Modern smartphones like the Google Pixel 4 feature a 'dark mode' for the OLED display. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Modern smartphones feature a 'dark mode' setting that alters the appearance of what you see on-screen by using a theme with darker colors, especially black. In different lighting conditions, this feature can save power until the brightness it changes again.
While some smartphone manufacturers have attempted to provide OLED screens with dimmer luminance in order to avoid reducing the battery life and efficient energy use of their smartphone, it always seems to depend on the way the display is designed.
Smartphone imaging researchers at the Information Sciences Institute at Kwangju National University decided to test whether this dark mode really reduces battery life in a limited perspective by using an image recognition algorithm to test how the light sensor used in the Pixel 4 OLED display is processing light.
"For example, we might change its sensitivity to a different color (yellow vs. blue or green) in order to display less blue [radiance] in a day-to-day scenario to avoid wasting battery power," decided professor Kwangfu Heo. "But if the OLED display is sophisticated enough, [the light sensor] can come up with the appropriate color accordingly."
We've seen the best and worst battery anomalies time and time again. ASSOCIATED PRESS
The researchers divided two cell phones into two randomly selected groups and added the LED light to their cell phones, testing how long the phone lasted after being left idling for three hours.
Participants in the control group who used the Pixel 4 OLED cell phone experienced an average of 385.5 minutes per battery charge, while the participants who had the dark mode iPhone 7 battery life lasted approximately 300 minutes per charge.
This three-hour "dark scenario" only resulted in the phone needing an average of 7 minutes of charging compared to the 8 minutes needed by the non-dark smartphone battery. The contrast was stark however when taken into consideration that the standard graph showed that the iPhone battery needed an average of about 8.8 minutes to charge after charging for one hour.
The phone battery life of iPhone 7 on the dark spectrum, versus standard graph. Steve Kovach
In comparison, according to the standard graph, the Pixel 4 browned its battery too so it needed an astonishing 15 minutes to properly charge after being charging for one hour more than the iPhone 7.
This suggests it is possible that a cell phone with an OLED display will have a lighter battery life than an smartphone with a standard OLED display, meaning that the battery needs to be monitored carefully beforehand to ensure it is not overdrawn for any particular task or while the device is being used.
"We hope that our research will encourage smartphone vendors such as Apple and
Modern smartphones feature a 'dark mode' setting that alters the appearance of what you see on-screen by using a theme with darker colors, especially black. In different lighting conditions, this feature can save power until the brightness it changes again.
While some smartphone manufacturers have attempted to provide OLED screens with dimmer luminance in order to avoid reducing the battery life and efficient energy use of their smartphone, it always seems to depend on the way the display is designed.
Smartphone imaging researchers at the Information Sciences Institute at Kwangju National University decided to test whether this dark mode really reduces battery life in a limited perspective by using an image recognition algorithm to test how the light sensor used in the Pixel 4 OLED display is processing light.
"For example, we might change its sensitivity to a different color (yellow vs. blue or green) in order to display less blue [radiance] in a day-to-day scenario to avoid wasting battery power," decided professor Kwangfu Heo. "But if the OLED display is sophisticated enough, [the light sensor] can come up with the appropriate color accordingly."
We've seen the best and worst battery anomalies time and time again. ASSOCIATED PRESS
The researchers divided two cell phones into two randomly selected groups and added the LED light to their cell phones, testing how long the phone lasted after being left idling for three hours.
Participants in the control group who used the Pixel 4 OLED cell phone experienced an average of 385.5 minutes per battery charge, while the participants who had the dark mode iPhone 7 battery life lasted approximately 300 minutes per charge.
This three-hour "dark scenario" only resulted in the phone needing an average of 7 minutes of charging compared to the 8 minutes needed by the non-dark smartphone battery. The contrast was stark however when taken into consideration that the standard graph showed that the iPhone battery needed an average of about 8.8 minutes to charge after charging for one hour.
The phone battery life of iPhone 7 on the dark spectrum, versus standard graph. Steve Kovach
In comparison, according to the standard graph, the Pixel 4 browned its battery too so it needed an astonishing 15 minutes to properly charge after being charging for one hour more than the iPhone 7.
This suggests it is possible that a cell phone with an OLED display will have a lighter battery life than an smartphone with a standard OLED display, meaning that the battery needs to be monitored carefully beforehand to ensure it is not overdrawn for any particular task or while the device is being used.
"We hope that our research will encourage smartphone vendors such as Apple and
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