The tide is over: LCD never-slave parties still lost after all

Although I want to shout that LCD will never be a slave, I still have to recognize the fact that most of the mobile phones launched last year, whether they are flagship phones or thousand-yuan phones, use OLED screens and LCDs can be said to be over.

Take the current point in time as an example, if I want to buy an LCD mobile phone with decent performance, among the mobile phones released last year, there are only two machines: iQOO Z8 and Redmi Note 12T Pro Once the conditions are met, the choices can be said to be pitiful.

Other mobile phones either have too weak performance or poor LCD screen quality. Not to mention being the main phone, even using it as a backup phone may be a bit awkward.

Considering that the situation is stronger than the people, the LCD party can really consider switching to the OLED camp next.

Seeing this, some friends may be wondering why it is already 2024 and LCD mobile phones have almost no future, so why are there still a group of people guarding LCDs.

Hi, although LCD has no advantages in contrast and viewing angle compared to OLED, it is good at protecting the eyes and does not burn the screen. , like me, a user who is sensitive to stroboscopic light. When using certain OLED mobile phones, my eyes are always tired easily.

So a while ago I was looking for a 1TB backup machine with a price tag of less than 2,000 yuan. I didn’t choose either the Realme GT Neo5 SE or the OnePlus ACE 2v equipped with a 1.5K screen. In the end, I chose the resolution of only 1080P, but the stroboscopic performance was Relatively speaking, the Redmi Note 12 Turbo is more eye-friendly.

If you want to see the screen flickering, it is very simple. We only need to take another mobile phone, open the camera, select video, adjust the shutter speed, and shoot against the OLED screen. You can see black stripes.

The number of black lines reflects the frequency. The more black bars, the higher the strobe frequency (the more black bars, the better).

At the same time, the thickness of the white line and the black line represents the duration of the brightness and darkness of the screen (the thinner the black bar, the better); while the color of the black line can reflect the brightness fluctuation of the screen each time it flickers. How big (the lighter the better).

If this screen uses an LCD, it will have no black bars no matter what the brightness is, which means there will be no flicker.

The reason why the screen flickers is mainly related to its dimming method.

To put it simply, there are currently two common dimming methods for mobile phones to control screen brightness, namely DC dimming and PWM dimming. The former changes the screen brightness by adjusting the current; while the latter changes the screen brightness by adjusting the current. Control the brightness of the screen to change the screen brightness.

As we all know, each pixel of OLED can emit light independently.

If DC dimming is used to control brightness, a 2K resolution screen has about 3.68 million pixels, which is very difficult to control. Since each pixel has a different "physical quality", Under low voltage, the brightness of each pixel will also be different, which can easily lead to uneven screen brightness and color cast.

To be more serious, one part of the screen is bright and one part is dark, and it looks like a rag:

And an LCD with an independent backlight will not There is this problem. If the voltage is applied to a large screen, it will be bright, and if it is applied to a small screen, it will be dark. Not to mention how trouble-free it is. Therefore, most LCD mobile phones use DC dimming, while OLED mobile phones generally use PWM dimming.

Since PWM dimming is essentially a "bright-dark-bright-dark" process, as long as the screen flashing frequency, light and dark maintenance time and brightness fluctuation are controlled, the brightness adjustment effect can be achieved. But this results in inevitable flickering or flickering on the screen.

#It’s just that because of the persistence of vision of the human eye, the screen still seems to be always on.

Speaking of which, when OLED mobile phones first came out, many people didn’t take stroboscopic seriously at all. It wasn’t until they used it for a long time that something was wrong, and they gradually began to realize the dangers of stroboscopic. Netizens online The call for "LCD will never be a slave" is getting louder and louder.

The response from mobile phone manufacturers is also quite intriguing.

In the beginning, the manufacturer’s attitude towards screen eye protection was: If you want it, I’ll do it.

In 2019, when OLED screens first became the high-end mainstream, we could see that many manufacturers had taken the trouble to create a DC-like dimming mode for mobile phones, and we could choose whether to turn it on or not.

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The reason why it is called "DC-like" is because it is actually a dimming method improved on the basis of PWM dimming. It has fewer and fewer stroboscopic black bars. The fine and light color makes the screen more gentle when flickering, which is very close to the effect brought by DC dimming.

At that time, many manufacturers even issued a "disclaimer" to inform in advance that after turning on the DC-like dimming/low-stroboscopic mode, the display effect of the screen may be affected at low brightness, and color casts may be encountered after turning it on. , smearing and other issues, don't blame me, it's like talking about the ugly things in front of you.

Fortunately, they later came up with a compromise, which was to allow the phone to continue to use DC-like dimming under high brightness, but still use PWM dimming under low brightness. Light, but this time, it becomes high-frequency PWM.

For example, the original 360Hz low-frequency PWM that flashes 360 times in 1 second is adjusted to the 1920Hz high-frequency PWM that flashes 1920 times in 1 second. When the strobe frequency reaches a certain level, the effect on people The impact on the eyes will be reduced, and it will be relatively more eye-friendly.

And in 2021, after mobile phones have successively used LTPO OLED screens that can dynamically adjust the screen refresh rate, manufacturers’ attitude towards screen eye protection has become: You say After all, I pretended not to notice that many mobile phones at that time secretly canceled DC-like dimming.

The reason why manufacturers changed their attitude was because at that time, Android flagships began to use 2K resolution screens. LTPO could adaptively adjust the screen refresh rate (1Hz-120Hz) to achieve power saving effects. It can be said to be perfect when paired with a 2K 120Hz screen.

And don’t forget, the Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 at that time were also power-hungry. Without LTPO, the phone’s battery life would most likely be reduced. collapse.

However, it is more difficult to do DC-like dimming on LTPO OLED screens, and it often requires the cooperation of screen suppliers. Those domestic screen suppliers can say no, but international manufacturers like Samsung say no. Right.

Here is a very intuitive example.

I was very impressed. In the Xiaomi 12 series, the standard version does not use the more expensive LTPO screen. There is an "anti-flicker mode" in the settings. When turned on, the screen will switch to a DC-like mode:

The Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro with LTPO screen does not have this option. No matter what the brightness is, it is 360Hz low-frequency PWM dimming:

This is also the case for several models launched by other brands.

Not to mention lies, a colleague in the editorial department even bit the bullet and used Xiaomi Mi 11 for three years because he couldn’t wait for a screen that protects his eyes!

Since last year, the attitude of manufacturers has undergone a 180-degree change. Almost every manufacturer will focus on the screen when introducing it at the press conference. When it comes to "eye protection", various science popularizations have even been done, and the eye protection solutions adopted by different companies today are also very different.

For example, vivo X100 series and iQOO 12 series do not have any kind of DC dimming, but focus on full-brightness high-frequency PWM dimming; Xiaomi 14 has full-brightness DC-like dimming, while OPPO Find X7 series and OnePlus 12 series are high-frequency PWM DC-like combinations.

The reason is that, on the one hand, thanks to the rise of domestic screens, these domestic mobile phone manufacturers can directly participate in the in-depth customization of screens, and it is not impossible to even launch joint research and development with a certain screen supplier. It is not a big problem to make some requirements during the development stage.

On the other hand, it is increasingly difficult for mobile phones to create differentiation in hardware and software. Even if they can, other manufacturers will soon follow.

After rolling in the broad direction, it is reasonable to start rolling out various details, from resolution, refresh rate, color accuracy, brightness to eye protection.

It can be foreseen that the new phones launched next will definitely put more thought into eye protection. From this point of view, although LCD mobile phones are gradually declining, those who stick to LCD for eye protection will Wait a minute, friends, maybe the next spring has arrived~

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