AMOLED and reading at night

[rjbouw]

I really like my Note 3 for reading at night. The deep dark makes the letters appear as if floating in thin air. Absolutely no visible light leakage when the pixels are off. I thought this is always the case with AMOLED screens!

But to my surprise it is not. I also have a galaxy s4 mini (i9195) that has visible glow when parts of the screen are dark. This is not visible during the day, only in a pitch black room. The glow is a faint dark grey, that looks a little like a lcd. Also, my daughters galaxy s3 (i9305) has this problem. On top of that, i can see dark patches through the light leakage. My Note does not have this problem, because, well, there is no light.

Now, i want to downgrade to a smaller phone, a galaxy s4, or a galaxy s5 mini, but i'm afraid these screen have the same problem.

Is there anyone here, that can tell me if the Galaxy S4 or the S5 mini have lovely pitch black screens at night??

[Tikker]

my s4 sure seems pretty dark at night

i definitely can't use it as a nightlight when i need to walk to the bathroom

[rjbouw]

Ok, that sounds promising! So, when you are in a totally dark room,and have an ebook reader app (like play books) with colored text on a black background, you don't see a faint glow? Like, you can't see where the screen ends and the phone begins? Excuse me, I really need to know....

[Tikker]

that's correct, in a dark room, you can see text, and only text

[stumped]

i have a larger samsung tablet with AMOLED screen - no glow here when reading at night

[Tikker]

was going to say, I've also got a 8.4 tab pro, and I don't notice any light leakage either, but I don't have it with me

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Tikker

was going to say, I've also got a 8.4 tab pro, and I don't notice any light leakage either, but I don't have it with me

the reading app may be a factor. I use Bookari in a tweaked night mode, which covers the whole screen; an app that botched full screen mode could leak light I suppose

if i was at all bothered by light, I could engage power saving mode, which makes it duller, dimmer, and does other battery saving stuff without affecting reading, and then there's a more drastic ultra power saving mode, which I think zaps all the colours & fades to grey.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by stumped

if i was at all bothered by light, I could engage power saving mode, which makes it duller, dimmer, and does other battery saving stuff without affecting reading, and then there's a more drastic ultra power saving mode, which I think zaps all the colours & fades to grey.

The problem with that is, that it usually also removes contrast.

[Tikker]

most samsung's have something called "reading mode" which drops refresh rate, the blue light spectrum and dims the light output as well

it's not e-ink by any stretch, but it makes a big difference (to my eyes)

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Tikker

most samsung's have something called "reading mode" which drops refresh rate, the blue light spectrum and dims the light output as well

it's not e-ink by any stretch, but it makes a big difference (to my eyes)

yes, mine has that & it is ticked in settings - but how does it know when you are reading ? do you have to manually toggle it or does it detect reader apps ?
ah - google knows - there's a set up process that I have not yet done:
Press the Reading mode icon so that it lights up. This is easy enough, but there is more to it than this because it has to be configured.

Reading mode doesn’t work with every app and it has to be set up. Pull down from the top and press the gear icon or go to the all-apps screen and tap Settings. Go to My device and select Display. There is a switch to turn on or turn off reading mode. Turn it on.

Press Reading mode and then press the edit button at the top of the screen. This displays a list of apps on the device and a tick box next to each one enables reading mode to be used with it.

[rjbouw]

The night filters / night modes almost all throw a contrast-filter on the screen that most of the time makes it worst for me. Real dark becomes a shade of red/amber. Although i do appreciate that it also makes the text more amber-like. When you have a rooted device, it's better imho, you can use CF.lumen, which doesn't mess with the contrast. But of course, this won't change the fact that the hardware-screen on my s4 mini & s3 can't completely dim the way an amoled screen should dim!

@Tikker, thanks for checking on the S4. I have a tabpro 8.4 as well, and i don't notice the glow in the evening, although when i take it into a totally dark room, darks will glow. But the tabpro has an lcd, so i won't expect it to be completely dark.

[rjbouw]

@stumped: what tablet do you have?

[stumped]

Originally Posted by rjbouw

@stumped: what tablet do you have?

Samsung tab s 10.5 ( not the newer S2 ). running marshmallow. the tab S is 16:10 ratio.
I read in Bookari (premium) usually in 2 column landscape mode, like an opened book, with a custom theme

Having turned on reading mode for that app, I cannot see any obvious difference , in my tweaked night mode ( which is a dark but not full black background and light but not full white text ). I don't switch modes for daytime and night time, I stick with my"night" mode all the time

I thought of setting reader mode for varous news/ nwespaper apps but I don't stay in those for long enough for any battery savings to register, also those carry many full colour pictures which may look better as-is

it is very not obvious how to add apps to reader mode. I'd googled it, posted it, and still got stuck & had to google it again!

[Tikker]

um, it should be as simple as just adding them to the list

long press on the "Reading mode" icon

hit the edit button

place a checkmark beside the app you want to be affected by reading mode

then every time it's opened, it opens in reading mode

[stumped]

for me it was
1.
realising there was an edit button, and
2.
that the little pencil mark thing was it

the only app added to reading mode by default is google books.

I thought it may have an internal list of the most popuar epub reader apps, but apparently not