The new Google Pixel 10 Pro It seems to want to reiterate the strategy of the Mountain View company to focus everything on an extreme brightness of its display and the best chromatic accuracy. According to Sien Chang, product manager for pixels displays, Google believes that most users are looking for a screen that can conquer the first places of the rankings for these technical parameters. However, this philosophy raises questions about how much it is really centered on the experience of the end user.
The question becomes particularly relevant when considering that Some users develop a real sensitivity to modern screensmanifesting symptoms such as headache and eye pain after prolonged use, partly related to the CD modulation PWM (Pulse Width Modulation), a technique used to control the brightness of the OLED displays.
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Google’s response to the PWM problem is insufficient
To deal with this problem, Google has introduced a new function on the Pixel 10 Pro that should regulate the dimmonding frequency for those suffering from this particular sensitivity. However, the implementation appears to be limited: the PWM frequency goes from 240Hz to only 480hz, a value that merely reaches the competition without however exceeding it.
Companies like OnePlus, Honor, Nothing And Xiaomi Moreover, they have already adopted frequencies in the order of the thousands of Hertz or have completely eliminated the PWM dimming. Samsung The same recently debuted a frequency of 480hz, a value that Google has chosen to equate rather than overcome.
When asked about technical choices, Google has provided an explanation that seems to be more a commercial justification that a technical solution. Chang explained that each specification of the display is influenced by the goal of reaching “the excellence of the display“, With a term that the company uses to describe its design philosophy.
The position, however, appears contradictory if we compare it with the Google approach to Tensor processors, with the company that regularly discourages the use of benchmark to evaluate performance. Why then focus so intensely on the benchmark of displays at the expense of user comfort?
Different technical alternatives are ignored
There are also some Alternative solutions to the Flickering problemlike DC type dimming, which helps many PWM sensitive users and has become standard on almost all smartphones, except for those produced by Apple, Samsung and Google. However, when questioned about the possibility of implementing similar dimming mode in future updates, Google has once again provided a evasive response.
In this regard, the company has declared to constantly explore new technologies, but only when “Actually useful” and able to satisfy their own “high quality standard“In short, a position that suggests how corporate priorities remain anchored to traditional technical parameters rather than the well -being of the user.
However, in some ways Google’s strategy seems to suggest the existence of a contrast in modern technological industry: on the one hand there is the race towards increasingly important and extraordinary specifications, on the other there are the practical needs of users. No normal consumer is able to perceive significant qualitative differences between the displays of current smartphones, yet companies continue to pursue metrics that, for some users, translate into a very annoying experience of use.
Despite current limitations, it remains a small hope for those suffering from sensitivity to displays. Google has hinted that he has not definitively closed the door to future improvementsclaiming to always look for specialization opportunities based on users’ feedback and technological evolution.
However, for now those who hoped they could finally use a pixel without worrying about the side effects will have to continue waiting.
