The Google Pixel 8 Pro is a reliable smartphone with a great display. But it’s not very comfortable for users who are sensitive to the PWM refresh rate used on many modern displays. For some people, the low PWM frequency makes the smartphone display unusable altogether. Thanks to the new modification, this problem can be fixed.
Pulse width modulation (PWM) refresh rate is used on almost all OLED displays to adjust the brightness of the image. It helps to make the display appear brighter or dimmer to the eye. In photos of an OLED display, you may sometimes see black bars on the screen when the PWM frequency is reduced and the image becomes dimmer.
For most people, there is little or no difference between a low PWM refresh rate display and an ultra-high refresh rate display. For other users, however, a low refresh rate display can be very strenuous on the eyes. Google Pixel devices, unfortunately, fall into that category, which creates eye discomfort.
However, now, thanks to a modification, the Pixel 8 Pro is actually able to increase the PWM refresh rate significantly above the standard value. To do this, use a modified boot image that doubles the PWM refresh rate to 480 Hz. However, this will require root access to the device.
With further modifications to the image, we managed to run the Pixel 8 Pro at 3840 Hz. The smartphone worked without any obvious problems, but the image got a noticeable green tint and some other color distortions. It is probably because of these color distortions that Google does not use a too high PWM refresh rate for the Pixel 8 Pro.
As other brands continue to increase their PWM rates, we can only hope that Google will follow suit in the future. But in the meantime, you can make changes to the operation of current smartphones yourself (if you take the risk of changing the basic software of the device).
Source: 9to5google
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