NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

Hi,
And congratulations for the Great article! Im currently looking for a 13 inch laptop possibly pwm free. Ive got a 1000 € budget. I was wondering if the xps 15 with the i5 does use pwm in all its versions or rather this problem has been fixed with the 2016 refresh. Which alternatives can i get with that money?

Sorry i meant xps 13

I have the same question.  I saw one report that the Dell XPS 13 did use PWM, but this had PWM listed at 0.  Anyone know for sure? Thanks!

A bit of warning, same laptop/smartphone models might be using various panels, some might be flickering and some not. I am very sensitive to it and I was looking specifically for a flicker-free screen and purchased Dell E5570 which was reported by multiple sources to have a flicker-free Samsung panel and by some sources to have an AUO panel (many AUOs are flickering and literally caused me a lot of headache). One I received had a BAE panel. Fortunately, flicker-free. Be careful.

Hi, unfortunately I am one of those people who can not endure PWM Backlight controls. My questions are
1: Why not measure from 1 Hz on?
2. When you make does measurements is it from 100% light on or 50% - I would be a lot more interesting from 50% on so people do not have to worry about that. Alternative you could measure both.
I know some Eizo monitors they change to pwm when you lower the light to a certain procent - I have one of them.
I am thinking about buying the Iphone 7 plus - In your else excellent review of the phone you write it is PWM free - Do you have it measured in different light levels? If so I would really like to see them.

Yours sincerely
Sven Nikolajsen (Denmark)

We measure all the frequencies our testing equipment is able to report. That should be from 1Hz (altough that would be way too slow, everyone would notice the flickering) up to the kHz range.
We look at what ranges the flickering happend and note it in the review, e.g. if it only happened from 20% to 80% brightness, that should be noted.
Regarding the iPhone 7, yes we measured it with different brightness levels, but usually we only add one screenshot.

The Graphics Cards are all listed as the same model for some reason.  Was there a glitch or mistake made?  Not sure when this happened, but it wasn't like this last I checked a few months ago

Thanks, mistake - fixed
GPU Models should be now visible and linked to the gpu page.

Ich muss sagen, dass dieser Ranking auf noteboockchek.com ist ein totaler Witz ist. Ich bin sehr sensible auf PWM und kann sagen, dass einige Laptops und Smartphones die in der Liste las PWM frei angeführt sind, benutzen PWM. Laptopmedia Seite hat eine ähnliche Liste, mit viel weniger Laptops drin - ca. 10 -15 pro Hersteller über 3-4 Jahre - und die machen auch eine Messung unter Lab-Bedingungen. Hier bei Noteboocheck.com wird angegeben, dass sie bei über 50 % der Laptops kein PWM feststellen konnten. Woher also diese krasse Diskrepanz bei den Messungen? Da die meisten Menschen auf PWM nicht mit solchen Kopfschmerzen wie ich reagieren, kommen die Autoren von Netoboockcheck mit dieser Lüge offensichtlich durch ... Ich will nicht mutmaßen, warum die Leser hinters Licht geführt werden ...

I have to say that this ranking is a joke. I have already ordered couple of smartphones and laptops that are here as PWM free and they were all using PWM - and yes I checked the dispaly used in the laptops. I mean notebookcheck attest over 50 % of all laptops to be PWM free. There are other sincere Websites like Laptopmedia which has a PWM ranking featuring 10-15 Laptops per Manufacturer as PWM free over a period of 3-4 years, so one might ask where does the discrepancy come from. Many readers are not so sensitive to PWM as I am, so the Authors come with such blatant lies through. And manufacturers know that even readers that do not get instant headaches from PWM do not like the idea of LED light constantly flashing infront of their eyes...
If only all PWM sensitive people would voice their concern over this BS ranking ... I think such dishonest rankings are actually much worse than no rankings at all, becasue without trasnparency no change in the production will come.

The problem is that its a standard industry practice to use displays sourced from multiple manufacturers for the same laptop. So while the unit we test might be PWM free, the next one under the same model name might have PWM - while they should be identical on the specsheet, in reality, they are not.

This is a problem impossible to solve for us. We at Notebookcheck can not test every single Notebook on earth and its almost always impossible to tell how many different display.panel variations there are for a product, because the manufacturers are mostly intransparent about this stuff.

In the end, its the manufacturers who are not transparent about their products. Its their task to make more honest spec-sheets and inform people about their products.

Thank you so much for this fantastic article!!!

 Hi,

very helpful article, thank you!
I am trying to figure out the origin of my terrible eyestrain and almost instantaneous cervical pain upon using certain devices, pc monitors, laptops and now, unfortunately, phones.
I have had a Samsung Galaxy On5 smartphone for nearly 2 years. I have never suffered of any condition. I can use the phone to read e-books for hours. Very recently I bought a Freetel Kiwami 2 which mounts a 5.7" OLED display and immediately developed severe symptoms. Besides the feeling of eyes filled with sand, the soreness and the difficulties associated with focusing on different objects close to and far from the device, my visual discomfort would quite immediately turn into cervical pain, which I find puzzling because I clearly do not assume a different posture to when looking at my Samsung Galaxy On5.

I now wonder whether the reason for my disturbs is PWM. However, I see none of these phones has been reviewed. Is that correct?

I have a couple of other questions/comments. I am sorry if I incorporate a lot of topics but I am quite desperate and I really want to dig out some helpful information from experts in the field and people suffering of the same problems. Indeed I have not found any competence nor interest at medical / optometrist level. I start with my queries...

I see that the top ranked phone as to Response Times PWM Frequency is the Nomu M6 and at the bottom of the standings there are devices with zero frequency. Assuming I suffer of PWM-induced symptoms, shall I opt for a smartphone with the highest PWM frequency or with zero frequency? If I understand correctly, zero frequency means that PWM is not employed so brightness dimming is attained without turning the backlights on and off. Could you please clarify?

On a different note, I do not see the MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014) in the list, probably it is a bit old. Can anyone comment on PWM with regard to this laptop? Is it very different to the 2017 MacBook Air present in the rankings, scoring a PWM frequency of 58K Hz?

Furthermore, I would like to ask if the display resolution can affect the PWM frequency. I would think it is two separate things. However, historically I noticed that my disturbs would disappear by changing the display from native to a lower resolution. As an example, in 2006 I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 and I could not handle the display from the eyestrain. Then I lowered the display resolution to 1024 x 768, and I could comfortably use the laptop, staring at the display for 15 hours a day without any collateral effect. Someone could argue feature miniaturization under native resolution could be the reason of my eyestrain. However, I would develop symptoms even if I did not read, just by staring at the display. If at the highest resolution of my laptop I increased the zoom considerably to make the features of the same size as with the 1024 x 768 resolution, I would still have issues.
At lower resolution my eyes do not seem to detect all those pixels flashing in the background. Does it make any sense?
I used the same "trick" with a Dell Latitude more recently, I forgot the model, and with some monitors.

Another point I would like to ask about is the impact of the graphics card on the display and on eyestrain. I read some posts about some graphics cards, specifically from one manufacturer, generating eyestrain in a minority of people. I am sorry I am not allowed to post links as a new user...
I found myself quite in good agreement after checking which computers were tougher on my eyes. They all had an Intel card, but I am very cautious with this. Could it just be a coincidence?
What leaves the doubt is that in a couple of occasions I had to use two different pcs in the same laboratory connected to the same model of monitor. One would give me absolutely no problems, the other monitor would drive me crazy. Graphics card was the only difference I could tell between the two setups.
Another potential evidence. I talked about my Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and how I worked around my eyestrain by lowering the resolution to 1024 x 768. The laptop mounts an Nvidia card. Well, a few months ago I had the bad idea of upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 10. I struggled finding online a driver for the graphic card. Is it correct that if the Invidia card does not get to work properly because of a lack of driver, there is a sort of basic card taking its place? I may be saying a stupid thing...In any case, I lowered the resolution of the display to 1024 x 768, and the eyestrain is very strong. It is the same laptop, and the same resolution!

Any thought?

Thanks so much for any comment, and sorry for the tons of questions! Hopefully it is not too difficult to get thru my post.

Awesome information, thank you so much!

Upon seeing here that an iPhone 7 Plus has "0" PWM I ordered a refurbished one from the on-line Apple store. I am very disappointed that I still get migraines from it. I must be making a mistake some where -- any thoughts?

And the question is - which top rated smartphone to buy if you are eye sensitive? My favorite is down (Samsung Note 9)..... any suggestion? (without iphone)

"Smaller values are better" - whaat? Is 50 Hz flickering is better than 5000 Hz?

Just checked with my camera and NOKIA Lumia 930 pulsates at 120Hz.  Painful! Mitigated by manually switching display brightness to high.

 Since we can always return new purchased laptop within a few days, I would check PWM on my laptop first thing and then return it, if it had bad PWM. What would be the best way to do it? Is there any software, or do I have to buy special equipment...? thnx.
PS: I do not think a metod of moving a line on monitor is gonna do it, since PWM is very high these days, or am I wrong?

So an "easy" way to do it is using e.g. the highspeed camera mode on most modern smartphones. With 120fps e.g. you should be able to see flickering up to relative high frequencies. Low frequencies can even be seen in any camera monitor or on the smartphone screen when taking a video. The high PWM modes in the kHz range however can only be captured with high end probes like we use.

Regarding the "smaller values are better", that comment is meant for benchmarks marked with a * as this list can be used for more than just showing PWM values (where higher is of course "better", but 0 is best).

please give us samsung galaxy m20 diaplay pwm test results..thank u..

Thank u very much notebookcheck.com for m20 pwm detail.. :) :) :)

Instead of 0, you should have used infinity symbol "∞" so that it is sorted together with higher numbers - not lower ones like now. Logical.

I can definitely say that the following 2 phones cause eye strain:

- Huawei Mate 20 X (OLED)
- Motorola Moto G7 (LCD)

Both caused vision problems, head discomfort, and a terrible feeling after a short amount of use (20 minutes or less, but I can tell in less than about 60 seconds of use).

Now I'm stuck selling the Huawei, still new in plastic. I returned the Moto G7 immediately. Motorola was really good about the return process (thank goodness!).

I'm going to check out Asus ZenFone 5Z & the new ZenFone 6. At this point it's getting ridiculously hard to find a nice big phone with good camera what won't cause suffering.

I should add that I also had issues with recent HP 24" monitors I bought with LED lighting and had to go back to older standard monitors which are ok for my eyes.

Thanks for this great list!

Fellow PWM and flicker sensitive users who get headaches and eyestrain please let us know what new phones work for you.

It is getting harder to find ones that do, even some listed as 0 PWM seem to cause problems so please add ones that work for you in the comments list.

Thanks

What about apple iphone 6s and 6s plus.. Are they pwm free or not??.. please tell me..thanks

Please give us apple iphone 6s pwm test result..thank u..

Dear community, I am having a difficult time finding HP ProBooks with a zero PWM. Ideally I wish to purchase an HP ProBook 455R G6 with a zero PWM. What model names (7character identifier) have a zero PWM?
I would be satisfied with any of these HP ProBook model names (predominantly from the 400 HP ProBook series): 5PP64EA, 6BN82EA, 6BN82EA, 6HL92EA, 6HL93EA, 6HL94EA, 6HL94EA, 6HL95EA, 6HL96EA, 6HL96EA, 6HL98EA, 6XE26EA, 7KN80EA, 8MH06ES, 8MH06ES, 8MH09ES, W4P20ES. Thanks for any tip. Regards.

Motorola one vision is the best phone I've used that doesn't cause migraines but night light needs to be on at a level around 60% to reduce the blue tint and eliminate eyestrain.

Motorola one action uses the same screen.

Fellow flicker sensitive users, please let us know which new tablets work for you! I've bought 2 that are listed as zero PWM on this list, and am still getting migraines. 

iPhone XR works great for me. 

Quote from: PWM BURNS MY EYES  >< on October 24, 2019, 20:00:57
Fellow PWM and flicker sensitive users who get headaches and eyestrain please let us know what new phones work for you.

It is getting harder to find ones that do, even some listed as 0 PWM seem to cause problems so please add ones that work for you in the comments list.

Thanks

Dear Team!

Samsung Galaxy A20S  (32GB, 3GB RAM).   a20S. End S.
Screen flickering / PWM ???

The phone is sold in the European market, for example: amazon.

Best wishes!

Do you have PWM information about SHARP AQUOS R3?
Thank you

Quote from: Tomas on November 11, 2017, 15:56:45There are other sincere Websites like Laptopmedia which has a PWM ranking [...] I think such dishonest rankings are actually much worse than no rankings at all, becasue without trasnparency no change in the production will come.

Thanks for mentioning the other ranking!

Quote from: AG on April 04, 2018, 07:12:18
I would like to ask if the display resolution can affect the PWM frequency. [...] I lowered the display resolution to 1024 x 768, and I could comfortably use the laptop, staring at the display for 15 hours a day without any collateral effect.

Please compare the refresh rates used at the different display resolutions. Maybe higher refresh rates are easier on your eyes?

Quote from: Anastasia Dee on December 28, 2019, 01:50:35
Fellow flicker sensitive users, please let us know which new tablets work for you! I've bought 2 that are listed as zero PWM on this list, and am still getting migraines.

Get this one as long as it is sold! "Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5 (SM-T590N)" was released in 2018: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-A-10-5-SM-T590N-Tablet-Review.338520.0.html

No joke: I'm still using my Nexus 7 2013 to write this comment and really like the feeling and look of it (without a case around). Get a used LTE version in good condition and install an Custom ROM if you want to have Android 10. I'm running the stock Android 6 and like it.

"OLED Saver offered by MrJS is available in the Google Play Store and you don't need a rooted phone to use it."

Just tried a Samsung Galaxy M20. I don't know if it has PWM but it hurts my eyes. It feels like something is drawing them close together. Both my spouse and I feel it. It is worse than the LG V20 I have now.

I'm very sensitive to PWM and would like to learn how to detect and measure it myself.  Can any recommend a good oscilloscope and light sensor that can be used for this purpose? 

Can anyone explain why OnePlus 8 pro has a worse display than one of OnePlus 8 in terms of flickering (258 vs 373 he)? I Want to pick the phone with better ratio and be sure there is no mistake

Quote from: TallSean on May 24, 2020, 22:42:34
I'm very sensitive to PWM and would like to learn how to detect and measure it myself.  Can any recommend a good oscilloscope and light sensor that can be used for this purpose?

You can easily get a qualified first impression if you use a camera (smartphone or standalone) which allows to set the parameters via manual mode: https://youtu.be/v0nizVGnWXc

I'm super sensitive to pwm (within 5min migraines headaches eyes hurt) and with lazer eye surgery I have to watch everything in dim since getting it a decade ago. Off topic: they need to ban ultra bright led headlights on cars. It's blinding.

Owner:
No issue with pwm:
iPhone 5s and 7 (lcd)
Microsoft surface 3 laptop (lcd)

Issue with pwm:
Android Samsung A70 (oled)
iPhone X (oled)
Samsung 24" ips lcd (my head hurts, and yet it's not oled, maybe I can't do IPS).

Recommendation:
I love my Microsoft surface 3 laptop (clam style old school, the non detachable). Gorgeous lcd colours super high resolution touchscreen. Quality is on par to MacBook, id say Microsoft surface is even better in quality. The rating though on here says 21700 response (This has to be based on lcd technology voltage and not pwm, as there's no way this thing is doing that on off thing). Either I'm looking at the wrong one or this response time has nothing to do with pwm. This laptop is lcd (highest quality that money can buy in a laptop by Microsoft, its used by graphics designers). So was surprised. I'll work on it for hours on end in low lighting, no issue. I kid you not the second I grab my Android oled phone I'll get headaches within a minute. So clearly this response time isn't indicative of whether you'll get a headache.

The culprit is OLED. The minute I learn it's oLED, run from it like the plague.

Here's stats if anyone is looking for high quality laptop with zero and pwm issues and it's lcd.

" 13.5" 2256 x 1504 PixelSense touchscreen is big, bright, and easy to use
PixelSense LCD display uses high-quality components and factory-calibrated sRGB colour reproduction for stunning brightness levels and colour"

Microsoft Surface 3 13.5" Touchscreen Laptop - Platinum (Intel Core i5-1035G7/128GB SSD/8GB RAM) - English
Model Number: VGY-00001

iPhones, as long as it's lcd. I can stare at them for hours and hours in low dim.

Solution for the Samsung oled phone. I had to download "oled saver". It will keep brightness at 100%, but use software to dim it, zero pwm. But what sucks is that the auto Brightness is not subtle, walk from one room to next and it darkens instant of gradual. It solves the pwm issue, so at least your $1000 phone isn't vaporware going in the trash. But that auto dimming is kinda sucky, but I can't complain least it solved my headaches. It's a work phone. But for personal use, I stick with iPhone lcd only. Oled is overrated. MicroLCD is the next big thing.

Anyone recommend any lcd based 2020+ androids?

Quote from: Alan on December 09, 2018, 23:51:35
Upon seeing here that an iPhone 7 Plus has "0" PWM I ordered a refurbished one from the on-line Apple store. I am very disappointed that I still get migraines from it. I must be making a mistake some where -- any thoughts?

It's late reply, but I have iPhone 7 regular. No pwm issue. I think the culprit is the refurbished screen. Unless iPhone 7 Plus is using different screen from regular iPhone 7.

Please answer me. If this is pwm 1500000 on my device is it danger for me&

No. This is all danger in 80-400 pwm frequency. In 1500000 this is not any danger.

All 12 iphone series are disastrous

What does it mean when a link is greyed out? E.g. Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 10.4 (2020) is grey and not clickable, but the chart still has a value for its PWM.

Also Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 shouldn't have the value 0, the review clearly states it flickers at 60Hz.

Any user who has personally used any laptop and smartphone that has low flicker and pwm.
Any device that is easy on eyes.

Quote from: Zohaib on February 05, 2022, 03:34:10Any user who has personally used any laptop and smartphone that has low flicker and pwm.
Any device that is easy on eyes.

HP Elitebook 820 G3. I have the touch screen version (not sure it affects). Zero problems with eyes. I used to use an MBP 16" 2019 and it was like wearing too strong prescription glasses and the eyeballs felt like they were burning at the back and closing the eyes made eyeballs sting, even long after I stopped using the machine (until the next morning). Same story with the Apple M-series laptops.

Quote from: Henno on August 25, 2022, 08:29:51

Quote from: Zohaib on February 05, 2022, 03:34:10Any user who has personally used any laptop and smartphone that has low flicker and pwm.
Any device that is easy on eyes.

HP Elitebook 820 G3. I have the touch screen version (not sure it affects). Zero problems with eyes. I used to use an MBP 16" 2019 and it was like wearing too strong prescription glasses and the eyeballs felt like they were burning at the back and closing the eyes made eyeballs sting, even long after I stopped using the machine (until the next morning). Same story with the Apple M-series laptops.

But based on my years of research it's extremely likely that it is not the display which is the root cause of the issue but it is the video driver that is ordering the display to flicker in order to expand the color range (look up temporal dithering). I was able to make my MBP 2019 a lot more bearable by using SwitchResX and switching from "billions of colors" to "millions of colors" and using sRGB color profile. My HP is using Intel HD 520 Graphics, so I guess any machine using the same video card is okay.

If you have an Intel video card, there is a program called "Dithering Settings for Integrated Graphics" which enables you to disable temporal dithering on some of the Intel video cards. Full list of the supported can be found on the program's Github (user skawamoto0) project page (file database.csv).

Xiaomi Redmi K50i PWM please

i'm looking for a close to stock android phone which is comfortable to the eyes.

does anyone have experience with these models?

- motorola edge 30: amoled 250

- motorola g82 5g: amoled 119.4

- sony xperia 10 iv: oled 253

google pixels are not available where i live. i'm open to other recommendations too, preferably a phone that will continue to get android updates. thank you.

i misread the information and thought that the lower the number the better (as those with 0 are ideal). i guess these three phones wont be ideal for someone with sensitive eyes.

The data is full with invalid results.

All 50Hz and 100Hz are the results of your ambient lights with 50Hz or 100Hz AC electricity.

All results less than the devices' refresh rates are also invalid. You can't have PWM frequency less than refresh rates. If so, there will always be a couple of frames that are never lit by backlight. (Assuming the pulse width is very short at low brightness)

On OLED device, the PWM frequency must be the multiple of refresh rate, that's how OLED works. So results like 250Hz on 60Hz device are all invalid. 240Hz should be the actual result.

there are some results that are clearly just measuring noise.

Last but not least, there are some results that are simply typos. For example
Nokia-T20-Tablet-review-Pad-with-LTE-lasts-forever

Aside from invalid results, the numbers shown here didn't take the modulation depth into consideration. For example, a 50Hz PWM with 100% modulation depth is easily noticeable, but a 10Hz PWM with 1% modulation depth is barely perceivable. If you check the waveform, some of the wave pattern is very far from the time axis, indicating the modulation depth is very small.

Could you test the 2019 27-inch imac screen? Thank you very much.

A useful article, despite the negative comments from some. At least you made the effort to write the article & make a list, rather than us all being completely in the bloody dark! Even now, 2023, still the PWM information is not listed in Laptop specs. As you have said (& it explains the unhelpful response from a retailer when I asked about display specs), as long as makers use different displays for exactly the same model, we have no idea what PWM, if any, we will get. It makes any list somewhat unreliable as you also may only have tested one of possibly several different displays in any model. Let alone the possible effects of different graphics cards or drivers as has been suggested.
Many people have eye problems & with the massive increase in hours-long screen staring over the past couple of decades, many more will develop them & come to regret it. It can only be made worse by PWM & the complete lack of transparency over its use in such displays... 

Is there a way to get a notification when a particular device review is posted? I always check on here to see the PWM for new devices. But I never know when they are published. Maybe there could be a link within articles leading up to the Notebookcheck review. On your end it could help grow email signup and remind users to come back to the site later. Just a thought! Thanks for all the data in these reviews. It's saving my eyeballs and device returns.

Can't wait for the iPhone 15 series results and how it compares with the 610 Response Time PWM Frequency from the iPhone 13! Hope all is well and Have a great day!

I can't wait to get a review on the basic model pwm figure of iPhone 15 compared to iPhone 13. Not only me, but quite a few people are curious about the reviews of the general model.

Could you please add a PWM review of OnePlus Nord N30 5G which is the only IPS display phone available in the USA right now.

iPhone SE should be called iPhone Health Edition.

Quote from: Zohaib on February 05, 2022, 03:34:10Any user who has personally used any laptop and smartphone that has low flicker and pwm.
Any device that is easy on eyes.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1, best laptop screen ever, even nicer than the new MacBook Air M2.
Razer Phone 2, wide 1440px WQHD screen with 120Hz refresh, without PWM - but not OLED and not great in broad daylight. Both aren't great for broad daylight, but hipsters work at night, right?

i hope that you post iphone 6 and iphone 6s test

i hope that tyou post review for: realme 6s and realme c11

what about Xiaomi Mi A2?

could you post a pwm review for oppo a37 please?