Oliver Haslam on February 6, 2018, 7:23 am

iPhone X Display Causing Select Users To Experience Headaches, Eyestrain, Here’s Why

Apple’s launch of the iPhone X last year was the company’s first foray into the OLED market, as far as smartphones are concerned.

While OLED screens are included in the Apple Watch since the first version back in 2015, the arrival of an OLED iPhone is something that was rumored year after year.

With Android phone makers having started making OLED phones years ago, at the top end of their lines at least, Apple decided it was time it followed suit. The company may have joined late, but it is said to have produced a phone with possibly the best OLED display yet. The iPhone X, however, may have a problem stemming from the display or, more accurately, its use of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). A number of users have reported that their iPhone X causes headaches during use.

For those unfamiliar with Pulse Width Modulation, or PWM, it is a technology that sees the display flicker at varying frequencies and while that flickering is not seen by users, it does appear that a number of users are specifically sensitive to the flickering itself, causing them to experience particularly bad headaches.

While older iPhones, or even the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus that were also launched last year, do not suffer from the same issue thanks to their use of LCD screens, the high-end and much vaunted iPhone X does. However, PWM is an important technology for OLED screens and it is very unlikely that Apple will be able to offer anything that resolves the issue for impacted users.

It’s important to note that PWM is not a technology only employed by Apple, so this is something that a change of phone is unlikely to rectify, unfortunately, without opting for one with an LCD display. With more and more flagship devices now employing OLED screens, options are becoming increasingly limited.