhone 15 Pro
As an upgrade I bought an iPhone 15 Pro 1TB on eBay with a broken screen for AU$610 and swapped in an EK Pro Incell LCD screen.
I decided on an EK Pro brand LCD screen as in all the reviews I could find online it was the highest quality option, EK Pro make replacement screens for all iPhone models.
I decided on the iPhone 15 Pro for this swap for several reasons:
- It’s much cheaper than an iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro
- From what I could see and the only main difference between the 15 Pro and the 16 Pro was the camera button, and a slightly larger screen that was to be replaced anyway.
- The 15 Pro is also the oldest flagship iPhone with USB-C and USB3.2 speeds.
The cost of the replacement screen decreases substantially the older the phone you go back.
An iPhone 17 Pro LCD screen currently costs $224 +tax on Aliexpress, an iPhone 16 Pro screen costs $169 +tax but the iPhone 15 Pro screen only costs $79 +tax, the price is largely the same for all other iPhone OLED models. These are for two packs so at least you’ll have a spare.
Installation
Replacing the screen was pretty straight forward, I used a tutorial from Youtube. I practiced on a couple broken iPhone 11’s beforehand and have plenty of experience working on electronics. If you can build a PC this shouldn't be much outside that skill set, the hardest part is removing the screen.
Replacing a screen is as easy as it gets as far as phone repairs go, batteries are a much more involved process and back glass being the worst on older models. I had quite a bit of trouble getting my front facing camera to focus correctly with the new screen installed which required a lot of fiddling, that being said there’s a lot of phone repair businesses around that could just install this screen for you for around $120.
Results
After the swap all original features are still present other than no automatic screen brightness and a capped frame rate at 60fps, compromises I am very happy with.
Surprisingly True Tone works straight out of the box without any IC chip transplant being required.
There’s a warning message about the screen being an Unknown Part under Parts & Service History in the settings but that’s it.
The overall quality is great, coming from an iPhone 11 the screen is very familiar, though this EK Pro screen is a little sharper and quite a lot brighter. The bottom bezel is very slightly thicker than the original but not overly so, the screen is also slightly darker above the dynamic island in light mode but isn’t a major concern.
There’s a very slight colour shift on a hard angle which is barely noticeable, the touch screen functions very well. The phone gets a little bit warm when used at max brightness outdoors but so did my iPhone 11, this is likely the nature of LCD screens.
The iPhone 15 Pro is noticeably thicker with the LCD screen installed at 9.0mm thick, with the original OLED screen installed the phone comes in at 8.3mm thick. With my Nomad leather case installed the screen is flush with the front lip of the case and isn’t a problem for me.
Battery life
In a basic rundown test, playing a video at full brightness and letting it run from 100%, the battery life seems to be less than half what it was with the original OLED screen.
OLED screens save power by pulsing the screen on and off with Pulse Width Modulation, so LCD screens naturally consume more power.
This LCD iPhone 15 Pro with 86% battery health lasts about the same length as an iPhone 11 in new condition, this is more than enough to get me through the day with normal use. Lowering the brightness obviously yields more battery life as do other power saving tricks. After using this phone for a couple days now I'm comfortably getting to the end of the way with enough battery left not to worry.
Other options
Currently for iPhone users the only official LCD/PWM-free iPhones on the market that still support the current iOS versions are the iPhone 11, iPhone SE 2020, and the iPhone SE 2022.
While the iPhone SE’s may be suitable for some people’s needs the iPhone 11 is still a great overall phone with decent cameras, swapping in a new battery made the phone a bit more responsive, that being said it is at almost 7 years old and there are better options on the market at the moment.
Other solutions
I am now completely OLED free at home.
I use an LG 38WM95C 21:9 LCD computer monitor on my Windows 11 i5-13600K/RTX4080 desktop and a Microsoft Surface 4 15” Windows 11 laptop.
I recently bought a Panasonic TH-65VT50 Plasma TV and the picture quality is phenomenal. I experience PWM related eye strain from an LG C1 OLED TV though it would take much longer use for me to have sore eyes compared to an OLED phone. I also have a PlayStation Vita Slim with an LCD screen.
Conclusion
Overall I am very happy with this conversion, I couldn’t look at this iPhone 15 Pro with the original OLED screen for more than a minute before getting eye pain. To me it's a sensation that my eyes are getting squeezed from the back and is instantly recognisable.
Regarding the phone's longevity I can't speak for it just yet as it has only been a couple days but if this changes I might make a follow up post.
Attachments
This is the crazy thing, how many folk are walking around with eye/headache issues and not making the correlation to their phone?
Currently grandparents often use cheaper phones (recently the Iphone SE or hand me down Iphone 8's etc). Soon the 'cheaper' hand me down phones will be OLED and who is going to realise their phone is damaging their eyes and not just putting it down to age.
OLED screens aren't new technology but they are new to many, with millions of people yet to be exposed to one in their life yet.
Thats the fact I take hope from..... we are currently a small percentage of the market users but its about to get a whole lot bigger. Very soon I expect a drastic change to what manufacturers need to conform to and 'eye health' will become a more mainstream topic.
Yeah I've been thinking something similar.
I was able to figure this out as I'm very technologically literate, and it took me a few years to realise what the cause was.
I've mentioned OLED PWM flickering to quite a few people now and have heard four people say they've been getting eye strain from their new OLED monitor or phone. One person I met had figured out the cause and was still using their iPhone 11.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had run the numbers and decided it was cheaper to not acknowledge the problem, rather than provide an LCD accessibility option to the small user base of PWM sensitive people.
My custom LCD iPhone 15 Pro proves it wouldn't be difficult to do so, maybe a class action lawsuit would be necessary to convince them.
I definitely hear this come up more often than I’d expect. My expectation is to be looked at like I’m crazy that the display flickers, but more than half of the time somebody mentions either themselves or a family member experiencing headaches from these newer iPhones. There are others out there outside of this thread stuck on LCD iPhones as a result since they were able to make that connection. I’d have to hypothesize global figures are much higher as for those who experience headaches/migraines and aren’t attributing it to their smartphone.
iPhone Air is one of the best of the worst, and still causes headaches and migraines for me with or without the PWM toggle enabled. Even extenuating measures like RWP at 90% and brightness at max don’t make enough of a difference. My eyes/head aren’t compatible with how these panels modulate brightness.
Not sure if I mentioned this here, but while I don't have direct experience with them, there are Chinese and Russian internet communities with discussion of eyestrain, and I wonder how much gets "lost" due to the asymmetry of language and other issues.
I like the look of that phone a lot...This has just been announced. The problem, for me at least, is the humungous screen size.
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
TCL NxtPaper 70 Pro hands-on
Our first impressions of TCL's latest eye-care-focused phone. Just yesterday, TCL announced its latest NxtPaper smartphone – the NxtPaper 70 Pro at CES...
I've been chatting with one of the leading figures in the PWM Sensitive community in China, he's translating his Billi Billi videos to Youtube in English.
While it's an AI translation there's some fantastic content in this video here, ranking phones that are suitable for people like us.
Spoiler: iPhones 11 and SE2022/2020 are the best iPhones.
The display on the Air at 90% brightness during the day isn’t awful, quite an improvement over iPhone X in usability; nonetheless, it’s been eight generations. I still get a slight headache if I raise or lower the brightness so my brain seems to adjust somewhat to the specific amplitude/frequency. Tension headaches and migraines can’t be ruled out, but generationally still slightly better.
The 16e has been quite useable for me for months. I was able to use it without issues, even for longer periods of reading, and not feeling any side or after effects.
What I did notice was some discomfort/eye strain when using it at night, in a dimly lit room. So it seems the lower brightness modulation % increase does affect me somewhat.
In any case, I dropped it a few times, so I'm using a SE (2022) at the moment. As expected, no issues at all. But the 4.7" screen is getting more challenging to use.
There's a special running at the moment on the Air; I wonder if I should try this one, given some good experiences ... 🤷♂️💰💸🤦♂️
That may make you a good candidate for the PWM toggle. It seems that all iPhone 17 generation devices have similar rates and modulations, more congruently so than in the past, so a base iPhone 17 or a Pro should be similar.
Unfortunately, even when I do adjust where I can stare at the display for longer periods the sensitivity does resurface. There will be days I’ll pick up the iPhone Air and have an immediate headache response. More subdued over past OLED iPhones and it’s at least probably the best overall in several generations. But eight years is a long time for this not to have a full resolution. The PWM toggle only does so much, as it doesn’t enable true DC dimming. I would be in a flickering headache nightmare if every Apple product switched to OLED and this is their best solution.
Interestingly, the PWM toggle on the Air seems to function till around 30% brightness rather than 25% as previously reported. It’s a start, but not an end and again the higher brightness levels that don’t technically use PWM still cause some discomfort. I should do some more technical testing to confirm this but the biggest benefit to the PWM toggle imo is that it makes the Always On Display much more usable. I couldn’t pick up any flickering of the AOD on slo-mo camera, although that could be the shutter syncing to the flicker rate.
I’m considering the idea of getting an iPhone 17 and keeping my iPhone SE alongside it. Truth be told iPhone Air wasn’t the device for me out of this lineup. I expected the device and display to be the most cutting-edge, also based on one experience comparing the devices in a big box retail store, but I was able to find iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro devices with displays I found to appear superior in the Apple Store. It’s just a shame I’m still trying to gaslight myself into thinking that it’s better and causes less headaches than it does. It’s far off of an iPhone SE or iPad Pro LCD in terms of comfortability and headache response, with or without the toggle which doesn’t fully disable flickering.
This isn’t a spoiler when it’s obvious. There has been no OLED iPhone that’s been dramatically better than the rest. Maybe iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini had some of the lowest modulations in history. Apple really made a push that generation, and I applaud them for not ignoring this entirely.
iPhone 17 is notable for its PWM toggle, and today the display is causing more consistent headaches for me. I don’t think I can tolerate any of these newer iPhones long-term even if I can find them more tolerable at times.
I don't have an iPhone anymore and I'm glad I took this step. I have an Vivo X300 Pro.
I have no complaints and it has a much better camera, better antennas and a better battery.
I really like Android now too. OriginOS 6 is close to iOS and works perfectly with macOS.
I don't miss anything and will stick with Vivo in the future. Cheaper and more technical and ahead of the iPhone.
I have no complaints and it has a much better camera, better antennas and a better battery.
I really like Android now too. OriginOS 6 is close to iOS and works perfectly with macOS.
I don't miss anything and will stick with Vivo in the future. Cheaper and more technical and ahead of the iPhone.