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iPhone 12 Is iPhone 12 still using PWM OLED?

I too would be interested to know if DC dimming could be added like Huawei and OnePlus have or if there is some hardware requirements up front?
 
I ended up trying a 12 Pro, same issues as with the 11 Pro. Hope you guys have a better experience with it lol.

(Btw, this phone is gorgeous, really disappointing that it flickers like crazy).
 
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TDDM said:
I ended up trying a 12 Pro, same issues as with the 11 Pro. Hope you guys have a better experience with it lol.

(Btw, this phone is gorgeous, really disappointing that it flickers like crazy).
Click to expand...

Did you notice any difference on different brightness levels compared to the previous models? Or did PWM bother at all levels?
 
Samut said:
Did you notice any difference on different brightness levels compared to the previous models? Or did PWM bother at all levels?
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No noticeable difference IMO. I feel discomfort at all brightness levels, *especially* at lower levels.
 
The Jericho Initiative said:
Yes.

I had never heard of PWM before I was 39. I bought a Samsung S6 Edge and when I turned it on my vision started having problems - I didn't get headaches, I just started having a hard time focusing... Like after a few minutes, I couldn't on near details. I thought my eye's would adjust, and they never did. I got rid of it as soon as I was able but my eyes were never the same.

I went to an optometrist and an ophthalmologist where I learned that some people have more sensitive vision - and that outside of the current topic - it's a positive thing. These type of people simply ave a higher degree of visual acuity than others. People like that are physiologically capable of perceiving low frequency flicker like present on sub-300hz [maybe higher] OLED displays. On the autonomic level, the eye sees the flicker and tries to match it's pulse - contracting and relaxing over and over and over. Eventually it loses the fight and people start to experience issues with certain types of displays.

Indeed it's a phenomenon that's been around for decades in much more limited population sets. Back in the 70's and 80's, a fractional subset would have problems with florescent lighting. I don't know if design evolved, or if people still experience this; I assume so.

With regard to the experience for the human eye, the presence of such low level refresh rates in the brightness controls of the panel is largely inexcusable because invariably they can be altered at the software level with no more difficulty than making a product decision. These decisions are often dismissed in exchange for an additional 30 seconds of battery life per average charge... Nothing more. The fact is, Samsung and others who make display panels have absolutely no interest in acknowledging the issue unless forced to; it introduces legal liability should any person, or group, be able to litigate culpability for the vision problems their technology created.

So yes. Every TV, Every phone panel - no matter the brand, Every light bulb, and every light emitting source that uses PWM dimming below a frequency of 300Hz Currently, and for the past ten years, Samsung favors the 240Hz range which is disastrous for those who perceive it. iPhone 11 sat around 290Hz, which is significantly better in terms of population affected, but it still sucks. The higher above 300Hz, the better; numbers like 20,000Hz - which is Phillips Hue, Apple iPad, et al.. are imperceptible to everyone.

PWM sensitivity is real. It is serious AF for the person who lives with it and the number of people afflicted is exploding - as long as they use the tech, it's only going to get worse. Even then, not everyone will have a problem.

It's just a no-brainer change in the vast majority of relevant applications - the battery cost is so minor and the benefit so great; why NOT just adjust the frequency out of that range?
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Thank you so much and now I know it was definitely the PWM flicker why it was so difficult for me to focus on my XS Max's screen. Reading news took a lot of energy for example. It was the first time I used OLED and I didn't know what was going on. Constantly changing brightness because I thought that would help. I didn't experience headaches but the visual feeling was really weird.
 
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TDDM said:
I ended up trying a 12 Pro, same issues as with the 11 Pro. Hope you guys have a better experience with it lol.

(Btw, this phone is gorgeous, really disappointing that it flickers like crazy).
Click to expand...
Do you think it’s purely the pwm or could it also be the dithering?
 
I'm not sure how, but when I owned the Xs I had issues like migraines and headaches... switched to the Xr and the problem was solved.

Then I got the 11 Pro which has the OLED screen as the Xs, but I no longer have those issues.

Apple must have done something to adjust the displays.
 
TDDM said:
I ended up trying a 12 Pro, same issues as with the 11 Pro. Hope you guys have a better experience with it lol.

(Btw, this phone is gorgeous, really disappointing that it flickers like crazy).
Click to expand...
Looks like iphone 11 for life 😭
 
d3v1l.cr0 said:
I'm not sure how, but when I owned the Xs I had issues like migraines and headaches... switched to the Xr and the problem was solved.

Then I got the 11 Pro which has the OLED screen as the Xs, but I no longer have those issues.

Apple must have done something to adjust the displays.
Click to expand...
Yeah, certainly seems like the increased Hz has helped make these more usable for a lot of people. It’s encouraging, hopefully they’ll keep bumping it up in the future and this whole PWM thing won’t be a problem for any of us 😁
 
tonybarnaby said:
Looks like game over for the pwm sensitive crowd unfortunately
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...OR

We could wait for the actual frequency reports before we resort to melodrama. Since early this spring we've known essentially what we know today; OLED panels most commonly employ pwm - newsflash.

What we DON'T KNOW is at what frequency the pwm occurs or what its waveform characteristics are.

It matters.

So, if y'all what to get despondent over old news - do your thing - but the rational play would be to watch for an analytic review like Notebook Check often produces. The fact is, if the PWM is present at or above 300hz, most of us will be fine, if it's closer to 500hz - all of us will be fine. If the frequency is at or above 300hz and the peaks and troughs are shallow, most of us will likely be fine. If however they are classically Samsung - then regardless of the frequency, it's game over for the [much of the] pwm sensitive crowd unfortunately.

Then there's the LG question.

Point being, there's not a lot of new data floating around, just base confirmations of what we've known for a while.

Only time will tell, it's a bit early for panic and despair.
 
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The Jericho Initiative said:
...OR

We could wait for the actual frequency reports before we resort to melodrama. Since early this spring we've known essentially what we know today; OLED panels most commonly employ pwm - newsflash.

What we DON'T KNOW is at what frequency the pwm occurs or what its waveform characteristics are.

It matters.

So, if y'all what to get despondent over old news - do your thing - but the rational play would be to watch for an analytic review like Notebook Check often produces. The fact is, if the PWM is present at or above 300hz, most of us will be fine, if it's closer to 500hz - all of us will be fine. If the frequency is at or above 300hz and the peaks and troughs are shallow, most of us will likely be fine. If however they are classically Samsung - then regardless of the frequency, it's game over for the [much of the] pwm sensitive crowd unfortunately.

Then there's the LG question.

Point being, there's not a lot of new data floating around, just base confirmations of what we've known for a while.

Only time will tell, it's a bit early for panic and despair.
Click to expand...
Believe me, I’m trying to be positive. It’s not the end of the world to me if I can’t use the new phones, but at one point in time this was a nerdy “hobby” of mine, and it sucks to be stuck on an old 8+. In order for the 12 lineup to work for a lot of us, it would take a fundamental change. I’m hopeful, but I’m also realistic that more than likely the pwm frequency will still be too low for me.
 
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I was at a store today and looked at the 12. I took slow motion video if it (from my iPhone 11), at 100% brightness there is still a pretty substantial flicker. :(

The flicker at 100% is no better than it is on my wife’s XS Max.

Video link below:

 
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jm31828 said:
I was at a store today and looked at the 12. I took slow motion video if it (from my iPhone 11), at 100% brightness there is still a pretty substantial flicker. :(

The flicker at 100% is no better than it is on my wife’s XS Max.

Video link below:

Click to expand...
Thanks. Looks like it’s what we expected unfortunately
 
tonybarnaby said:
Thanks. Looks like it’s what we expected unfortunately
Click to expand...

The thing I am still wondering is the frequency- and if is higher than say 300Hz, would it still look like this on my slow mo video, and would it bother our eyes?

In the few minutes I was messing with it, it looked crisp and didn’t bother my eyes- and I am very sensitive to the flicker on my wife’s CS Max.
 
Looney01 said:
So why can I not see any flickering at all? What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

You can't see it by just looking at the display, the flickering happens too fast for your eyes to notice it, you need to record your phone's display with another device in slow-mo for you to see it.
 
waquzy said:
You can't see it by just looking at the display, the flickering happens too fast for your eyes to notice it, you need to record your phone's display with another device in slow-mo for you to see it.
Click to expand...

Ohhhh ok I see. Didn’t know that. But if it happens too fast for the eyes to see then how come some people are affected by it?
 
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