The manufacturer has recently advertised the OLED display of the Nothing Phone (1) with a peak brightness of 700 cd/m² (“nits”), after 1,200 cd/m² at the start were called. In tests by ComputerBase, among others, this value could not be reached. Nothing is now considering an update to unlock more.
Nothing has given ComputerBase further details as to why the screen of the Phone (1) (test) is now being advertised with a peak brightness of only 700 cd/m², after initially 1,200 in the documents distributed by the manufacturer and on the website cd/m² was mentioned. ComputerBase, but also editors like GSMArena, Heise or Notebookcheck, could not understand the original manufacturer information in their tests. Last week, after another request from ComputerBase, Nothing downgraded the statement on the website. As before, the maximum brightness is 500 cd/m², but the peak brightness has been adjusted from 1,200 to 700 cd/m² and thus corresponds to the measured values.
Heat development and battery consumption
In a further statement to ComputerBase, the manufacturer now explains why these adjustments have been made and that a software update could potentially result in an upgrade to the originally advertised value. According to this, the hardware can handle a peak brightness of 1,200 cd/m², but the software limits the OLED panel to 700 cd/m². According to the manufacturer, this decision was made to ensure a balanced user experience in terms of heat development and battery consumption.
According to previous information, the OLED display of the Nothing Phone (1) comes from the Chinese manufacturer Visionox and is characterized above all by the symmetrical bezel. As already explained by ComputerBase in the test, the panel works in the normal range up to 500 cd/m², which users can achieve by manually adjusting the brightness. The range from 500 to 700 cd/m², on the other hand, is reserved for the automatic mode and is triggered by bright ambient light. In addition, the “Average Picture Level” (APL) is decisive for the peak brightness in automatic mode, which allows higher values for this area with a smaller proportion of white on the panel.
Software update could unlock more
In a special mode, the hardware also supports a range from 700 to 1,200 cd/m², which is currently not supported by supported by the software. That could change in the future, however, as Nothing wants to collect feedback from users on this topic to find out whether the increase should be included in future software updates. The editors are still in contact with the manufacturer as to which channels the manufacturer would like to use to obtain this feedback.