7 ms·

backlight is now the main bottleneck for consumption heavy uses. I wonder what are the main advancements that are happening there to optimize the wattage.

sangnoir 2y ago
Is the iPad Pro not yet on OLED? All of Samsung's flagship tablets have OLED screens for well over a decade now. It eliminates the need for backlighting, has superior contrast and pleasant to ise in low-light conditions.
- kbolino 2y ago
  I'm not sure how OLED and backlit LCD compare power-wise exactly, but OLED screens still need to put off a lot of light, they just do it directly instead of with a backlight.
- callalex 2y ago
  The iPad that came out today finally made the switch. iPhones made the switch around 2016. It does seem odd how long it took for the iPad to switch, but Samsung definitely switched too early: my Galaxy Tab 2 suffered from screen burn in that I was never able to recover from.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    LineageOS has an elegant solution for OLED burn in: imperceptibly shift persistent UI elements my a few pixels over time
devsda 2y ago
If the usecases involve working on dark terminals all day or watching movies with dark scenes or if the general theme is dark, may be the new oled display will help reduce the display power consumption too.
whereismyacc 2y ago
QD-oled reduces it by like 25% I think? But maybe that will never be in laptops, I'm not sure.
- eqvinox 2y ago
  QD-OLED is an engineering improvement, i.e. combining existing researched technology to improve the result product. I wasn't able to find a good source on what exactly it improves in efficiency, but it's not a fundamental improvement in OLED electrical→optical energy conversion (if my understanding is correct.) In general, OLED screens seem to have an efficiency around 20≈30%. Some research departments seem to be trying to bump that up [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05671-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05671-x] which I'd be more hopeful on… …but, honestly, at some point you just hit the limits of physics. It seems internal scattering is already a major problem; maybe someone can invent pixel-sized microlasers and that'd help? More than 50-60% seems like a pipe dream at this point… …unless we can change to a technology that fundamentally doesn't emit light, i.e. e-paper and the likes. Or just LCD displays without a backlight, using ambient light instead.
neutronicus 2y ago
Please give me an external ePaper display so I can just use Spacemacs in a well-lit room!
- mszcz 2y ago
  Onyx makes a HDMI "25 eInk display [0]. It's pricey. [0] https://onyxboox.com/boox_mirapro https://onyxboox.com/boox_mirapro edit: "25, not "27
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    I'm still waiting for the technology to advance. People can't reasonably spend $1500 on the world's shittiest computer monitor, even if it is on sale.
    - neutronicus 2y ago
      Dang, yeah, this is the opposite of what I had in mind I was thinking, like, a couple hundred dollar Kindle the size of a big iPad I can plug into a laptop for text-editing out and about. Hell, for my purposes I'd love an integrated keyboard. Basically a second, super-lightweight laptop form-factor I can just plug into my chonky Macbook Pro and set on top of it in high-light environments when all I need to do is edit text. Honestly not a compelling business case now that I write it out, but I just wanna code under a tree lol
      - eqvinox 2y ago
        A friend bought it & I had a chance to see it in action. It is nice for some very specific use cases. (They're in the publishing/typesetting business. It's… idk, really depends on your usage patterns.) Other than that, yeah, the technology just isn't there yet.
      - mholm 2y ago
        I think we're getting pretty close to this. The Remarkable 2 tablet is $300, but can't take video input and software support for non-notetaking is near non-existent. There's even a keyboard available. Boox and Hisense are also making e-ink tablets/phones for reasonable prices.
craftkiller 2y ago
AMD gpus have "Adaptive Backlight Management" which reduces your screen's backlight but then tweaks the colors to compensate. For example, my laptop's backlight is set at 33% but with abm it reduces my backlight to 8%. Personally I don't even notice it is on / my screen seems just as bright as before, but when I first enabled it I did notice some slight difference in colors so its probably not suitable for designers/artists. I'd 100% recommend it for coders though.
- ProfessorLayton 2y ago
  Strangely, Apple seems to be doing the opposite for some reason (Color accuracy?), as dimming the display doesn't seem to reduce the backlight as much, and they're using a combination of software dimming, even at "max" brightness. Evidence can be seen when opening up iOS apps, which seem to glitch out and reveals the brighter backlight [1]. Notice how #FFFFFF white isn't the same brightness as the white in the iOS app. [1] https://imgur.com/a/cPqKivI https://imgur.com/a/cPqKivI
  - superb_dev 2y ago
    The max brightness of the desktop is gonna be lower than the actual max brightness of the panel, because the panel needs to support HDR content. That brightness would be too much for most cases
    - ProfessorLayton 2y ago
      This was a photo of my MBA 15" which doesn't have an HDR capable screen afaik. Additionally, this artifacting happens at all brightness levels, including the lowest. It also just doesn't seem ideal that some apps (iOS) appear much brighter than the rest of the system. HDR support in macOS is a complete mess, although I'm not sure if Windows is any better.

sangnoir 2y ago

Is the iPad Pro not yet on OLED? All of Samsung's flagship tablets have OLED screens for well over a decade now. It eliminates the need for backlighting, has superior contrast and pleasant to ise in low-light conditions.

kbolino 2y ago
I'm not sure how OLED and backlit LCD compare power-wise exactly, but OLED screens still need to put off a lot of light, they just do it directly instead of with a backlight.
callalex 2y ago
The iPad that came out today finally made the switch. iPhones made the switch around 2016. It does seem odd how long it took for the iPad to switch, but Samsung definitely switched too early: my Galaxy Tab 2 suffered from screen burn in that I was never able to recover from.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  LineageOS has an elegant solution for OLED burn in: imperceptibly shift persistent UI elements my a few pixels over time

devsda 2y ago

If the usecases involve working on dark terminals all day or watching movies with dark scenes or if the general theme is dark, may be the new oled display will help reduce the display power consumption too.

whereismyacc 2y ago

QD-oled reduces it by like 25% I think? But maybe that will never be in laptops, I'm not sure.

eqvinox 2y ago
QD-OLED is an engineering improvement, i.e. combining existing researched technology to improve the result product. I wasn't able to find a good source on what exactly it improves in efficiency, but it's not a fundamental improvement in OLED electrical→optical energy conversion (if my understanding is correct.) In general, OLED screens seem to have an efficiency around 20≈30%. Some research departments seem to be trying to bump that up [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05671-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05671-x] which I'd be more hopeful on… …but, honestly, at some point you just hit the limits of physics. It seems internal scattering is already a major problem; maybe someone can invent pixel-sized microlasers and that'd help? More than 50-60% seems like a pipe dream at this point… …unless we can change to a technology that fundamentally doesn't emit light, i.e. e-paper and the likes. Or just LCD displays without a backlight, using ambient light instead.

neutronicus 2y ago

Please give me an external ePaper display so I can just use Spacemacs in a well-lit room!

mszcz 2y ago
Onyx makes a HDMI "25 eInk display [0]. It's pricey. [0] https://onyxboox.com/boox_mirapro https://onyxboox.com/boox_mirapro edit: "25, not "27
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  I'm still waiting for the technology to advance. People can't reasonably spend $1500 on the world's shittiest computer monitor, even if it is on sale.
  - neutronicus 2y ago
    Dang, yeah, this is the opposite of what I had in mind I was thinking, like, a couple hundred dollar Kindle the size of a big iPad I can plug into a laptop for text-editing out and about. Hell, for my purposes I'd love an integrated keyboard. Basically a second, super-lightweight laptop form-factor I can just plug into my chonky Macbook Pro and set on top of it in high-light environments when all I need to do is edit text. Honestly not a compelling business case now that I write it out, but I just wanna code under a tree lol
    - eqvinox 2y ago
      A friend bought it & I had a chance to see it in action. It is nice for some very specific use cases. (They're in the publishing/typesetting business. It's… idk, really depends on your usage patterns.) Other than that, yeah, the technology just isn't there yet.
    - mholm 2y ago
      I think we're getting pretty close to this. The Remarkable 2 tablet is $300, but can't take video input and software support for non-notetaking is near non-existent. There's even a keyboard available. Boox and Hisense are also making e-ink tablets/phones for reasonable prices.

craftkiller 2y ago

AMD gpus have "Adaptive Backlight Management" which reduces your screen's backlight but then tweaks the colors to compensate. For example, my laptop's backlight is set at 33% but with abm it reduces my backlight to 8%. Personally I don't even notice it is on / my screen seems just as bright as before, but when I first enabled it I did notice some slight difference in colors so its probably not suitable for designers/artists. I'd 100% recommend it for coders though.

ProfessorLayton 2y ago
Strangely, Apple seems to be doing the opposite for some reason (Color accuracy?), as dimming the display doesn't seem to reduce the backlight as much, and they're using a combination of software dimming, even at "max" brightness. Evidence can be seen when opening up iOS apps, which seem to glitch out and reveals the brighter backlight [1]. Notice how #FFFFFF white isn't the same brightness as the white in the iOS app. [1] https://imgur.com/a/cPqKivI https://imgur.com/a/cPqKivI
- superb_dev 2y ago
  The max brightness of the desktop is gonna be lower than the actual max brightness of the panel, because the panel needs to support HDR content. That brightness would be too much for most cases
  - ProfessorLayton 2y ago
    This was a photo of my MBA 15" which doesn't have an HDR capable screen afaik. Additionally, this artifacting happens at all brightness levels, including the lowest. It also just doesn't seem ideal that some apps (iOS) appear much brighter than the rest of the system. HDR support in macOS is a complete mess, although I'm not sure if Windows is any better.