Chinese smartphone makers have recently started caring a lot about the eye health of their customers, constantly resorting to third-party “low blue light” certifications as well as very high rates of PWM dimming. Google? Not so much. Not at all, really.
But that may all change later this year. According to a new report, the company is finally planning to do something about its low PWM dimming rate “later this year”, which obviously implies the Pixel 10 series will be the first in Google’s history to have high PWM dimming.
Google Pixel 9 Pro
In case you’re unaware, most OLED screens reduce brightness not by actually reducing brightness, but by introducing flicker (“pulse width modulation” aka PWM). The lower the rate per second, the more susceptible some people are to headaches. So in this regard, higher is better and hopefully Google will introduce a much higher rate in order to appease people who are sensitive to PWM dimming.
Granted, this isn’t the biggest display upgrade ever, but it will be incredibly useful to those affected by the company’s previous devices, so it’s a step forward for the Pixel 10 series nevertheless.