We have all seen the side by side web browsing comparisons between the S4 and the HTC One. Because of the screen reviews, which measured brightness at 300cd/m² and higher, we were a bit dubitative.
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Well, it turns out the poor results are due to brightness throttling on white or near white content, which will vary depending on the power saving options that are activated. In Chrome and in the Stock Browser, this is further aggravated by the undefeatable activation of the Power Saving mode.
The measurements below were conducted with an i1 Pro 2 spectrophotometer and a profiled i1 Display Pro (for dark readings).
Maximum Brightness (Adapt Display/Dynamic/Standard Mode)
Even without any Power Option engaged, white levels on white or near white content will be 15% to 20% below peak brightness (290cd/m² from 355cd/m²)
Auto-Tone will clip whites further above 60% Average Picture Level
Power Saving reduces brightness by 25%
In Chrome and in the stock browser the Power Saving mode is activated as a default (surely in an attempt to fool battery tests into overestimating number of browsing hours on battery) - and cannot be defeated. It is therefore recommended to switch to another browser (e.g. AOSP) for better outdoor viewing.
The graph below outlines the brightness throttling mechanism in Dynamic/Standard/Auto Mode at maximum brighness.
As we can see, web browsing is the activity that will take the most serious hit, seeing as web browsing average picture levels typically falls within the 70% to 90% APL range. Although the throttling is to conserve battery life, this a bit sneaky from Samsung, as this tricks reviewers into overestimating battery life and consumers into believing they have the best of both worlds (brightness and battery life). There is a choice that can and has to be made.
Auto-Brightness (Adapt Display/Dynamic/Standard Mode)
Using auto-brightness instead of maximum brightness will actually enable a boost mode, which will activate under prolonged exposure to extremely bright light (I had to use my HTC One's flash at close range to simulate this).
Summary
The boost mode offers a 35% brightness gain, however this gain starts to plummet at around 60% APL, which means that the gain for web browsing and Google Maps will only be 5 to 15%
The peak brightness under prolonged sun exposure at 1% APL level is 478cd/m² (displaymate measured this at 475cd/m²). whereas the maximum brightness for pure white ends up at the unboosted level of 383cd/m²
Without Boost Mode, the brightness curve in a birghtly lit environment is exactly the same as the maximum brightness captured in my earlier graph.
The auto brightness -5/+5 radio button has no impact on the maximum brightness achievable - it will go full throttle if it has to. Only brightness at lower ambient light levels is impacted by this fine-tuning...
There is no Power Saving mode override in auto-brightness, and those browsers even benefit from the Boost Mode.
Just to put the graphs into perspective, I am showing the maximum reachable brightness for various Android applications:
Android Menu: 5% APL | Maximum Brightness: 465cd/m²
Android Menu with radio buttons: 10% APL | Maximum Brightness: 455cd/m²
OLED fiendly web site: 15% APL | Maximum Brightness: 445cd/m²
Random Gallery Picture: 40% APL | Maximum Brightness: 410cd/m²
Google Play: 60% APL | Maximum Brightness: 395cd/m²
Anandtech with zoom on picture: 70% APL | Maximum Brightness: 350cd/m²
Google Maps: 75% APL | Maximum Brightness: 320cd/m²
Whatsapp: 80% APL | Maximum Brightness: 305cd/m²
Android Contact List: 85% APL | Maximum Brightness: 295cd/m²
Google Results page: 90% APL | Maximum Brightness: 290cd/m²
Google: 95% APL | Maximum Brightness: 285cd/m²
Greyscale and Color Gamut (Film Mode)
RGB balance has a discernible green push above 50% brightness (less exposed in Anantech's review because Brian measures at 50% brightness rather than maximum)
Color Space is oversaturated even in film mode (consistent with Anantech's and Displaymate's findings)
Gamma will also get worse on content that has a high proportion of bright content, with brightness compression happening at the top end of the spectrum. For videos, it is therefore recommended to use 50% of maximum brightness or auto-brightness
White point color Temperature:
6410cd/m² in Film/sRGB Mode - again, this is at maximum brightness, the green dominance will be different at different brightness levels (as can be seen on the curves below)
6940cd/m² in Standard Mode, Dynamic Mode and Auto-Adjust Mode (I personally prefer that color temperature because it is more consistent across the whole scale, so the picture looks more harmonious)
Gamma is improved versus previous iterations but there is still a slight black crush and white crush happening at the extremities (nothing too major). The white crush will not be observed with smaller test patterns but will be worse for bright content! The black crush will be worse with Auto Tone on (to conserve battery, the transition into blacks is quicker).
Color gamut as expected is oversaturated. But what is more surprising is that it is oversaturated even in Film mode, although to a smaller extent. I went back to Brian's review, and this was also what he found. I believe two other reviews had different findings - but I may remember this incorrectly
Measurements in Film Mode
Color Space (Adapt Screen/Dynamic/Standard Mode)
Viewing Angles (Film Mode)
Summary:
Viewed directly, the display exhibits a green push in spite of near perfect color temperature
Viewing at an angle reduces green and red and increases blue
The most neutral white balances (Delta E of 2.8) can be obtained by viewing the screen at a 15° angle (you can do the test and notice how the green push disappears!)
The color temperature at this angle is further away from the 6500K standard than for direct viewing but it is still more neutral (shows the importance of RGB balance)
The following charts shows the RGB balance, correlated color temperature and Delta E for viewing angles of 0° to 40°.
This is an important lesson: sometimes it is preferrable to calibrate at a somewhat higher color temperature to improve the RGB balance (generally a blue push is less perceptible than a green push). However in this case, Samsung's calibration was most certainly to improve the overall brightness of the screen (green has a stronger luminance than red or blue).
Throughts and Recommendation to Devs for Kernel Calibration
Essentially, the adaptative brightness without power saving options is to fool regular gamma testing and make it look flat even though it isn't - again to conserve battery!
Using Average Picture Level patterns, to keep brightness constant across the greyscale, we can clearly see that the gamma is too high (2.4).
By reducing brightness as IRE levels increase, the display conceals the fact that brightness increases too slow across the full IRE spectrium - because the final brightness ends up being lower, regular test patterns will say that brightness at each IRE level is where it should be when in fact it lags behind. It only catches up with target brightness at 100 IRE because brightness is being throttled more with each IRE level.
For example, at 50 IRE, the theorectical brightness should be 21.46% of white brightness, except the white brightness at 50% IRE is higher vs. 100% IRE. What is important is not the 100% IRE brightness, though. because it is throttled and has no impact on intra-picture gamma.
What is important is the 50% IRE brightness, which is higher. So while regular test patterns lead you to believe brightness is where it should be and gamma is 2.2, in fact it is lagging behind for the full brightness spectrum.
So in conclusion:
We need to recalibrate gamma on this display by using APL test patterns - they are the only ones that should ever be used on displays with adaptative brightness where brightness is a moving target.
OR
We need to deactivate the adaptative mechanism (which would have the secondary effect of improving overall brightness)
But as long at the adaptative mechanism exists, we will never be able to have perfect gamma at all APL levels. If we choose to have perfect gamma at 50% APL, we will have brightness below target for low APL levels (since the 50% APL brightness will be lower than at lower APL) and it will be ahead of target for higher APL levels (since the 50% APL brightness will be higher than at higher APL levels).
So in essence, because of the adaptative mechanism, we can never have a perfect intra-picture gamma that works equally well at all APL levels.
The standard error will be smaller at lower brightness levels because the peak brightness range will be more narrow. But in boost mode the max brighness will be 70%higher than minimum brightness, so the standard gamma error at low APL and High APL levels will be higher, so black crush will be quite big for low APL and white crush will be quite big at high APL.
In a nutshell, if we want perfect gamma, we will have to acccept lower intra-picture contrast at lower APL and equalize brightness on the maximum achievable non-thottling 100% brightness. Since the display is very linear, this should yield us perfect gamma and RGB balance for all brightness levels that the user chooses between 0 and max user-selected brightness.
On plasma displays, throttling typically only happens above a certain brightness level. and it is enough to stay within that comfort range But the fact that brightness is being modulated for different APL levels on the S4 makes a good calibration that works at all APL levels impossible...
I can't believe how imaginative Samsung is when it comes to fooling reviewers. The display has potential, I just know that calibrating this thing with undefeated adaptative brightness will not yield perfect results - unfortunately.
The most pressing issue at the moment is the green push though and oversaturated colors, though. I am pretty sure that reducing color saturation will also impact greyscales and brightness on this display...A lot of fun coming our way
So basically the s4 is claiming a longer battery life through web browsing by dimming its screen automatically? I could already tell this, which is when I first bought a galaxy phone I downloaded another browser. I can't stand how Samsung handles the web in terms of the screen. Really annoying.
coming from the og one x
Isn't part of this issue due to thermal throttling? As amoled screens work at maximum load on while backgrounds, so could it therefore heat up more and thereby have to adjust the brightness?
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Ddot196 said:
So basically the s4 is claiming a longer battery life through web browsing by dimming its screen automatically? I could already tell this, which is when I first bought a galaxy phone I downloaded another browser. I can't stand how Samsung handles the web in terms of the screen. Really annoying.
coming from the og one x
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not only in web browsing, so this affects all browsers (though there may be different treatment for video, I would have to test using video patterns).
The really annoying thing is that the throttling mechanism can't be defeated, so let's say you want to check something really fast while in the sun, you can't even temporarily make your browser go brighter. But you're right that with the Stock/Chrome browser this is actualy worse.
I must say that I did not have other Samsung devices except the S2. I am interested in other user views on the S3 and Note II. Was the same observed? Was the clipping that bad? Those who installed the Perseus Kernel on their Note II, was this circumvented or was only the color temperature and color accuracy fixed? I heard from one user I met at the shops that when he used the Persus Kernel to correct the screen, his battery would get depleted.
A brightness cap at 250cd/m² is not acceptable for web browsing. But then a battery life of 3 hours screen time would not be acceptable either. It is a trade-off. Still, one would wish the user had a choice to boost the brightness for short periods of time.
Jme369 said:
Isn't part of this issue due to thermal throttling? As amoled screens work at maximum load on while backgrounds, so could it therefore heat up more and thereby have to adjust the brightness?
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No thermal throttling is indicated with a message. This is more of an adaptative brightness mechanism, but much more aggressive than what can be observed on the HTC One (the One will vary between 400cd/m2 and 530cd/m² depending on the content).
This is the regular behavior for bright content handling.
You can actually observe this on your browser while browsing and when scrolling from content that is bright (text) to content that is less bright (darker picture) and vice versa, you will clearly see how suddenly the brightness increases and decreases (in real time). The same can be observed when you launch your browser. Coming from a less bright picture level into the browser will cause it to clip whites, so you will see it dim within the first second.
No such thing on my 9500, even compared to a HTC its bright in browser.
You must have a faulty unit or some setting that prevent full brightness in browser.
DocRambone said:
No such thing on my 9500, even compared to a HTC its bright in browser.
You must have a faulty unit or some setting that prevent full brightness in browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The pictures were not from me! They all behave the same. This is something I had observed in 4 different shops. This is something that others have reported. It can be observed in Anandtech's readings on the S4 review.
All I am doing is quantifying what users and testers, including myself, have observed. It is a generalized mechanism.
You can actually observe this on your browser while browsing and when scrolling from content that is bright (text) to content that is less bright (darker picture) and vice versa, you will clearly see how suddenly the brightness increases and decreases (in real time). The same can be observed when you launch your browser. Coming from a less bright picture level into the browser will cause it to clip whites, so you will see it dim within the first second.
Note that on mixed content with only patches of bright colors/white (e.g. page with pictures or video), white point brightness will be more around 300cd/m². This happens when the average picture increases.
puremind said:
The pictures were not from me! They all behave the same. This is something I had observed in 4 different shops. This is something that others have reported. It can be observed in Anandtech's readings on the S4 review.
All I am doing is quantifying what users and testers, including myself, have observed. It is a generalized mechanism.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still, some setting/unit is clearly wrong. The brightness with a full white webpage is very high. Check settings again, turn off the adaptive screen settings etc.
Uh yea, turn off Auto Adjust Screen Tone in the screen settings.
Otherwise this is the CABC / content aware brightness control on the AMOLED controller. I'll have to check it later in the kernel.
AndreiLux said:
Uh yea, turn off Auto Adjust Screen Tone in the screen settings.
Otherwise this is the CABC / content aware brightness control on the AMOLED controller. I'll have to check it later in the kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the Auto-Adjust off improves the white clipping but does not solve the issue. It is still a 20% loss. Thanks for showing-up Andrei, as you are probably the most knowledgeable person in this forum regarding the trade-offs between brightness and battery on those AMOLED devices. My short testing on this device makes me worry that with Auto-Adjust and Power saving turned off, the S4 will run out of battery after 3 hours of web browsing (average white level at 250cd/m²)....Does this sound about right?
To what brightness level was the Perseus Kernel calibrated on the Note II?
That would be a high price to pay to have an equivalent browsing experience as on competing LCD devices!
This is the detailed analysis for all settings combinations (except auto-brightness, which would vary depending on environment light).
puremind said:
My short testing on this device makes me worry that with Auto-Adjust and Power saving turned off, the S4 will run out of battery after 2 hours of web browsing....Does this sound about right?
That would be a high price to pay to have an equivalent browsing experience as on competing LCD devices!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, wrong, with all power savings off i loose 10% battery for each 45-50 min web-browsing session. (autobrightness +5)
No problem to get 6+ hours out of one charge
DocRambone said:
No, wrong, with all power savings off i loose 10% battery for each 45-50 min web-browsing session. (autobrightness +5)
No problem to get 6+ hours out of one charge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Auto-brightness+5 is very aggressive battery saving - it caps brightness at 145cd/m² in the sun! In terms of brightness, this is equivalent to having both power saving and auto adjust ON and run maximum brighness.
I agree that with this setup you can probably reach 6 hours, but this is quite conservative. Suppose you increase brightness to 250cd/m² (screen not completely white), would this then translate into 4 hours of battery?
The Galaxy S4 performs very well in high ambient lighting in spite of its typically lower screen brightness because it has one of the smallest screen Reflectance values of any display we have ever tested, and its more saturated colors can help cut through the reflected light glare. When Automatic Brightness is turned on, the screen brightness increases considerably at high levels of ambient lighting as mentioned above. The Galaxy S4 is then comparable or brighter than most LCD Smartphones.
http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_S4_ShootOut_1.htm#Table
DocRambone said:
No such thing on my 9500, even compared to a HTC its bright in browser.
You must have a faulty unit or some setting that prevent full brightness in browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of this comparison pics was mine. And I had several S4 devices to test. They all behave the same way.
BoneXDA said:
When Automatic Brightness is turned on, the screen brightness increases considerably at high levels of ambient lighting as mentioned above. The Galaxy S4 is then comparable or brighter than most LCD Smartphones.
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Click to collapse
Tried that with three different units. In the most direct sunlight possible they increased brightness only a bit, not even remotely close to the ONE I'm afraid.
puremind said:
Auto-brightness+5 is very aggressive battery saving - it caps brightness at 145cd/m² in the sun! In terms of brightness, this is equivalent to having both power saving and auto adjust ON.
?
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Click to collapse
No, i use s4 without any problem outdoors, its much brighter than 145cd/m2
The brightness is rather high, much brighter than my Note2 in same conditions.
In direct sunlight all screens have poor visibility.
In the shadows the s4 behaves as good as the htc one.
And my findings is that 6+ hours screen on in well lit (outdoor) conditions is rather normal.
DocRambone said:
In direct sunlight all screens have poor visibility.
In the shadows the s4 behaves as good as the htc one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tested that on sunday and have to disagree completely. HTC ONE: Watching the VERGE Videos with sunglasses worked perfect in direct sunlight.
S4: Not even remotely possible without sunglasses. And the difference even in shady surroundings is very real.
slind said:
Tested that on sunday and have to disagree completely. HTC ONE: Watching the VERGE Videos with sunglasses worked perfect in direct sunlight.
S4: Not even remotely possible without sunglasses. And the difference even in shady surroundings is very real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, why would you look at videos in direct sunlight with sunglasses?
A more normal scenario is in the shadows and there the s4 behaves as good as the htc one.
DocRambone said:
Lol, why would you look at videos in direct sunlight with sunglasses?
A more normal scenario is in the shadows and there the s4 behaves as good as the htc one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it was still very enjoyable on the ONE and not as stressful on my eyes. Don't mean to be rude, but did you actually had the chance to look at S4 and ONE at the same time in the shadows? I really doubt that.
And a normal scenario for me would be in the park, at the beach, shopping outside etc. as well as in shady areas.
I still got both devices here for today, might do some additional photos to prove the S4s lack of brightness outside (in every situation).
slind said:
Because it was still very enjoyable on the ONE and not as stressful on my eyes. Don't mean to be rude, but did you actually had the chance to look at S4 and ONE at the same time in the shadows? I really doubt that.
And a normal scenario for me would be in the park, at the beach, shopping outside etc. as well as in shady areas.
I still got both devices here for today, might do some additional photos to prove the S4s lack of brightness outside (in every situation).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have access to a htc one also and even if it brighter in direct sunlight, its not better in the shadows, high brightness is not the only factor, low reflectance is as important.
BoneXDA said:
The Galaxy S4 performs very well in high ambient lighting in spite of its typically lower screen brightness because it has one of the smallest screen Reflectance values of any display we have ever tested, and its more saturated colors can help cut through the reflected light glare. When Automatic Brightness is turned on, the screen brightness increases considerably at high levels of ambient lighting as mentioned above. The Galaxy S4 is then comparable or brighter than most LCD Smartphones.
http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_S4_ShootOut_1.htm#Table
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, we all read that, but unfortunately that only true outside of web browsing, where you mainly see more mixed conent The Displaymate reflectance tests were conducted on color patterns which had much dimmer average picture level and therefore do not create white clipping. Also correct me if I am wrong but I believe they used a market app. which does not have as much clipping as the browser for some reason (well we know it's to put down a good web browsing battery test...).
So the Displaymate results cannot be transposed to most Smartphone applications, such as texting, Whatsapp. GPS Nigivation, Web Browsing. In those situation white point brightness gets severely clipped and this is what we see clearly in all the pictures. That's exactly the problem.
Smartphone manufacturers have become incredibly shrewed and inventive when it comes to thwarting poor benchmark results. Measuring brightness and battery life used to be so simple. Nowadays displays behave in ways that most reviews do not have the time or patience to study, so it is easy to be mislead.
I understand that the P7P is supposed to have a brighter screen then my retired P6P. Yesterday, I had my P7P in the car holder on a sunny day. Even at 100% brightness with adaptive brightness turned off the screen was hard to see.
Anyone else having a problem seeing the screen when outside?
Do you have adaptive brightness on or off?
In Exkm, I see a display option for High Brightness Mode (HBM) which I will try the next time.
I understand at high brightness that power consumption is also very high.
Any thoughts on seeing the screen when outside on a sunny day?
swieder711 said:
Do you have adaptive brightness on or off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to turn it on, unless its max is only at 1000 nits, not 1500 like with Adaptive Brightness.
Turn the adaptive brightness on, you can get 1500nits brightness.
But it drains the battery really fast.
LaGinLiDaChuCh said:
Turn the adaptive brightness on, you can get 1500nits brightness.
But it drains the battery really fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just an FYI, you won't see 1,500 nits just by turning on the adaptive brightness on. Picture a screen with a white box in the middle and a black background.
Let's say that whitebox takes up 1% of the entire screen and black takes up 99%. The screen might boost that white box to 1500 nits (at maximum brightness slider). So it looks really bright.
Now let's say you expand that box and it takes up 20% of the screen and 80% is black. The screen is going to lower the brightness maybe down to 1000 nits.. even though the slider is still at 100%.
Then let's say you expand the box all the way, takes 100% of the screen, it's all white. The screen automatically lowers the brightness down to 800 nits, even though again the slider is at 100%.
The main apps that I want to see during the day while driving are Maps and Waze. Light mode seems better than Dark mode, but it was still hard to see the maps even at 100% brightness.
I use Velis Auto Brightness from PlayStore to care my screen brightness.
lassetth said:
I use Velis Auto Brightness from PlayStore to care my screen brightness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Velis Auto Brightness looks interesting. Are you running it on the P7P?
Did you turn off the built in Adaptive brightness?
Can you use high brightness mode with Velis?
swieder711 said:
Velis Auto Brightness looks interesting. Are you running it on the P7P?
Did you turn off the built in Adaptive brightness?
Can you use high brightness mode with Velis?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes!
swieder711 said:
Can you use high brightness mode with Velis?
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Click to collapse
lassetth said:
Yes!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be absolutely shocked if Velis can engage "high brightness mode".
If you cannot engage "high brightness mode" by turning off auto-brightness and moving the slider bar all the way to the right, then Velis probably can't do it either.
"High brightness mode" is typically only available via stock Auto Brightness or via rooted options.
It only comes on under special circumstances and you cannot leave it at "high brightness mode" for as long as you want (without using root options).
swieder711 said:
I understand that the P7P is supposed to have a brighter screen then my retired P6P. Yesterday, I had my P7P in the car holder on a sunny day. Even at 100% brightness with adaptive brightness turned off the screen was hard to see.
Anyone else having a problem seeing the screen when outside?
Do you have adaptive brightness on or off?
In Exkm, I see a display option for High Brightness Mode (HBM) which I will try the next time.
I understand at high brightness that power consumption is also very high.
Any thoughts on seeing the screen when outside on a sunny day?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesn't seem right, this screen is brighter than my pixel 6 pro at 100% and easier to read outside. HBM you mentioned doesn't seem to work with EXKM and HBM, or at least for me it doesn't, and have set all the permissions and given it root access. There is a difference but it is so tiny it might as well not be there, and my screen is 75% normal when testing.