do lcd displays update pixel by pixel manufacturer

The pixels have to be on continuously, if that was not the case (the pixel is off and dark most of the time) then they would have to be extremely bright when it is on to display an image. On a CRT this sort of happens (the dot is very bright) but the phosphors make the dot glow for some time.

Your eyes aren"t that quick to respond so if all pixels are addressed in such a short time that your eyes won"t notice it then there is no issue in addressing the pixels in a certain sequence.

Something like that indeed, but not pixel-for-pixel, instead one row (or column) is refreshed in one go. Then the next row (or colum) etc. How this precisely done depends on the actual display.

Steps 2 & 3 assume that all frame data is transferred to the monitor in an immediate and atomic fashion, they are not. A "dumb" monitor never "sees" (or buffers) a full frame of video. Monitors still work on the same principles from when we used scanning electron beams to draw pictures. Snazzier TVs might buffer images and do inter-frame processing, but a computer monitor probably won"t.

What the monitor sees is merely a data stream coming from your graphics card. There are all sorts of preliminary information sent to the monitor to tell it what format that data stream will be, so it gets details of timing information, number of horizontal lines, a number of vertical lines and colour format but what it actually gets is simply a long string of pixel colour data.

Blame it on Moore"s Law. The consistent doubling of processor speed every 18 months now seems normal, almost natural to us. It is easy to be impressed with our demiurgical abilities and to believe we can mold digital technology however we desire.

The story of the liquid crystal display suggests otherwise. Despite massive worldwide investments in research and development, LCD technology remains expensive and plagued by poor image quality. Yet the dream of a thin flat-panel display and the new portable devices such a display would enable is powerful enough that Japanese conglomerates continue to invest billions of dollars in LCD development. Even if they eventually succeed - and they probably will - it will say more about persistence than about our mastery of the technology.

The story begins in the 1960s, when scientists first realized that liquid crystals could be useful for television displays. Liquid crystals exhibit the molecular symmetry characteristic of a crystal, but not along every axis. This results in their unique optical properties. Depending on how its molecules are aligned, a liquid crystal will either scatter light or let light pass through. By using an electrical field to control molecular alignment, a thin liquid crystal layer can be coerced to display any image.

The stencil for the image is created by applying electric current to specified regions of the liquid crystal. Then, when the LCD is illuminated by reflected ambient light or a special backlight, the charged regions appear dark. As soon as the current is shut off, the regions fade back to translucence.

For small LCDs, such as those in digital watches, each pixel is controlled with a separate wire. But this is impractical for displays that have thousands of pixels. Instead, the liquid crystal is sandwiched between vertical and horizontal wire grids. The intersections of those wires define individual pixels. This matrix allows m x n pixels to be addressed with only m + n wires.

In a passive-matrix display, any given pixel - say, at position (x, y) - is activated by applying current to the wires in the corresponding column and row. This works because while the voltage of a single wire is too small to affect liquid crystal alignment, the combination is sufficient. However, matrix addressing does not allow two pixels in different rows and columns to be simultaneously activated. If we tried to turn on pixels at both (x, y) and (a, b), we would end up activating four pixels: (x, y), (x, b), (a, y), and (a, b). Consequently, the screen must be filled in one row at a time.

The usual method is to set the voltage level for all of the column wires and send an electrical pulse down a specific row wire. Then do the same thing for the next row. Because the activated pixels immediately begin to fade to translucence after they"re triggered, the screen must be continually redrawn.

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens are used in most premium smartphones. Pixel phones have OLED screens that can display bright, high-quality, and accurate colors.

All OLED screens show some color shift when seen at certain angles. The Pixel 3 and 3a minimize the color change through color calibration in the manufacturing process.

The display cutout, or notch, maximizes the Pixel 3 XL"s screen size. The screen also includes 2 cameras, a light sensor, an earpiece speaker, and a microphone.

Pixel screens are designed and tested to reduce burn-in as much as possible so that it doesn"t affect how you use your phone. But when the same image stays on your screen for a long time at a high brightness, it can affect the colors or cause burn-in.

Dell offers a Premium Panel Exchange that ensures zero bright pixel defects on Dell Consumer, Professional, UltraSharp, and Gaming including Alienware monitors.

Defective pixels do not necessarily impair the performance of the monitor. However,they can be distracting, especially if the pixels are in positions where viewing quality is reduced.

Unyielding commitment to quality and customer satisfaction has driven Dell to offer a Premium Panel Exchange as part of the standard limited hardware warranty. Even if one bright pixel is found, a free monitor exchange is supported during the limited hardware warranty period.

According to the Android Developers Backstage Podcast (spotted by XDA-Developers), the team came close to dropping OLED technology last year. Android developer relations member Chet Haase said the team was impressed after they tried out a device with a Sharp 120Hz LCD screen.

“The original Pixel 3, the small one, wasn’t actually going to have an OLED panel for various reasons,” Haase said. “So it was like ‘well, if we don’t have OLED, what do we do?’. And so one of the considerations was ‘well maybe we do a 120Hz LCD’.”

Haase didn’t reveal the reasons why Google opted for the OLED panel over the 120Hz LCD screen in the end. But OLED panels have deeper blacks, and better energy efficiency when viewing dark content. Under-display fingerprint sensors also gained prominence last year and only work with OLED screens, so it’s possible Google maintained the status quo in case they used this biometric authentication method. It’s also possible that the company’s supply of OLED panels was under threat in some way, necessitating a brief look at LCD tech.Toys and jewels, or why I love the Pixel 4’s design

Nevertheless, LCD screens were the only choice if you wanted 120Hz refresh rates, until the ASUS ROG Phone 2 and its 120Hz OLED panel came along earlier this year. So why did Google use a 90Hz OLED screen on the Pixel 4 when a 120Hz OLED solution was available?

The podcast also touches on several other interesting Pixel 4-related topics, including how it handles brightness and haptic feedback. You can check out the episode over here.

LCD panelscan be categorized as flat-panel displays. What makes them distinct from other display technologies is the layer of liquid crystal material within. In this thin layer, liquid crystal molecules are aligned between two glass substrates. On the inner surfaces of each of those substrates lie electrodes that control charge carriers like electrons that then interact with the liquid crystals, creating an electric field that runs through them; this, in turn, can change the alignment of the crystals, also changing the overall behavior of the molecules. On the opposite sides of the substrate, polarizers are used to control the levels of light passage, affecting the overall image of the display.

Unlike CRT monitors, LCD monitors cannot illuminate themselves, and so they require a light source: the backlight. This backlight is most frequently made of the well-known LEDs which stand for light-emitting diodes. Sourced from the backlight, light is moved through the back polarizer and back substrate, into the liquid crystals. Now, the light waves can behave in a variety of ways. Backlight used in LCD displays can be LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlight or CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) backlight. LED backlights use less power which becomes more popular, while CCFL is lower cost for large size LCD displays such as large LCD TV. Recently, quantum dots technology is used to increase the LCD contrast.

Electrodes are the controlling factors of the liquid crystal behavior, and thus also the light behavior. By conducting or not conducting a current into the crystal layer, the light may or may not be able to pass through the liquid crystals in a manner that will allow passage through the polarizer. Because of this role, electrodes in LCDs are often made of indium tin oxide (ITO). ITO has good conducting properties and can also make for a transparent electrode which is essential to the appearance of displays today.

How the electrodes affect the liquid crystal alignment can vary depending on the method of alignment used (twistednematic,multi-domain,in-planeswitching). For example, twisted nematic liquid crystals are oriented in a twist when no electric field is present which then polarizes the light passing through the layer; when the electrodes apply the field in full, the twist will straighten out, no longer polarizing the light, and so no light passes. In each of these alignment types, the electrodes are placed differently within the structure, altering the properties of the display, such as width of viewing angle, power consumption, and response time. Despite these different alignment methods, the liquid crystal layer’s purpose remains the same: to polarize the light so that the polarized light passes through to the surface of the display. By polarizing the light transmitted from the backlight, the liquid crystal molecules play a role in how much of the light passes through the polarizing filters, whether it be all, none, or a partial amount.

Pixels are no stranger to top-end phone prices. Though all this time, it"s seemed that Google hadn"t yet released a true spiritual flagship that they were happy with—at least not until now with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. This year, it"s clear that Google"s new phones are the ones that the company takes pride in, but for all we know, that might just be all talk. So what better way to demonstrate the Pixel"s resurgence than to test out their effort and commitment to the display?

About this review: The Google Pixel 6 and the Google Pixel 6 Pro used for this review were personally bought from the Google Store. Google Ireland did provide my colleague Adam Conway with a Pixel 6 Pro, but the unit was not utilized for this review. Google had no involvement in the contents of this review.

This time around, Google changed up its release formula, opting for just one general size—big—for its two main phones. The handsets are now differentiated by their feature set, with the more premium of the two Pixel 6"s adopting the "Pro" moniker. In terms of pricing, Google surprised us with numbers that undercut its previous phones, as well as much of the competition"s, for both Pixels" respective tiers within the smartphone market. Questionably, corners had to have been cut somewhere. With display components usually making up the largest share in a phone"s bill of materials, that"s usually where you"ll first find shortcomings.

The Pixel 6 Pro comes equipped with a sharp 6.71-inch OLED, and it has the best display hardware that Google has put on a phone till date. It uses a high-end configuration from Samsung Display, although it"s a whole step down when compared to its latest generation of OLED. This is one of those shortcomings. But considering that phones with newer display tech are generally more expensive than the Pixel 6 Pro, I"d say that its price justifies the hardware. Regardless, the panel is more than capable of delivering stunning visuals, and the 120 Hz high refresh rate makes interacting with the phone super smooth. There"s also a curve on the sides of the display that phone makers love to tack on in an attempt to make their phone look more premium, but I"m not a fan of it.

The regular Pixel 6 uses a lower-resolution 6.40-inch Samsung panel. Although both phones are using updated OLEDs, the hardware on the Pixel 6 is actually a downgrade in some ways compared to last year"s Pixel 5. For the first time since the Pixel 2, Google is using an inferior rigid OLED display stack in their main phone lineup to cut costs. Compared to modern flexible OLEDs (like on the 6 Pro and on most flagship phones), the typical rigid display stack has lower screen contrast, fluctuant viewing angles, and appears more sunken into the display. On the upside, the Pixel 6 does get brighter, and it does appear sharper than the Pixel 5 despite having a lower pixel density (more on this later).

Rigid OLEDs are an older construction that is now usually only used in budget phones. The main difference is that a rigid OLED includes a thicker glass encapsulation and substrate, while flexible OLEDs utilize a thin-film encapsulation and a bendable plastic substrate. The elastic nature of flexible OLEDs not only makes them more durable and moldable than rigid OLEDs, but it also allows for some optical advantages. Thinner encapsulation allows the physical pixels to appear closer to the cover glass, giving flexible OLEDs a more laminated look. Also, on rigid stacks, the refraction of the light transmitted through the glass layers causes unwanted rainbow viewing angles that you simply don"t see on flexible OLEDs. Lastly, not all "infinite contrast ratios" are made equal: newer flexible OLED display stacks contain darker internal materials, imposing deeper blacks than those of rigid OLEDs.

On the Pixel 6 Pro, higher-efficiency hybrid oxide transistors support the backplane, which greatly enhances an OLED"s driving stability. This is the catalyst in enabling a true variable refresh rate, saving power as it allows pixels to hold their charge for much longer between refreshes. Since they have a low rate of discharge, oxide driving TFTs can pulse at lower currents compared to an LTPS TFT to achieve the same steady-state luminance, which further saves battery and improves calibration precision. Anecdotally, every phone that I"ve used with an LTPO panel has had near-flawless panel uniformity and very little gray tinting in low light, and I believe much of that can be also be attributed to the improved stability of the hybrid oxide backplane.

Seldom mentioned is the difference in the subpixels between PenTile OLEDs. Larger subpixels improve power efficiency and lengthen their longevity, which reduces burn-in. Higher-density screens require packing in smaller subpixels, thus there are advantages to accomodating a lower physical screen resolution. Note that this is completely different than sampling a screen at a lower render resolution, which does almost nothing for the battery outside of full-resolution gaming since the physical subpixels are still the same size.

Instead of decreasing the screen resolution, another option is to increase the panel"s fill factor, which is defined as the ratio of the subpixels" emissive area to the total display area. For lower-resolution OLEDs, this has the added benefit of improving pixel definition, which reduces apparent color fringing around well-defined edges in the screen. Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S21, Samsung Display began to produce 1080p panels with higher fill factors, increasing the relative size of the subpixel area by about 20%. To my eyes, this had completely eliminated color fringing on these panels, and they now look closer to their non-PenTile counterparts. For those that use their phone for VR, a higher fill factor also reduces the screen door effect.

Fortunately, the Pixel 6"s 1080p screen has a high fill factor, and I observe no color fringing with it. Its screen appears sharper than 1080p PenTile screens of the past, including the higher-density panel of the Pixel 5, so those that are coming from 1440p displays need not worry too much. The OLED on the 6 Pro, however, has a lower fill ratio, so efficiency gains can be had with a better display design. Though as it stands, Apple is currently the only company that optimizes for both resolution and fill factor, with iPhone OLEDs having the largest subpixels out of any phone.

To obtain quantitative color data from smartphones, display test patterns are staged and measured using an X-Rite i1Display Pro metered by an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer in its high-resolution 3.3nm mode. The test patterns and device settings used are corrected for various display characteristics and potential software implementations that may alter desired measurements. Measurements are performed with arbitrary display adjustments disabled unless mentioned otherwise.

The primary test patterns are constant powerpatterns (sometimes calledequal energypatterns), correlating to an average pixel level of about 42%, to measure the transfer function and grayscale precision. It’s important to measure emissive displays not only with constant average pixel level but also with constant power patterns since their output is dependent on the average display luminance. Additionally, a constant average pixel level does not inherently mean constant power; the test patterns I use are of both. A higher average pixel level closer to 50% is used to capture the midpoint performance between both the lower pixel levels and the higher pixel levels since many apps and webpages contain white backgrounds that are higher in pixel level.

The color difference metric used is ΔETP (ITU-R BT.2124), which is an overall better measure for color differences than ΔE00 that is used in earlier reviews and is still currently being used in many other sites’ display reviews. Those that are still using ΔE00 for color error reporting are encouraged to update to ΔEITP.

ΔEITP normally considers luminance error in its computation, since luminance is a necessary component to completely describe color. However, since the human visual system interprets chromaticity and luminance separately, I hold our test patterns at a constant luminance and do not include the luminance (I/intensity) error in our ΔEITP values. Furthermore, it is helpful to separate the two errors when assessing a display’s performance because, just like with our visual system, they pertain to different issues with the display. This way, we can more thoroughly analyze and understand the performance of a display.

By default, Adaptive mode is selected out of the box. Both Adaptiveand Boostedmodes increase color saturation just slightly, with the main difference being that Adaptive mode also uses higher contrast. Compared to the vivid profile of many other smartphones, the Adaptive mode is not as vibrant, and some people may even struggle to see the difference between Adaptive and Natural. All three profiles target a D65 white point, which might appear warm/yellow to those that aren"t accustomed to color-calibrated displays.

A small gripe I have with Adaptive and Boostedis that the color saturation increase isn"t uniform: greens are boosted the most, followed by reds, while blues have little-to-no boost (limited by the OLED"s full native gamut). There"s also nothing really "adaptive" about the profile compared to the other two, so the naming of the profile is a bit of a misnomer.

If picture fidelity is a priority, the Natural mode is the Pixel"s color-accurate profile. The profile targets the full sRGB color space (gamut, white point, and tone response) while Android"s color management system handles wide-gamut P3 content in apps that support it. Internally, Google is now also targeting Display P3 as the phone"s default composition data space, which is a small step in maturing their color management system.

For those that are not satisfied with the white balance of their Pixel, Google, unfortunately, does not provide any option to tune that aspect of the display (outside of Night Light). Google formerly had a feature called Ambient EQ on the Pixel 4 which automatically matched the white balance of the screen to the user"s ambient lighting, but the company scrapped it in its future phones for reasons unknown.

In terms of screen brightness, both the Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro perform nearly identical to each other, and they both get bright enough to use the phone under sunlight. With auto-brightness enabled, both phones get up to about 750–770 nits for fullscreen white, boosting up to 1000–1100 nits for content with lower average light levels ("APL"). Sadly the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro can only maintain their high brightness mode for five minutes at a time out of every thirty minutes, so using the phone extensively outside may not be ideal. After five minutes, the phone display will ramp down to about 470 nits, which is both phones" maximum manual brightness when auto-brightness is disabled.

For the Pixel 6 Pro, these peak brightness values are standard and to be expected considering its price. But for the cost of the regular Pixel 6, these figures showcase excellent value, and phones that do get brighter generally cost a bit more than even the 6 Pro.

Apart from peak brightness, display tone mapping also plays a big role in improving a screen"s legibility under sunlight. This will be covered more later on, but in short, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro does boost shadow tones to help out with outdoor viewing.

When set to their dimmest brightness setting, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro can get down to about 1.8–1.9 nits, which is typical of most, but not all OLED phones (namely OnePlus). At this brightness, the default Adaptive profile on both phones crushes near-black colors due to the profile"s steeper contrast curves. Natural mode exhibits lighter shadows, and on the Pixel 6 Pro the profile retains distinct shadow details with very little black clipping in low light. The Pixel 6, on the other hand, struggles a bit more with near-black colors, especially in its 90 Hz state.

The auto-brightness system on the Pixels has been the worst that I"ve used in any recent phone. One common argument is that it learns your brightness preference over time, but the underlying framework is fundamentally flawed in a way that fancy machine learning can"t fix. The result of the system is jittery transitions and a lack of resolution in the low end.

Before the Pixel 6, Google only reserved 255 distinct brightness values to control the display brightness. Even if all brightness values were to be efficiently spaced out, the resolution simply wasn"t enough to create perfectly smooth transitions. Now with the Pixel 6, Google increased the internal number of brightness values up to 2043 between 2 nits and 500 nits. That seems like it should be sufficient, but there are two important details: the mapping of those brightness values, and how the Pixel transitions through those brightness values.

Although the Pixel 6 has 2043 brightness values, those values are mapped linearly to its display brightness. This means that the spacing of brightness between those values is not perceptually uniform, since the human perception of brightness scales somewhat logarithmically, rather than linearly, in response to screen luminance nits. In Android 9 Pie, Google altered the Pixel"s brightness slider so that it would scale logarithmically instead of linearly for the reason that I just mentioned. However, this only changed how the position on the brightness slider mapped to the system brightness value, which is still internally linear.

Even with the higher brightness resolution of the Pixel 6, jitters can be seen between the brightness values below about 30% system brightness. For this inherent reason, the Pixel"s transition in display luminance can appear jumpy when the auto-brightness moves around in low light. The jitteriness is exacerbated by the speed and the behavior of the Pixel"s auto-brightness transitions, which steps linearly through display luminance at a constant pace that reaches max brightness from minimum brightness in one second—or about 500 nits per second. This makes any auto-brightness transition virtually instantaneous for small-to-medium adjustments.

Quickly touching on display power: When focusing on fullscreen display nits per watt, the Pixel 6 Pro consumes substantially more power than the Pixel 6 at high brightness. This is somewhat expected since the Pro has a slightly larger display and a higher resolution (read: smaller emissive pixel area), though I did not expect the difference to be this dramatic. Adding in the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra as another data point, it consumes less power than both Pixels despite having a larger screen, which showcases the impeccable efficiency gains of Samsung"s next-gen OLED emitters. The discrepancy in variable refresh rate was not tested.

A general rule of thumb in calibrating a display is to target a gamma power of 2.4 for dark rooms, or 2.2 for everywhere else. Smartphones are used in all sorts of viewing conditions, so they typically fall in the latter category. Hence, most phones target a gamma power of 2.2 for their standard calibrated display modes. This is what the Pixel had always done, but it"s a little different this year on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.

In the default Adaptive mode, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have increased contrast compared to the other profiles. The tone response is approximately a 2.4 gamma power on the Pixel 6, while on the Pixel 6 Pro it"s more like gamma 2.3. At lower brightness levels, the Adaptive mode has too much contrast in my opinion, and a number of near-black colors can appear completely clipped, especially on the cheaper phone.

For the Natural and Boosted profiles, the Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro now conform to the piecewise sRGB tone response curve rather than gamma 2.2. The curve differs in that it has a linear mapping near black which makes dark tones appear lighter compared to gamma 2.2.  Due to the increased complexity of the function, most people just calibrate to gamma 2.2 for simplicity, and it"s what monitor calibrators and artists have been doing for many years. The actual use of the precise sRGB curve is a controversial topic for this reason; even though it"s the "official" standard, it creates disparity among the vast majority who have already been working with gamma 2.2, which many argue to be the "correct" industry standard.

What makes this interesting is that I"m not sure Google even intended for this behavior. Samsung also ships phones with the sRGB tone curve, though only on their Exynos variants—the Snapdragon models still use gamma 2.2. The Exynos display pipeline inside the Pixels" Tensor SoC is likely responsible for decoding RGB triplets with the sRGB transfer function.

In regards to accuracy, both phones do a good job tracking the sRGB tone curve in their Natural and Boosted mode. But at lower brightness, the Pixel 6 fails to keep up with the performance of the Pixel 6 Pro as the cheaper panel struggles to lift darker tones in its 90 Hz clock rate. In general usage, the sRGB tone curve looks close enough to the standard 2.2 gamma curve to where most people won"t notice a difference for most imagery. However, a lift in shadows is definitely observable in the darker regions of content and in dark-themed interfaces. Some may prefer this look over gamma 2.2, while others may think it looks washed out. Personally, I prefer this tonal appearance on smartphones for the enhanced legibility in low light and in bright conditions.

When high brightness mode triggers under a sunny day, the displays will bump up the shadows, with the Pro phone being capable of being tuned a bit brighter. This helps improve the visibility of image details in brighter conditions without compromising the image quality.

At their dimmest setting, the Pixel 6 Pro paints a much more tonally balanced screen. In its Natural mode, the Pixel 6 Pro is one of the best-performing low brightness OLEDs on any phone. I claimed the same thing for last year"s Pixel 5, which had impeccable shadow tone control. Compared to it, the Pixel 6 Pro performs similarly, though this year"s display is just slightly worse near black. While the Pixel 5 was able to render its first bit step out of black (1/255) at all brightness levels, the Pixel 6 Pro can only do so at high brightness. It does globally render the very next step, however, and in my book, that"s still fantastic. The Pixel 5"s shadows were also a bit lighter overall in low light, but in my opinion it made things look a little too flat, and I now prefer the look of the 6 Pro.

Within the same conditions, the non-Pro Pixel does not compete. The cheaper display renders steep shadows that clip a little more near black, and in Adaptive mode, the Pixel 6 becomes a mottled mess at minimum brightness. For this reason, I cannot recommend the profile on Pixel 6.

Nominally, both displays strike very similar white points that measure decently accurate to D65/6504 K. Both my units erred slightly on the magenta side, though I have no qualms with this as I"ll explain later.

Under the surface, the two phones actually perform vastly different when it comes to color precision. The Pixel 6 Pro maintains the color of its white throughout its grayscale and throughout its brightness range, with the exception of high-brightness mode where the tint in darker colors will likely be masked by sunlight. The Pixel 6, on the other hand, progressively tints towards magenta the lower the color tone intensity. A mild flicker was also visible when the Smooth Display auto-switched between 90 Hz and 60 Hz, but on my sample, the effect isn"t too noticeable. Lastly, on my unit, the non-uniform grayscale distribution is painfully obvious at lower brightness.

Two colors from different displays that measure the same exact chromaticity don"t necessarily appear identical in color. The fact of the matter is that current methods of color measurement don"t provide a definitive assessment for color matching. As it turns out, the difference in spectral distributions between OLEDs and LCDs creates a disagreement in the appearance of their white points. More precisely, the color of white on OLEDs will typically appear yellowish-green compared to an LCD display that measures identically. This is known as metameric failure, and it"s been widely acknowledged to occur with wide-gamut displays such as OLEDs. The standard illuminants (e.g. D65) have been defined with spectral distributions that match closer to that of an LCD, so the technology is now used as a reference. For this reason, an offset towards magenta is needed for the white point of OLEDs to perceptually match the two display technologies.

Now, I"m not saying that metameric failure is the reason why the Pixel 6 (Pro) displays measure towards magenta, but there"s a point to be made about looking at just colorimetric measurements alone. For reference, this is how the white point of the Pixel 6 Pro measures when it"s perceptually color-matched to my calibrated LCD monitor. The difference is massive. There have been many attempts in methodologically transferring over the perceptual appearance, but none have been comprehensive enough to cover every emerging display type—matching by eye is quite literally the best way to do this at the moment. Nevertheless, accurate measurements to any standard allow for predictability if adjustments are to be made, which is a critical attribute for any electrical component.

The formula for good color accuracy is quite simple: accurate tone mapping plus an accurate white point. The previous sections of this review can almost entirely deduce the rest of the displays" color mixing performance. Pretty charts and quantitative verification are always nice though, so here they are.

Natural mode on both phones demonstrates fine-tuned color accuracy, with average color errors ΔETP less than 3.0, and maximum color errors ΔETPless than 10.0. These values are sufficient enough for a reference display, though it"s important to note that these color measurements were taken at 75% tone intensity; the poor color precision on the cheaper Pixel 6 display means that it"s expected to perform worse at lower tone intensities, while the Pro display remains accurate independent of tone intensity. Besides that, there is some mild skewing with more-complex color mixtures, such as with purple and orange, due to the different tone response curve that Google is using. No doubt that if it stuck with gamma 2.2, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro would measure even more accurately, though the difference would mostly be academic.

In high-brightness mode, the displays will slightly crank up the color saturation to overcome the saturation loss from viewing glare. This together with the contrast lightness boost should help the display look more accurate under sunlight.

Although HDR content still isn"t all too common, many newer titles on streaming platforms have now been releasing masters in Dolby Vision and HDR10. To help with adoption, a number of smartphones provide the capability to record in one of the existing HDR formats. Out of the existing phones, Apple"s iPhones have been the ones to propel the demand for platform adoption of the HDR formats with their Dolby Vision-/HLG-enabled recording. In my assessment, however, I only cover the HDR10 format, which is currently the most ubiquitous format for professional content creators.

Excellent tone control, precision, and color accuracy carries over to HDR10 on the Pixel 6 Pro. The ST.2084 standard HDR tone response curve is faithfully reproduced along with incredibly consistent color temperature all throughout its grayscale. This assures that the white balance and contrast of every scene can replicate the creator"s visual intent, at least up to 650 nits. Most HDR content that is currently being delivered through streaming platforms is mastered or optimized for a maximum headroom of 1,000 nits for highlights. The Pixel 6 Pro is able to get up to 800 nits fullscreen brightness, but a lack of metadata-aware tone mapping brings the usable in-content peak down to about 650 nits. While the 350-nit deficit may seem substantial, not many scenes in practice are graded much brighter.

As for the regular Pixel 6, it"s still capable of delivering brilliant visuals, just without as much polish. Scenes can vary in white balance on the cheaper OLED due to lower-brightness tinting, and image contrast is generally a little steeper. Shadow definition is also not as polished as on the Pro display.

The gotcha is that all the above assume a viewing environment of 5 lux, which is the status quo for HDR10. This is considerably dim for casual watching, and most people in actuality will watch things in a brighter setting. Furthermore, standard HDR10 replication is calibrated for maximum system brightness, so if you intend to watch a show in HDR10 inside a brighter room, the experience won"t be optimal since the display brightness can"t be set any higher. HDR10 is also implemented this way in most TVs, not just on the Pixel 6 or on Android, but newer TVs also offer adaptive adjustments to the HDR tone mapping to compensate for brighter environments. The Pixel 6"s 650-nit effective peak along with its lack of adaptive tone mapping means that it can"t deliver the same strong HDR performance outside of a dimly lit room.

For its highest-end handset, Google delivers some of the best color reproduction and image consistency that you can find on any consumer display. With the Pixel 6 Pro, you can be certain that you"re seeing all the picture details at any brightness level, be it dim or bright. On the contrary, the color tuning may be the reason why some people won"t like it. Even in its most vibrant color mode, the display still behaves on the more color-accurate side, so those that prefer a high-saturation appearance may be left wanting more. Additionally, the Pixel 6 Pro doesn"t carry the brightest or the most efficient OLED tech, but its current capabilities are perfectly adequate and well worth its price tag. It"s understandable that people would want the absolute best panel available from the best phone that Google offers, but the Pixel 6 Pro is just not priced in that manner.

Speaking of price, the cheaper phone, unsurprisingly, uses a cheaper display. And by cheaper, I do mean cheap. From crude viewing angles to irregular screen uniformity and grayscale tinting, the OLED on the Pixel 6 is very much a budget-level phone experience—one that you would expect from their Pixel A-series. For what"s supposed to be one of Google"s two strongest offerings, the choice of OLED on the Pixel 6 makes it feel like an unpolished product, and in my opinion, it completely cheapens the brand. We don"t find this level of compromise on the display of any other flagship "non-Pro" variants from the competition.

Despite the rest of the handset feeling quite premium, the screen is just too important of a component to skimp out on. Many people have criticized Apple for adopting OLED so late inside their base models, but in its defense, using the Pixel 6 made it understandable why Apple had decided not to just include any cheap rigid OLED in their phones. They simply lack the refinement that is expected from a premium handset. For its price point, I don"t think it could be helped; by undercutting the competition by $100–$200 USD, the Pixel 6 inevitably had to make some sort of glaring sacrifice. So, rather than just being a well-priced premium phone, what this showed me was that the Pixel 6 is truly more of a mid-range device, in a tier that is more similar to Apple"s "R"-series or Samsung"s "FE" variant.

Within the Pixel software, some accommodations could have been made to enhance the user experience. For starters, improvements to the auto-brightness are sorely needed, as its transitions turn out to be jarring more often than not. I would also appreciate the return of AmbientEQ, which was the automatic white balance feature in the Pixel 4. Manual adjustments to the screen white balance would also be helpful, which could be used to tune the screen color temperature to your taste, or even to compensate for the metameric failure.

Overall, I"m torn on whether I like the direction that Google has taken for the displays of its two main phones. Of course, everyone would want them both to be a bit better—a slightly brighter display for the 6 Pro and a more refined OLED for the regular 6—but Google"s pricing has made it difficult to ask for more. At least for the Pro phone, I genuinely believe that you"re getting your money"s worth. But for the upper mid-ranged Pixel 6, I feel that it"s priced in a guttered region where it"s not priced high enough to afford a display that sets it apart from those on budget phones. If Google priced the Pixel 6 about $100 higher, but with a polished flexible OLED to boot, I believe that Google"s base model could be much more successful.

For its displays, Google has historically leaned in on accuracy over vibrancy. This often upsets consumers coming from other brands that promote increased color saturation by default. Understandably, many people, in turn, might associate color accuracy with a lack of vibrancy, but the two are not mutually exclusive — Google has just been slow to demonstrate it. For example, Apple has mostly gotten away from the problem by wholeheartedly adopting wide color standards dating back to the iPhone 7. Now, all photos that iPhones capture are saved in the larger Display P3 color space.

To this day, most Android phones still only capture photos in the sRGB color space, which can only store colors with up to about four-fifths of the max saturation of P3. This isn"t all too significant in itself, but the head start entails Apple having wider support for more vibrant colors throughout its ecosystem. Nowadays, you can find vibrant P3 colors littered throughout iOS, including its default wallpapers, system UI, and many third-party apps; even its wallpaper color picker allows you to select colors outside sRGB, unlike the colors offered by Google"s Material You. This is plainly a level of color adoption that Android has yet to build.

And that"s just the start. There are many ways Google could still improve upon its Pixel display, so we put the new Pixel 7 Pro"s panel through the wringer.

Samsung Display remains the premier OLED supplier for smartphones, so it"s no surprise that Google"s flagship maintains its sourcing. But what I didn"t expect is for Google to be using the same generation panel as last year"s Pixel 6 Pro, which could be considered dated at the time of its release. More specifically, the Pixel 7 Pro appears to be using the E4 OLED material set from Samsung Display — which is now nearly two years old — rather than the newer, more efficient E5 materials. This puts the Pixel 7 Pro"s OLED efficiency around at the same level as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, released in 2020.

Luckily, the new Pixel"s display isn"t completely identical. In the Made by Google keynote, the company boasted a 25% increase in peak brightness for the Pixel 7 series compared to last year"s phones. There"s also an updated display driver that configures this change in brightness. Lastly, this boost fuels the Pixel 7"s next biggest change, which is how it plays back HDR videos.

Unlike previous Android phones, the Pixel 7 Pro (right) can now view HDR videos within apps at the correct brightness, including picture-in-picture mode.

Although technically a feature of Android 13, the Pixel 7 Pro is the first Android phone to support the integration of HDR content with the app and system UI. This means that the Pixel 7 Pro display can show truebrighter-than-white highlights without needing to hike the system brightness to blinding levels.

Essentially, the feature works by ramping up the display brightness in the presence of HDR content while at the same time proportionally reducing the pixel values of the rest of the UI, forming the illusion of specular highlights. The feature also directly addresses the general brightness issue that Android phones have with HDR videos, which often requires setting the display at max brightness just for the exposure to look correct.

Oppositely on the topic of color management, the Pixel 7 series still sadly only captures photos in the sRGB color space. And because of the lack of concern on the Android side, popular social apps like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or even Chrome still don"t support viewing wide-color images, all of which comfortably coexist in Apple"s ecosystem.

The most defining advancement for the Pixel 7 Pro display, hands down, is its higher peak brightness. Google"s 25% brightness boost claim rings true across the board, placing it in line with the best of Android. Using light-themed apps, the 7 Pro shines just as brightly as the competition, while only being bested by the iPhone 14 Pro (though by a significant margin) when in dark mode or consuming fullscreen media.

From my testing, the Pixel 7 Pro could reach up to 1,620 nits peak brightness at a tiny 1% window size, not far off from the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus and Ultra. Google claims the Pixel 7 Pro can hit 1,500 nits at a 5% window size, which seems modest since I could measure this at a 10% window size. Light-themed apps will have the display sit around 1,050 nits, similar to other flagship phones. HDR content is also capped at around 1,000 nits, with Google disabling the dynamic OLED brightness boost to improve color fidelity.

I definitely noticed a marked improvement over the Pixel 6 Pro when using the phone outdoors, and Google even lowered the ambient brightness needed to trigger high brightness mode (from 10,000 lux down to about 5,700 lux). There"s also a smooth transition when high brightness mode enables, and there finally appears to be granularity in its brightness depending on lux rather than being completely on or off after the breakpoint. The peak manual brightness also got a slight upgrade, from 500 nits to 600 nits.

What immediately stood out to me is just how much power the Pixel 7 Pro uses. At peak emission, its display alone uses up more than 6W of power, more than I"ve seen on any other phone. For comparison, the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Galaxy S22 Plus can output about 1,100 fullscreen nits for the amount of power that the Pixel 6 Pro can output 800 nits (after normalizing screen area) — that"s almost a 40% increase in efficacy at peak brightness for using the latest OLED materials. Inversely, the Pixel 7 Pro requires 6.4W to output 964 nits, while the iPhone 14 Pro Max only uses 4.4W for the same output.

The Pixel 7 Pro"s total display power footprint is larger than I"ve seen on any other phone — about 21% larger than the Pixel 6 Pro"s, and about 47% larger than the iPhone 14 Pro Max

Furthermore, the Pixel 7 Pro display actually consumes slightly morepower than even the Pixel 6 Pro at high brightness levels. What"s happening here is the Pixel 7 Pro is using higher display voltage states compared to the 6 Pro above 300 nits. Rather than adding a new voltage step, Google replaced the former 500-nit voltage state with one that can accommodate the new 600-nit maximum. Similarly, for high brightness mode, the previous 800-nit voltage state got bumped up to allow for 1,000 nits. Although this may seem short-sighted, this is expected since Google likely needs to factory-calibrate each voltage state individually.

If we evaluate the area under the curve to consider the luminance range of the display, the Pixel 7 Pro"s power-luminance area is about 21% larger than the Pixel 6 Pro up to the 6 Pro"s peak brightness. And compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the Pixel 7 Pro"s power-luminance footprint is 47% larger up to its own peak brightness.

Of course, people don"t use their phones blasting all-white test patterns (or at least I"d hope not). You can expect these measurements to be a factor of about four-fifths when using light-themed apps, or down to about a 10th for dark-mode apps. But judging from these power measurements, you definitely want to limit the Pixel 7 Pro"s exposure to bright white-emitting scenarios. The screen is also prone to throttling down, exiting out of its peak brightness state after five minutes of activation.

Last year, I investigatedthe variable refresh rate (VRR) situation with the Pixel 6 Pro to see if its display really went down to 10 Hz. Many people were skeptical since Android"s refresh rate readout in the developer options only seemed to go down to 60 Hz when the screen was idle. However, Android"s refresh rate indicator does not show the OLED panel"s lowest operating refresh rate, partly due to how its variable refresh is implemented.

These Samsung panels have a variable refresh mechanism that operates at a much lower level, within the display driver, and is not exposed to the Android user space. Samsung Display"s VRR implementation is not the same as that found in typical gaming monitors, which can target any arbitrary refresh rate. The VRR found in Samsung"s HOP ("LTPO") panels still works by switching between discrete refresh rate modes, like older implementations. But these VRR panels now incorporate a low-frequency drive (LFD) mechanism which operates the OLED driving rate at a fraction of the current refresh rate mode.

As an example, a 10 Hz driving refresh rate is achievable by operating the panel at a 60 Hz scanning rate, but skipping re-drives for 5 out of every 6 scanning intervals if the frames are the same. This is made possible by the OLED"s new oxide-driving TFTs, which have a leakage current low enough to pull this off without significant luminance dips.

Again, we find that the Pixel 7 Pro OLED does indeed go down to 10 Hz immediately when the screen is idle, but there are noticeable differences this year in how Google has configured the display driver. For those who are sensitive to pulse-width modulation (PWM), the Pixel 7 Pro stepped down its PWM frequency from 360 Hz to 240 Hz. I"m not sure what exactly warrants this change, but I"m not affected by such strobe effects.

There still remains the same low-light caveat with the minimum refresh rate as last year, which is also present in Samsung"s devices. In very dim conditions, when the screen is below 15% system brightness andthe ambient brightness below 5 lux, the Pixel 7 Pro OLED will not ramp down from 120 Hz. This ensures you notice no flicker as the display switches refresh rates, which amplifies with low light levels. By forcing the screen to switch to and from 120 Hz and 10 Hz, I was able to notice a faint but undeniable difference in the brightness of dark patches near minimum brightness, so the limitation seems somewhat justified. What"s interesting is that this constraint does not occur when Smooth Display is disabled, and the panel switches between 10 Hz and 60 Hz as normal. But there still exists a flicker (although even more faint), so I believe this is either an oversight when bringing LFD to the 60 Hz mode, or Google decided the difference is minimal enough to let it slide.

One of my other complaints with VRR implementation on the Pixel 6 Pro is that the OLED did not ramp down to 10 Hz when Smooth Displaywas disabled. This occurred, for example, when Battery Saveris enabled, which sometimes meant that the screen was actually taking up more power when idle than if it was disabled. I"m happy to see that Google mediated this with the Pixel 7 Pro, as I can verify that the screen now gets down to 10 Hz in Battery Saver mode. The Always-On display also goes down to 10 Hz as expected, regardless of lighting conditions.

In terms of power savings, there"s a substantial difference between active and idle. When resting at 10 Hz, the Pixel 7 Pro OLED uses 250 milliwatts less power than when driven at 120 Hz. However, the disparity isn"t really owed to the power savings of the 10 Hz idle state, but rather the steep price of running the display at 120 Hz.

When measuring the power discrepancy between 60 Hz and 120 Hz, the latter consumes an additional 200 milliwatts, while the savings between 10 Hz and 60 Hz is only about 50 milliwatts. And on the base Pixel 7, the difference between 60 Hz and 90 Hz is only about 70 milliwatts. Given these measurements, I believe Google could significantly improve its low-light battery situation by ramping down the display to at least 90 Hz when idle.

Lastly, one of the niche benefits of variable refresh screens is the ability to match the frame rate of films that run at 24 or 25 FPS. Sadly, regardless of the frame rate, the Pixel 7 Pro will only ramp down to 60 Hz, meaning that there will always be a mismatch between the content frame rate and display refresh.

An OLED"s material set not only determines the general efficacy of a panel but also the color purity of its subpixels. All three emitters in the Pixel 7 Pro"s OLED match the spectra of a typical E4 panel, which is the same as last year"s phone. This is a shame since Samsung"s latest materials have completely upgraded the three emitters, significantly improving power efficiency while expanding the native gamut of the OLED. For the Pixel 7 Pro, its native gamut completely covers DCI-P3 while slightly surpassing it with the green and blue primaries.

Gone is the Boosted color mode introduced in the Pixel 2; Natural and Adaptive are now the only two options. This feels like it"s been a long time coming since it"s been a redundant option since Adaptive mode"s addition. Contrary to what many people believe, the Boosted profile was not any more vibrant than the Adaptive profile — the two were pretty much identical in the Pixel 4 and 5, and with the Pixel 6 series, the Boosted and Natural modes were re-calibrated to a flatter tone curve, putting the Boosted mode somewhere between Natural and Adaptive.

Both color modes support Android"s color management system, which can render colors up to DCI-P3 if the app and content support it. In fact, both profiles are calibrated to Display P3 as their base, and the Pixel 7 Pro renders the entire Android UI with Display P3 as the default composition space (though apps still need to opt-in to display P3 colors).

Like most phones and computer monitors, the screen on the Pixel 7 Pro is calibrated to a 2.2-gamma tone response out of the box in its Adaptive color mode. On the other hand, selecting Natural mode uses a different tone curve with lighter shadows, which is colloquially named the piecewise sRGB curve. When outdoors, the Pixel 7 Pro will massively boost the lightness of its shadows and midtones, ensuring that on-screen content remains legible in the sunlight.

From my measurements, the Adaptive mode does an excellent job tracking close to a 2.2 gamma power, independent of content APL. But things can get a little troublesome near minimum brightness, and the calibration tracks a bit darker than usual. This can make shadow details a bit more difficult to make out. Even with perfect tracking, a 2.2 gamma power can still look too dark or crushed at very low brightness levels, so a good solution would be to lift the shadows at low brightness. But despite the steeper tone response, the Pixel 7 Pro is still capable of rendering black-gray with a pixel value of 1/255 in this mode, which is a huge improvement to what Google had prior to the Pixel 5.

As discussed, the Natural mode follows a tone response with lighter shadows, which the Pixel 7 Pro precisely reproduces. Using Natural mode can help your screen look much easier on the eyes, especially in low-light conditions. This curve was the original intent of the sRGB color space specification, but upon implementation, it was simply easier to approximate the curve using a pure 2.2 power function. So although the piecewise sRGB curve is the official standard for display output, most consumer displays actually just use gamma-2.2 in practice.

Google"s decision to use the piecewise sRGB curve for Natural mode is controversial since it ultimately renders a flatter image for most casual content. Besides, if most monitors are adjusted to gamma-2.2, why not just stick to what most people are using? One issue is that many professional color-managed workflows still utilize piecewise sRGB, including photographers working with Lightroom and Photoshop. But the more crucial nuance is that most calibrated monitors are LCD rather than OLED, and the contrast for LCDs is much shallower near black. Calibrating an OLED to piecewise sRGB, in my opinion, is a good compromise to approach the near-black tone slope of an LCD if consistent tonal representation is of utmost importance.

Although in-line HDR playback was improved with Android 13, Google still has a few wrinkles in its HDR tone mapping. The Pixel 7 Pro still doesn"t tone map the display"s peak brightness toward the maximum content light level (MCLL) of the content being played. In simple terms, none of the Pixel phones fully utilize their peak brightness for HDR content. For example, the Pixel 7 Pro can only reach up to 780 nits for HDR content mastered for 1,000 nits, which is most of them. The rest of the panels" brightness is reserved for pixel values that the content never even uses. Incorrect tone mapping like this may often result in contours and loss of detail in bright regions.

The way that Google tone maps HDR10 content with system brightness is also not ideal. Above 50% system brightness, the Pixel 7 Pro will always target the ST.2084/PQ curve, which is intended for viewing in a dark room. In fact, HDR10 video is completely identical between 50% and 95% system brightness, and the peak panel luminance only increases above 95% system brightness. This means that HDR10 content will appear relatively dim at high brightness levels. Below 50% system brightness, the Pixel 7 Pro scales the overall exposure of HDR10 content, which should be the intended behavior for the entire brightness range. In the future, I"d like to see Google continue to scale the video exposure past 50% system brightness so that HDR content can be enjoyed in brighter settings.

Starting with white, the Pixel 7 Pro absolutely nails its calibration. Its white point hugs close to D65 throughout its entire brightness and grayscale range, with only a minor hiccup at max brightness. All gray points are measured within their circle, which on the chart represents the threshold for color difference noticeably. What"s most impressive is its tight calibration at minimum brightness, where shifts in the hue of gray are most perceptible.

But alas, I can"t conduct a proper display review without pointing out the elephant in the room: Even if these OLEDs measure accurately to a specific white point, it does not mean that they visually appear identical. I brought up this point in my last Pixel review, and I will continue to do so until these companies provide solutions to this problem.

The fact of the matter is that current methods of color measurement don"t provide a definitive assessment for color matching. As it turns out, the difference in spectral distributions between OLEDs and LCDs creates a disagreement in the appearance of their white points. More precisely, the color of white on OLEDs will typically appear yellowish-green compared to an LCD display that measures identically. This is known as metameric failure, and it"s been widely acknowledged to occur with wide-gamut displays such as OLEDs. The standard illuminants (e.g. D65) have been defined with spectral distributions that match closer to that of an LCD, which are now used as reference. For this reason, an offset towards magenta is needed for the white point of OLEDs to perceptually match the two display technologies.

Natural mode"s remaining colorimetry is also excellent for both sRGB and P3D65 colors. One flaw is that near minimum brightness, red tones are somewhat undersaturated and shifted toward orange, and are actually more accurate in Adaptive mode. HDR10 color accuracy is also nothing to write home to, but nothing to complain about, either. At peak brightness, the Pixel 7 Pro also slightly boosts color saturation to combat some gamut reduction due to glare; it"s subtle and not overdone, unlike Samsung"s Vision Booster. Overall, Google did a great job with color accuracy, and the Pixel 7 Pro"s colors are very true to the company"s intent.

Many people have high hopes for Google"s hardware, myself included. But for those chasing after bleeding-edge specs, the Pixel line often prescribes a relegated offering compared to the likes of Apple or Samsung. On that front, I"m happy to say that the practical differences have never been more minuscule.

To be perfectly clear, the Pixel 7 Pro is second to none when strictly speaking about on-screen quality. It produces immaculate colors that are true to the creator"s intent, with the effective brightness to match the other top dogs. This consistency spans the entire luminance range of the panel, making the Pixel 7 Pro great to look at both outdoors when trying to capture sunny photos and while winding down near bedtime. And with its improvements to how Android handles HDR content, the Pixel 7 Pro is well-equipped for the HDR revolution.

Google has chosen to tune its screens to be accurate-only, and I"m all for it. There has been no other such vendor on the Android side, as they all succumb to cranking up color saturation out of the box to stand out. Apple is the only competing company that doesn"t take this approach, so I"m glad to finally see another company taking this risk.

Finally, I can"t not talk about what a battery hog this screen can be. When all else is the same, the Pixel 7 Pro screen seems to be doing so at a much larger power footprint than the competition. Last year"s phone wasn"t too impressive either battery-wise, so it"s awry to see this screen using up even more juice.

This past Sunday, Google let us know that it was “actively investigating” reports of screen burn in on the Pixel 2 XL. Now, less than a week later, we are learning some of what the results of that investigation are. Here’s the short version: Google stands by the screen on the Pixel 2 XL, but it is nevertheless going to issue some software updates to expand its color gamut and protect it against screen burn-in. It will also offer a two-year warranty on Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL phones.

Our investigation so far has given us confidence that our displays are as great as we hoped they would be, though we’re also taking steps to address the concerns we"ve heard.

Google, however, says that its tests show that the Pixel 2 XL is not any worse than other phones when it comes to burn-in. Burn-in affect every display panel over time, and Google believes that it’s not going to be any worse on this phone than other phones. Nevertheless, the company is going to be issuing some software updates to mitigate any concerns:

Extensive testing of the Pixel 2 XL display show that its decay characteristics are comparable to OLED panels used in other premium smartphones. The differential aging should not affect the user experience of the phone, as it’s not visible under normal use of your Pixel 2 XL. We understand, however, that it can be concerning to see evidence of aging when using a specialized display test app, so we"ve taken steps to reduce differential aging through software.

We’re currently testing a software update that further enhances protections against this issue by adding a new fade-out of the navigation bar buttons at the bottom of the Pixel screen after a short period of inactivity. In addition, we"re working with more apps to use a light navigation bar to match their app"s color scheme. The update will also reduce the maximum brightness of the Pixel 2 XL by a virtually imperceptible 50 cd/m2 (nits), thereby significantly reducing load on the screen with an almost undetectable change in the observed brightness.

There are other concerns with the Pixel 2 XL screen beyond the potential for image retention and burn-in. Namely, Google chose to go with a relatively narrow color gamut by default, so the colors look more muted than Android users are used to. That decision was part of a