Pixel colors and power use - General Questions and Answers

Im trying to find a theme that is efficient and uses low power. I read that there are certain pixel colors that use less energy then other colors.
As an example it uses more energy to produce white pixels then it does to produce black pixels.
I have a SGS vibrant and im trying to determine a good theme that uses low energy ... like black froyo but I want to know if there are other colors that are better in color use then all black.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

Each pixel is represented by 3 subpixels. Each one is 8bit number. The lower the numbers of each subpixel, the lower power used to display pixel and darker colour (You can check it in gimp or photoshop ). But be aware that darker colours won't give You noticeable power savings. More You can achieve by reducing brightness.
Sent from my GT-I5700 using XDA App

sgtGarcia[PL] said:
Each pixel is represented by 3 subpixels. Each one is 8bit number. The lower the numbers of each subpixel, the lower power used to display pixel and darker colour (You can check it in gimp or photoshop ). But be aware that darker colours won't give You noticeable power savings. More You can achieve by reducing brightness.
Sent from my GT-I5700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that its not going to be a noticible change in power consumption but anything helps when you use your phone in excess of heavily.
I was also reading an article (I think it was done by google) about subpixels. They were cutting out or shutting off specific ranges. Since each pixel has an RGB subpixel structure they would run a power test that eliminated the B from the RGB so only RG showed. Or if the subpixels value was above a certain amount to "Kill It".
Do.you know if there's any app's that allow you to reproduce this subpixel killing?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

ironlood said:
Do.you know if there's any app's that allow you to reproduce this subpixel killing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously, I don't even think if I read something 'bout it.
PS. : I've checked Your phone & it got amoled screen type ( I didn't check earlier ) , that means that using darker scheme/theme will probably give You bit more than slightly improvement with battery life.

sgtGarcia[PL] said:
Seriously, I don't even think if I read something 'bout it.
PS. : I've checked Your phone & it got amoled screen type ( I didn't check earlier ) , that means that using darker scheme/theme will probably give You bit more than slightly improvement with battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

With LCD screens how ever, I don't think you would get any power savings at all. OLED screens use very tiny amounts of power. I'd like to see if you can get any measurable improvement.

The Radio -=[WLAN,BT,Phone]=-
WMLongLife
WMLongLife is an automatic 2G/3G band-switching solution. It will keep your device in 2G when you do not need to use 3G, and will switch to 3G automatically when you do need it. For most users, having your device in 2G uses much less battery, and thus your phone lasts longer on a single charge. 2G also usually generates less radiation than 3G........
Running on my HTC Diamond 2 WM6.1 without any problems at all
Then there is the Theme Generator to get your pixels the color you want 'm in...
don't forget to download that tool to the right <g>

Related

[Q] Screen Brightness Level?

Is there any way to calculate the maximum Nits of the Desire S screen? Or is this published somewhere?
Thanks
According to GSMArena, the max brightness on a white screen is 193 nits... that sounds horribly low, even the Incredible S and Sensation, which I thought use the same SLCD, are 275 and 438 respectively. Why is the Desire S so low?
Can anyone shed some light on this please? Or is there any way to push it past the maximum brightness available in Android settings?
Just put it on auto-brightness...
aajk said:
Just put it on auto-brightness...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I mean is there any way to push the screen beyond 100%, maybe using some kind of hack? Because surely it should be able to reach the brightness of the Incredible S, which uses the same screen?
djsubtronic said:
No I mean is there any way to push the screen beyond 100%, maybe using some kind of hack? Because surely it should be able to reach the brightness of the Incredible S, which uses the same screen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hang on a second...I don't see what you trying to achieve out by this?
Apart from in direct sunlight the screen is easily bright enough. We spend most of the time trying to minimize the screen brightness in an attempt to minimize the biggest battery consumer - which is the screen. I've read several posts complaining that the Auto-Brightness setting is in fact too bright and several people have hacked the code so that it displays dimmer settings by default.
So why would you want a brighter screen? do you live a desert?
I'm not intending to have a pop, just trying to understand, if it's simply because our device scores less than the others....Who cares!
ps
Whats a nit? I thought that was something children get in their hair?
ben_pyett said:
Hang on a second...I don't see what you trying to achieve out by this?
Apart from in direct sunlight the screen is easily bright enough. We spend most of the time trying to minimize the screen brightness in an attempt to minimize the biggest battery consumer - which is the screen. I've read several posts complaining that the Auto-Brightness setting is in fact too bright and several people have hacked the code so that it displays dimmer settings by default.
So why would you want a brighter screen? do you live a desert?
I'm not intending to have a pop, just trying to understand, if it's simply because our device scores less than the others....Who cares!
ps
Whats a nit? I thought that was something children get in their hair?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was partly curiosity (as I was under the impression that the SLCDs should similar, if not the same, brightness levels) and partly because I find myself in sunny situations where I can't see the screen quite often.
And a nit is basically 1 candela per square meter, a measure of screen brightness.
Well, I have it set to auto brightness, but even when on full, it doesn't take much sun - take today, overcast bright - to render the screen all but unreadable.
al89nut said:
Well, I have it set to auto brightness, but even when on full, it doesn't take much sun - take today, overcast bright - to render the screen all but unreadable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not going to disagree with you on that , as I myself also find the device pretty un-usable outdoors....even in the UK weather. Although it is possible when at full brightness.
In fact I'm pretty sure that I've simply trained myself not to use the phone outdoors just for that reason.
So back to my original query
Does anyone know any type of hack that allows pushing the brightness beyond 100%?

[Q] minimum brightness

So I just got my Asus transformer and I'm all happy with it. there's one tiny little thing though: It's too bright for me at minimum brightness.
I know people have been complaining about the thing actually being too dark - but at low light it is just too bright for my eyes.
So, is there maybe a work around to lower the brightness even a bit more?
any help is highly appreciated.
thank you for your time,
tantin
Get an app called "Lux (Beta)" from the Market. It allows you to set the brightness below minimum (among other things)!
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
or, manually adjust the brightness settings under:
Settings --> Screen ---> Brightness
He said that he already reduced it to the minimum in settings and it's still too bright. That't why I recommended Lux, since it allows the screen to get dimmer than Settings will allow...
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
I use the "screen filter" app from the market for that, works great
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
thank for two simple, good solutions.
Tantin said:
So I just got my Asus transformer and I'm all happy with it. there's one tiny little thing though: It's too bright for me at minimum brightness.
I know people have been complaining about the thing actually being too dark - but at low light it is just too bright for my eyes.
So, is there maybe a work around to lower the brightness even a bit more?
any help is highly appreciated.
thank you for your time,
tantin
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have tried screen filter and until recently was the only option that did anything to lower brightness sort of in honeycomb. I was not crazy about it because rather than darkening the screen to lower brightness it seems to overlay a darker transparent screen so while darker contrast etc seemed to be affected.
As for the other app mentioned here. It is beta and costs money and nothing in market description says it goes lower brightness than stock settings.
That said I just discovered a free app in market that not only can lower brightness all the way down to 0, but allows adjusting brightness contrast as well as red blue and green. It works great!
it is called screen adjust. Even has widget so you can preset a dark setting if you like and one press enables it.
I also have mine set to the minimal brightness & was lookin for a way lower it to. This in hopes of squeeking out a little mord battery life.
jadesse said:
I also have mine set to the minimal brightness & was lookin for a way lower it to. This in hopes of squeeking out a little mord battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get Lux from the Market - it costs $.99, but it works great. Can go below minimum brightness with Lux as well.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
jtrosky said:
Get Lux from the Market - it costs $.99, but it works great. Can go below minimum brightness with Lux as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The free version seems not to do that. Just a soft dim. Maybe full does?
Try touch blocker beta. It is free and also allows you to set up dead spots (unresponsive areas to touch) for carrying or reading without F'ing up the screen.

Does using a darker wallpaper conserve battery life on regular LCD screens?

Does using a darker wallpaper conserve battery life on regular LCD screens (not amoled)?
No, i don't think it does.
yes i have tested it and got less battery drain
Definitely.
- Sent from Android Mobile
Really? I can't see why. LCD is backlit and (AM)OLED display works without a backlight. So when you're using a black wallpaper on an AMOLED screen, the black parts are not active a.k.a the pixels are off.
LCD is backlit, so if you're using a white wallpaper, the screen will use exactly as much battery as a black one.
Ok i checked up on this.
The difference in power consumption, when using a black or white background is so small you won't notice it and it does not necessarily have to consume LESS power.
It is nowhere near the difference between dark/bright images on an amoled display.
I don't beleive any of you could see a difference in battery consumption by changing the wallpaper (unless one of them was a live wallpaper). Any difference noticed will most likely be coincidental.
Some information and a nice graph in this thread:
http://www.pocketpc.ch/htc-desire-sonstiges/106327-batterie-akku-vergleich-slcd-vs-amoled.html
This link contains data of some desktop sized screen, where they measured the difference between a black and white image:
http://techlogg.com/2010/05/black-vs-white-screen-power-consumption-24-more-monitors-tested/17
There is an "ECO" feature on some newer computer LCD screens, that turns the brightness down when a darker image is viewed.
This could cause a noticeable difference in power consumption, but i have not seen any mobile device with such a display.
tl:dr
No change in consumption you could notice.
Dark3n said:
Ok i checked up on this.
The difference in power consumption, when using a black or white background is so small you won't notice it and it does not necessarily have to consume LESS power.
It is nowhere near the difference between dark/bright images on an amoled display.
I don't beleive any of you could see a difference in battery consumption by changing the wallpaper (unless one of them was a live wallpaper). Any difference noticed will most likely be coincidental.
Some information and a nice graph in this thread:
http://www.pocketpc.ch/htc-desire-sonstiges/106327-batterie-akku-vergleich-slcd-vs-amoled.html
This link contains data of some desktop sized screen, where they measured the difference between a black and white image:
http://techlogg.com/2010/05/black-vs-white-screen-power-consumption-24-more-monitors-tested/17
There is an "ECO" feature on some newer computer LCD screens, that turns the brightness down when a darker image is viewed.
This could cause a noticeable difference in power consumption, but i have not seen any mobile device with such a display.
tl:dr
No change in consumption you could notice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hii, all sony fones have that ECO sort of feature.

[Q] Brightness changes (even though auto-brightness is off)

Hi all
I am having a strange issue with my Nexus 5, so I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this:
Auto-brightness is off, brightness is set to maximum. Every now and then, as I am using the phone, the brightness would change. It would go slightly darker, and then sometimes after some time (minutes) slightly brighter again (back to maximum). When this happens, the actual brightness settings slider does not change, it's always saying 100%. I've tried to notice some pattern in the occurrences of this issue, but so far cannot identify any steps to reproduce it. It is easily spotted when the screen has a big area of a solid colour, e.g. on a web-page's white space. So most often I see it while scrolling a news website. Note that during these brightness changes, my environment's lightning does not change (auto-brightness is off anyway, so this should not matter).
I don't even know if this could be down to a software or hardware issue.
So, anyone had similar problems?
Thanks,
Nik
It's throttling (overheating)
Found a related thread
Thanks supersain08 for your answer. Now using this term, I found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2516915
sovata said:
Thanks supersain08 for your answer. Now using this term, I found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2516915
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How can you use the brightness at maximum on this phone? This phone has one of the brightest displays I've ever seen. At 30% or so it's brighter than most phones on full.
Synyster06Gates said:
How can you use the brightness at maximum on this phone? This phone has one of the brightest displays I've ever seen. At 30% or so it's brighter than most phones on full.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I think that's beside the point, but let's say it's a personal preference.
And also it is possible that one would like to have a 100% brightness in light/sunny conditions, so then this issue could become relevant for anyone.
Last time I used 100% brightness on a phone screen was on the first days of my gnex.
Displays are in indoor situation much too bright on 100%, brigther doesn't look better all the time. I am going with Auto-Brightness (to have it at 100% in outdoor situations) but it is still to bright in low light situations. I have to wait for a customrom to adjust this like I did with the gnex.
Can not understand how people can use it at 100% all the time.
Why do you feel it's necessary to argue whether 100% brightness is useful or not?
That's not the point of the original question.
supersain08 said:
It's throttling (overheating)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been having the same issue; glad to know it isn't a defect, and that it's supposed to do that. Thanks for the information

Increase battery life/performance by lowering screen resolution to 1080p

Here is a little tutorial I have put together for the upcoming Motorola Moto X Style (Pure Edition). The new Moto X comes with a Q-HD display. Though a higher resolution might be nice it does use more battery as well. With this simple guide you can force the GPU to render the OS and everything in it, in 1080p instead of Q-HD. The display will still be Q-HD but everything on the phone, including the full Android OS, will be displayed in 1080p. This will increase S.O.T and battery life noticeably.
Prerequisites:
1) A rooted device running stock/stock based ROM.
Step 1:
Install the Terminal Emulator app from the Play Store. Download from HERE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 2:
Open the app and type the following:
Code:
su
Grant terminal Emulator super su access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 3:
Next type the following:
Code:
wm size 1080x1920
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 4:
After that, type:
Code:
wm density 420
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 5:
Finally to re-render all the un-changed drawables and pre-loaded system components type:
Code:
stop && start
Your phone will now reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's it! Now you can get some extra juice out of your new Moto X.
To Revert to Stock Settings:
Step 1:
Code:
wm size reset
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 2:
Code:
wm density reset
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 3:
Code:
stop && start
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are there even any QHD videos or games available? What would make use of the QHD screen?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
buggerritt said:
Are there even any QHD videos or games available? What would make use of the QHD screen?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My point exactly...If you go the the Google developer stats website you can see on 4.7% of apps on Google Play take advantage of QHD. Also almost 89% of youtube videos are max 1080p. Knowing this I put together this guide. So at least Q-HD won't drain my battery.
Interesting to see if it makes a diference. So, could this be made also to work on a 1080P display and lower it to 720p you know to save even more battery???
Shawn5162 said:
My point exactly...If you go the the Google developer stats website you can see on 4.7% of apps on Google Play take advantage of QHD. Also almost 89% of youtube videos are max 1080p. Knowing this I put together this guide. So at least Q-HD won't drain my battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty nice.. I'm going to bookmark this.. It's it easy to change back?
Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Free mobile app
joshhud said:
Pretty nice.. I'm going to bookmark this.. It's it easy to change back?
Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes...I will add a guide on how to revert...Acutlly reverting requires less steps that lowering the resolution.
Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
cerobles1 said:
Interesting to see if it makes a diference. So, could this be made also to work on a 1080P display and lower it to 720p you know to save even more battery???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could...What device do u have. I could PM u the steps to lower its res.
Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
If this phone comes out as scheduled or somewhere near that and I buy one, I'm going to avoid any tweaks or hacks for a while but I appreciate your info. Thanks for posting it.
This might just end up being a big battery saver.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk
This could be awesome or a complete fail. I know with other phones I have tried this on some stock apps like camera completely stop working and a lot of the FYI isn't working. However I didn't do this exactly so it may have been the wrong ethod. I'm excited to hear results. ☺
Can't you just paste this into the terminal in one take?
Code:
su
wm size 1080x1920
wm density 420
stop && start
Shawn5162 said:
You could...What device do u have. I could PM u the steps to lower its res.
Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently I have the Galaxy S5 (SM-G900A) AT&T variant, but I'm running an International ROM. I would definitely like to try it and be a ginnie pig. But more than likely I would do it at the end of this week since I have a 4-day weekend coming up, giving me plenty of time in case things go bananas and have to revert back to stock. But please do let me know what the steps are for my current phone.
Would this really make a huge impact on the battery life?
I'm curious to know, does the screen actually not turn on each pixel with these options? From what I understand, with LCD screens it's either all or nothing.
If I'm correct about the all or nothing this trick would lower the batter consumption by a bit, but not much. The only thing it would do is lower the tax on the CPU.
From my understanding it will have to render less pixels therefore less power consumption as the GPU will not have to work as hard
If LCD's on cell phones work the same as on computer screens, then this will not have any affect but to change how things look on the screen. The same number of pixels will still be activated. Only some will do double duty. If you can, go ahead and lower the resolution on your computer screen and things will look larger but all the pixels are still being used. I cannot imagine this will have much, if any effect on battery life. Maybe I'm wrong??
jaseman said:
If LCD's on cell phones work the same as on computer screens, then this will not have any affect but to change how things look on the screen. The same number of pixels will still be activated. Only some will do double duty. If you can, go ahead and lower the resolution on your computer screen and things will look larger but all the pixels are still being used. I cannot imagine this will have much, if any effect on battery life. Maybe I'm wrong??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly what I was expecting. There's no way it would have much effect if any.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Ganondroid said:
This is exactly what I was expecting. There's no way it would have much effect if any.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
People did this on the LG G3 and their battery life had a massive jump in SOT. Not sure how it works but it is worth trying for sure. Of anything it will make the phone faster because it isn't pushing so many pixels. Only time will tell use the phone normal for a week to let the battery set in and get a good idea. Then drop it and compare. If it is the same you have yoru answer, if it does what the G3 did and almost doubles the SOT then we will have a party.
joshuadjohnson22 said:
People did this on the LG G3 and their battery life had a massive jump in SOT. Not sure how it works but it is worth trying for sure. Of anything it will make the phone faster because it isn't pushing so many pixels. Only time will tell use the phone normal for a week to let the battery set in and get a good idea. Then drop it and compare. If it is the same you have yoru answer, if it does what the G3 did and almost doubles the SOT then we will have a party.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The G3 never saw massive battery life jumps. All lowering the resolution did was boost the performance. There was a slight increase in battery life due to lower strain on the CPU/GPU, but that was it. The only way this style of mod would help battery life would be on an OLED screen and it would have to actually turn off some pixels instead of duplicating them.
If you want better battery life from the screen resolution you would have to turn your device into a frankenphone by taking a lower resolution screen from something else, which is essentially impossible at this time.
Ganondroid said:
The G3 never saw massive battery life jumps. All lowering the resolution did was boost the performance. There was a slight increase in battery life due to lower strain on the CPU/GPU, but that was it. The only way this style of mod would help battery life would be on an OLED screen and it would have to actually turn off some pixels instead of duplicating them.
If you want better battery life from the screen resolution you would have to turn your device into a frankenphone by taking a lower resolution screen from something else, which is essentially impossible at this time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even so, not pushing that many pixels on the CPU/GPU may make a pretty noticeable difference. For those who do not mind a fuzzier screen it could be a good solution. I still think it would be worth testing but we will have to come across that bridge when the phones are here. Who knows, maybe it wont be bad to begin with
Would not like 1080p stretched out over a Qhd screen. Too fuzzy for my liking. Always stick to native resolution on amoled/lcd.

Categories

Resources