Why eyestrainfree.com?
There are certain people on this planet, who are more susceptible to eye strain than others, they will get almost instant discomfort or pain after looking at the LCD screen. I want to make it easier to find a usable, eye-friendly device, a smartphone, which will not give you a headache after a few minutes of usage. Based on my personal experience I know this is not a simple task and could also be quite expensive.
I had iPhone 5s for a couple of years, I was really happy with the phone, but as it was few years old it became a bit slow, so I decided to find a replacement.
After some research, I decided to go with a Google Pixel 2. Initially, I was very pleased with my purchase, the camera was amazing and it ran smoothly, that's all I needed, but after a couple of days, my eyes started to hurt. It felt like I had a grain of sand rubbing in my eye (I found out it's called a foreign body sensation and is related to dry eyes), it was painful. I cut down smartphone usage to the bare minimum and started my research.
It turned out that I wasn't the only one with the issue, iPhone X, Samsung s10, Pixel 2/3 to name only a few, all-cause digital eye strain to many people, which frequently ends up with a headache.
It seems that there was one common thing among all these devices, the type of display - OLED. These types of screens don't have backlit, instead, each pixel is producing light, so to adjust the brightness they use something called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), which in simple terms means that when you adjust the brightness to a lower levels screen starts to flicker, which creates the illusion of dimming. For sensitive users, this will be a problem.
I assumed that PWM was my issue and decided to get a phone without it. I found Huawei P20, after checking some reviews I bought it. I was happy for a while, but my eyes started to hurt again. I checked screen specification and the only suspect I could think of was LTPS display, which is definitely sharper and brighter than my iPhone 5s. The next one was Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which is better but can't use it for too long without noticeable discomfort. It turned out, that there are so many things, which could cause eye strain and at this point instead of getting another phone, I decided to create a website to help me and people like myself to find a usable smartphone.