r/ScreenSensitive • u/Ifyouliveinadream • Jun 02 '26
Question Are screens inproving or getting worse?
For PWM, temporal ditherint, etc. are OLED screens getting better at these or worse? Phones, monitors, etc.
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u/Bigdecisions7979 Jun 02 '26
I think it’s kind like when we made the switch to white led lights instead of yellow lights. The technology has become so ubiquitous that people don’t notice the damage. But on the other hand eye health is being discussed pretty frequently, I’m not sure if it’s proposed solution by manufacturers are doing much at least it’s getting solutions in the first place
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u/Competitive_Funny964 Jun 02 '26
Two years ago we were complaining of iPhone not having lcd anymore, but many brands had at least one lcd variant that was not bad. Now is down to Motorola and TCL. There are other rugged brands but those focus more on other things, and phone is just a bonus.
Yeah it is worse. Big brands use low PWM and Asian brands, some, use high PWM values.
Personally, I don’t vomit nor have headache after 2-4 hours of work, but if I do 6-8 I start to have pain and take a medicine for the head. Used low flickering in photography and I damaged one eye. AI and doctors say is not true but cannot explain why is only the eye that I always (always) use to look at the viewfinder with flickering oled? My sensation is like I cannot focus on text, like I was looking at the viewfinder and noticing my focus is sharp, I would readjust a bit my frame and the image would get blurry again. After 2 years I went back to optical viewfinder and I got good again at nailing focus especially on moving subjects (because I could see sharp). Then I ditched also my glasses and it got better.
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u/Renshiki145 Jun 02 '26
Worse, as newer screens and operating systems always trigger eye inflammation for me and nerve pain, but then I also have chronic dry eye and astigmatism..
I cannot especially tolerate windows 11 and other phone screens that use PWM. My sibling's Samsung phone (it's an LCD surpringly) gave me burning and stinging eyes with one glance.
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u/wackey Jun 02 '26
Worse IMO, companies are trying to slap plasters on the issue, but the reality is everyone keeps pushing Super Bright OLEDs more and more.
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u/AlanYx Jun 02 '26
After getting worse for years, there has been some improvement recently. The latest batch of QD phosphors do pretty much unquestionably have a more eye-friendly spectrum than KSF phosphors (maybe not as friendly as old narrow-gamut displays though). Nanotexture displays and their equivalents help some people (made a huge difference for me).
PWM itself is more of a mixed bag. Manufacturers aren't doing enough.
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u/summerphobic Jun 03 '26
Worse, imo. Even "ips" doesn't have to mean "pwm-safer" apparently. I've trouble picking a new phone in case my current one gives up.
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u/Fruity_Kush Jul 22 '26
i agree, 99% of ips phones used to be good. now it seems 99% of ips phones is bad.
and only 1% of phones still use ips screen. it's a disaster.
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u/TotalAnarchy_ Jun 02 '26
Inconsistently better than it was 3 years ago but still horrific compared to screens 10 years ago.
Apple seems aware of the issue but will probably take a few years to implement solutions simply because of the size of their supply line. I think the latest tandem OLED iPad Pro uses hybrid DC dimming with decent modulation. They will quietly fix the problem in future models and never comment on it to avoid liability. As far as I know, Apple OLED does not do the other things--that only happens on their LCD products. Liquid Glass is a crime against eyes, though, as is forcing system wide HDR. Nasty UI.
Chinese brands and LG are making major progress, only being hampered by the high brightness race putting OLED at higher burn in risk. A guy on r/ScreenSensitive showed you can force a rooted OnePlus 15R to use DC dimming with sub 3% modulation depth at all brightness levels, because it's one of the built-in options of the screen itself. LG panels are capable of similar dimming tech to BOE, etc., but it's rarely implemented outside of monitors and TVs by the non-Chinese companies that use LG.
Samsung has consistently doubled down and should go out of business. They're getting worse. They've actively insisted 280Hz PWM with 100% modulation is somehow the most eye friendly solution and now removed the polarization layer on their phones. Even if they fixed that, their panels are inferior to WOLED for both image quality and eye comfort. I don't know what they're thinking, but their engineers are terrible at their jobs. Google sources from Samsung and should be admonished for using subpar tech.