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Other LCD is a better display technology for smartphones than OLED

Should Apple continue to offer LCD displays on smartphones?

  • No. OLED with PWM is the better option.

    Votes: 123 68.3%

  • OLED has too many problems. Apple should offer LCD and OLED (in the same size phone) or just LCD.

    Votes: 57 31.7%
  • Total voters
    180
W

W.MlL

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 14, 2018
43
10
There has been customer complaints on the iPhone X and XS models that they aggravate headaches and eye strain and PWM (pulse width modulation) has been indicated as a possible contributor to this. LCD models from Apple do not use PWM, Only the OLED models do.

A likely reason for PWM is that OLED is highly susceptible to image retention (burn-in). On a TV, image retention can be prevented through various techniques (e.g., pixel shift) coupled with the fact that home-theater TVs generally aren't displaying static images constantly.

With smartphones static images are displayed constantly. To me it seems that OLED is a poor choice of display technology for smartphone displays. Although OLED certainly gives better quality image and battery life, it is very expensive to manufacture and requires PWM to prevent ruining the screen. I'm a huge OLED fan on home-theater TV but I don't think it makes good sense putting it on a smartphone. A smartphone is something you stare at constantly and something that can get broken from dropping. So dramatically raising the cost for OLED and having to deal with a pulsating light going off in your face seems bad choice to me. What are your thoughts?
 
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It’s totally fine. If you’re the few who PWM affects you then don’t buy a X or XS and buy a XR. There is more flagship phones with OLED then LCD with Apple being the last toe adopt it. You will really only find LCD on mid range phones and lower these days.

Don’t know why you decided to make yet another thread other then to stir the pot once again.
 
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I think LCD will always be offered unless Apple can ensure their margins are met for an OLED iPhone at $750. OLED has issues with yield and cost, but I'm sure Apple prefers OLED in the end due to it being more flexible (foldable, etc), thus allowing them to have less issues in designing the hardware.
 
LCD and OLED both have their advantages and it depends on the use case. If you're looking for battery efficiency with primarily white-colored designs, than LCD is your best bet since it's able to show white while using less power than OLED. However, it shows much less contrast and "light" blacks compared to OLED. If you're looking for the most accurate display, the most contrast, and the most battery saving for black software design, OLED is your best bet as it shows the most contrast and is able to literally turn off the display for blacks. The downside is it uses more battery for white and there's the PWM issue.

Also, if you were going to make a poll, you could've at least made it unbiased rather than having leading questions/answers. Having the answers that you do makes the poll answerer more likely to be against OLED, ruining the credibility of the poll. You should've just asked "Do you prefer LCD screens or OLED screens?" and just had "I prefer LCD" and "I prefer OLED" as the answer choices.
 
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Closingracer said:
It’s totally fine. If you’re the few who PWM affects you then don’t buy a X or XS and buy a XR. There is more flagship phones with OLED then LCD with Apple being the last toe adopt it. You will really only find LCD on mid range phones and lower these days.

Don’t know why you decided to make yet another thread other then to stir the pot once again.
Click to expand...

XR is a much larger phone than the XS.
 
W.MlL said:
There has been customer complaints on the iPhone X and XS models that they aggravate headaches and eye strain and PWM (pulse width modulation) has been indicated as a possible contributor to this. LCD models from Apple do not use PWM, Only the OLED models do.

A likely reason for PWM is that OLED is highly susceptible to image retention (burn-in). On a TV, image retention can be prevented through various techniques (e.g., pixel shift) coupled with the fact that home-theater TVs generally aren't displaying static images constantly.

With smartphones static images are displayed constantly. To me it seems that OLED is a poor choice of display technology for smartphone displays. Although OLED certainly gives better quality image and battery life, it is very expensive to manufacture and requires PWM to prevent ruining the screen. I'm a huge OLED fan on home-theater TV but I don't think it makes good sense putting it on a smartphone. A smartphone is something you stare at constantly and something that can get broken from dropping. So dramatically raising the cost for OLED and having to deal with a pulsating light going off in your face seems bad choice to me. What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

We've been talking about this for over a year with the iPhone. It is a problem for some people, but that number looks like it's a small number. Those people, unfortunately, need to stick with an LCD phone. For now, there are still iPhone LCD phones available. It's impossible to say how display tech will develop over the next 12-36 months. For now, there are options that work.

By the way, I think your premise is completely backwards. PWM, when it's a problem, is a problem when you're watching for longer periods. That means TV displays should be the biggest problem and smartphone displays the least - no one I know or see stares at their smartphone constantly. And if you drop it? That's your issue, and one you can control with better cases and/or insurance (like AC+).

Finally, your "poll" questions are completely messed up. How about an honest range of neutral questions, rather than a two very misleading, very incomplete "questions"?
 
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I've used countless AMOLED Android phones and never had a headache. My xs Max gave me a bad headache within 5 to 10 minutes.

PWM exists in the Motorola, oneplus, Samsung and LG phones I have used, yet none of them bugged me a bit. It's not just pwm, it's how apple implements it. Someone a lot smarter than me would need to explain why that happens.
 
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timeconsumer said:
With the lack of flagships being released with LCD IPS screens I would say that most people want OLED. As long as you’re not affected by PWM I think OLED is better.
Click to expand...

Most people outside this forum will look blankly at you if you ask them if they prefer lcd or amoled on their phone.

If I were to place my old 7 next to my Xs I’m pretty much 100% sure that my wife, son, father, mother or sister wouldn’t know their screens were two different technologies. Sure they may notice the difference in sharpness or that the colours are different on each but that would be it.

We get amoled because that is what Apple/Samsung etc decide they will use for whatever reason.
 
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MarkX said:
Most people outside this forum will look blankly at you if you ask them if they prefer lcd or amoled on their phone.

If I were to place my old 7 next to my Xs I’m pretty much 100% sure that my wife, son, father, mother or sister wouldn’t know their screens were two different technologies. Sure they may notice the difference in sharpness or that the colours are different on each but that would be it.

We get amoled because that is what Apple/Samsung etc decide they will use for whatever reason.
Click to expand...
That’s also a fair point. But I think people like the brighter colors on OLED’s.
 
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I7guy said:
I do and I debate daily whether to keep it enabled or not. I would like to hear what people’s thoughts on this is.
Click to expand...
The reason I asked is because you mentioned the S8 gave you headaches and I feel like maybe TrueTone could be the reason why the XS Max doesn’t. For me after experiencing TrueTone I don’t think I could use an iPhone without it.
 
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timeconsumer said:
The reason I asked is because you mentioned the S8 gave you headaches and I feel like maybe TrueTone could be the reason why the XS Max doesn’t. For me after experiencing TrueTone I don’t think I could use an iPhone without it.
Click to expand...

Is it generally advised that enabling True Tone is the good thing to do for sensitive people? The web seems to give conflicting info on this.
 
W.MlL said:
Is it generally advised that enabling True Tone is the good thing to do for sensitive people? The web seems to give conflicting info on this.
Click to expand...
That I’m not sure about, I think it’s preference. For me it seems to make the screen a bit warmer which is easier on my eyes. Without it, I feel like it has a blue tint and is too bright. This is on an iPhone 8 though.
 
timeconsumer said:
For me after experiencing TrueTone I don’t think I could use an iPhone without it.
Click to expand...

It's the first thing I shut off, since iPhone's OLED screens seem to be very warm by default.
Maybe on the 8+ or XR, my answer would be different. The screen looks very yellow to me.
 
W.MlL said:
A likely reason for PWM is that OLED is highly susceptible to image retention (burn-in).
Click to expand...


I would say early on the Samsung screens "think back to 2012" had burn in problems after a year, or so of use. The thing is, for burn in to be noticeable one would have to run their phone at full screen brightness for long periods of time over months of use to see it. That's why you could see it at the stores on their demo models, cause they turn brightness all the way up with static setup to give u that awe popping screen.
 
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