Smartphone display performance evaluation

Understand how your device performs on readability 

Smartphone displays keep getting brighter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the screen automatically becomes more readable. Reaching a peak brightness does not guarantee a great display experience because the display must keep adapting to different and changing lighting environments. Many factors have to be considered when assessing a display’s performance. That’s why it is important to test smartphone screens in the varied lighting environments that your users will encounter, ensuring that your tuning provides users with a comfortable experience.

Some of the elements that we evaluate under readability:

• Readability vs. ambient lighting, using our labs and going up to 50,000 lux mimicking an outdoor environment in repeatable and controlled conditions thanks to our state-of-the-art equipment
• Light transitions tests, which measure your device’s reaction time to changing light and how the display adjusts the brightness by evaluating the tone curve and the details rendered in different lighting environments.
• Artifacts that affect readability such as the percentage of reflectance when the devices are turned on and off.

Evaluate the HDR video playback experience

DXOMARK experts will evaluate the quality of your video experience through:

• EOTF measurements run in our bench, evaluating the quality of the rendering of dark tones, mid tones and highlights.
• Brightness measurements that are also run on our bench, making sure that the device features the right level of luminance depending on the lighting conditions
• Perceptual analysis on a professional screen that is used by the movie industry and perfectly reflects the artistic intent in terms of brightness, contrast, and attributes. Your device is then compared to the rendering of different video patterns produced by DXOMARK to identify how close you come to the the artistic intent

Seize the level of visual comfort 

Visual comfort is a key concern for all users. At DXOMARK, we’ve recently established the Eye Comfort label, identifying products that bring the right level of visual comfort. This evaluation is set on 4 different PASS / FAIL criteria, offering a comprehensive evaluation on visual comfort:

• Temporal light modulation and Flicker perception: all smartphones devices have modulation in their luminance due to PWM and refresh rate. These variations can have disturbing effects ranging from eye strain to headache. DXOMARK experts measure here the probability of detection from the population. To pass this test, the probability of detection should be lower than 50%.
• Brightness level:  Smartphones can be blinding if they are not well adapted to the environment. To pass this test, devices need to offer an auto-brightness mode and to be able to go as low as 2 nits when adjusting brightness manually.
• Blue light filtering: On this specific criterion, the DXOMARK Display team measures the blue light emissions when the blue light filter is on. Our evaluation is based on the Circadian Action Factor, the ratio of energy participating in melatonin inhibition over light energy participating to human vision. The threshold for that specific criterion is 0.65, which is the equivalent of a neutral white LED light source
• Color consistency: BLF can impact color rendering. To ensure that users are not too disturbed by the rendering and that their overall experience is not hindered by it, DXOMARK checks that the smartphone maintains 95% or more of its P3 color space coverage.