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Does anyone have any information about Nexus 6 (and its "brothers") real display performance? I'm worried about PWM/flickering, that usually exists in AMOLED displays and makes them completely unusable for me. (For example, all recent Samsung phones have flickering issue and because of that they are unusable). And Nexus 6 has AMOLED, if I understood right — but I couldn't find any details about it on the Internet yet.

It would be especially great if you have proofs (high-speed camera recordings, for example).

A good article about what is PWM and how to test it: http://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation.htm

Update

I've found this test result in a review:
image from laptopmedia.com review

It implies that above 30% brightness level the flickering must be (almost) absent. But it's not a complete answer, because

  • it's unknown what's the real brightness at 30% and how much it differs from 100%, and is PWM completely inactive when brightness is above say 40% (the graphs show that at 30% there are indeed pulsations)
  • is it possible to lock the brightness setting in such a way that it's forced to stay ≥ 40% for example
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  • I don't own a Nexus 6, but you can disable auto-brightness in Android (Settings -> Display), and CyanogenMod (if not stock android - I can't confirm if it exists or not) has the property ro.lcd_min_brightness which can be set using adb shell setprop, and checked using adb shell getprop.
    – keepcalm
    Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 9:22
  • True, this simple option always exists. Automatic is better when it works, though. :) Interesting to know about the ro.lcd_min_brightness. I don't own a Nexus 6 too (hence the question), but just tried it on LG D856 (stock Android) — there's no such property.
    – Display Name
    Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 9:27
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    Oh well. This app seems to let you set minimum auto-brightness level, but I'm not entirely sure. Might be worth taking a look.
    – keepcalm
    Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 9:36
  • Hopefully this helps. I have a Nexus 6, and the display can get extremely bright if it needs to. 100% brightness on the nexus 6 is about 30% brighter than 100% on my Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. When under typical indoor lighting, I set the brightness between 35% and 50% (on adaptive display), to give you a reference. I've never noticed the screen flickering, but I've also never purposely checked for it.
    – GreenRaccoon23
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 10:50
  • Let me know if you'd like to know anything else. :)
    – GreenRaccoon23
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 11:06

2 Answers 2

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Either steer clear of Amoled, or at 40% brightness use a screen filter app like Twilight to further reduce brightness without flickering. Contrast and colours may suffer though.

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  • It was already clear that the phone flickers at 30% and less. But if you know something specific about the display performance in 40%..100% brightness range, then it'd deserve an answer.
    – Display Name
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 20:11
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So I saw Nexus 6P phone in action (it was one of the testing devices at work).

The results are, unfortunately, pretty bad: it indeed does flicker, flickering increases as the brightness decreases, and even at 100% brightness there is some flickering that's noticeable by naked eye.

Not sure if "regular" Nexus 6 (not 6P) is the same, though.

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