Surface Pro 3 Eye Strain, and how I got rid of it. BUYERS BEWARE!!

[nnthemperor]

I too have been experiencing this eye strain and a headache since I started using my surface pro3 four days ago. I actually thought the device was too bright and reduced brightness to 35%, but the headache hasn't gone away. I really hate these so called "retina" devices. Was one of the reasons I stopped using the ipad 3 and iphone. My last device before the surface pro 3 was the Asus vivotab tf810C hybrid and that had the best screen at 600nit even though it wasn't high resolution just 1366x768. Would putting a matte finish screen protector be an alternative to cranking up the brightness to max? I'm kind of wary of that too.

 

[Bandito]

A matte screen protector doesn't address the underlying problem of the eye being sensitive to the strobing effect caused by the dimming circuits, so it won't help.

If you're experiencing eye strain due to the size of the text on the screen, you might try playing around with the scaling options in order to enlarge the text to something that is more comfortable to your eyes.

 

[daveyp]

I don't notice it. What's it supposed to look like? I have been using it on 100% most of the time but today wanted to see how long the battery would last, so I underclocked to 570mhz and set the screen at about 20% and used it on and off all day with no problems. Is it that some people are more prone to it than others?

 

[nnthemperor]

I don't notice it. What's it supposed to look like? I have been using it on 100% most of the time but today wanted to see how long the battery would last, so I underclocked to 570mhz and set the screen at about 20% and used it on and off all day with no problems. Is it that some people are more prone to it than others?

I guess so. The screen of my surface gives me a bad headache each time I use it. Tried an elecom matte screen protector today after increasing the DPI from the default 150 to 200. I got much better, but using the pen became a problem. To much friction and a screeching sound, so I had the sp taken off immediately.

 

[Kif]

It really pisses me off that M$ continues to use this cheap PWM technology for such a high-end device. And this is partly because this issue was not taken seriously enough.

Just curious, is there any sort of information on which LCD screens with LED back lighting use PWM technology versus the alternative dimming method?

 

[Bandito]

@daveyp, the majority of people are unaffected by the flickering/strobing that the display does. I believe that most people, whether sensitive to the effect or not do not consciously perceive any flickering, but are, nonetheless, struck by the eyestrain that it causes them.

@Kif, I've seen several monitor reviews that will mention how the display is dimmed, but there has certainly been no consistency as to whether or not they include this information.

If you search on the topic, you may find that someone has put something together for at least the more popular monitors available.

 

[Kif]

@Kif, I've seen several monitor reviews that will mention how the display is dimmed, but there has certainly been no consistency as to whether or not they include this information.

If you search on the topic, you may find that someone has put something together for at least the more popular monitors available.[/QUOTE]

That's the thing I've done some searching and I haven't dug up much information. For example do iPad Air's, or MacBook Pro's, or Lenovo Yoga 2 use PWM technology? I haven't found much information that says one way or the other. I'm curious if this is a Microsoft issue or related to all similar devices.

 

[nnthemperor]

A matte screen protector doesn't address the underlying problem of the eye being sensitive to the strobing effect caused by the dimming circuits, so it won't help.

If you're experiencing eye strain due to the size of the text on the screen, you might try playing around with the scaling options in order to enlarge the text to something that is more comfortable to your eyes.

I think Bandito hit the nail on the head. The culprit wasn't the PWM technology but the dpi/ text size. The default on the modern UI was normal and on the desktop it was 150dpi. I increased the desktop to 200 and the modern UI to large and I'm happy to say that the eye strain and consequent headaches are gone. The screen is beautiful at those settings. Makes me wonder why MS doesn't use the 200/large text as the default settings as the default in both desktop and metro respectively. Brightness is still set to 40% on my screen. If you're having the eye strain problem, you might want to try adjusting the scaling thing too.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I think Bandito hit the nail on the head. The culprit wasn't the PWM technology but the dpi/ text size. The default on the modern UI was normal and on the desktop it was 150dpi. I increased the desktop to 200 and the modern UI to large and I'm happy to say that the eye strain and consequent headaches are gone. The screen is beautiful at those settings. Makes me wonder why MS doesn't use the 200/large text as the default settings as the default in both desktop and metro respectively. Brightness is still set to 40% on my screen. If you're having the eye strain problem, you might want to try adjusting the scaling thing too.

Can you please explain/ describe precisely what you did and how you did it - particularly the scaling part?

 

[nnthemperor]

Hi Kris, nothing technical. Just go to control panel on desktop and find the 'display' settings. open it, you'll find the default is 150 but just under it is an optiion to set your custom size. Click on that at move the slider to 200. follow the onscreen instruction to log out and log back in and that's it.

On the metro side, swipe it from left to bring up the charms, go to change settings - change PC settings - Pc and device - Display- more options. Use the drop down menu to select 'large' to increase the size of texts and other features. That's it.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Hi Kris, nothing technical. Just go to control panel on desktop and find the 'display' settings. open it, you'll find the default is 150 but just under it is an optiion to set your custom size. Click on that at move the slider to 200. follow the onscreen instruction to log out and log back in and that's it.

On the metro side, swipe it from left to bring up the charms, go to change settings - change PC settings - Pc and device - Display- more options. Use the drop down menu to select 'large' to increase the size of texts and other features. That's it.

Thanks!

Edit:

A couple of observations: (1) The improvement on the desktop side is huge. I wish I had done this earlier. (2) But on the MUI side, increasing the size of the text also makes the tiles and everything else much larger. Basically, what I am looking for is to be able to selectively increase the size of fonts in specific apps (like Mail, Calendar etc.). I don't want to globally increase the size of the tiles and of the content therein especially because I have a lot of pinned sites which look ugly when the size is increased. I wish MS would provide this kind of granular control over the system.

One other thing that applies in my case is that my SP3 syncs with my desktop machine, which means any changes on one side is reflected on the other. That would be a problem on the desktop machine (which is a dual monitor set up).

 

[besthsq]

No, you guys don't understand it. If you can fix the problem by merely scaling up the UI, then you have a different problem. I get the problem whenever I look at the screen when it's dimmed, i.e. looking at pictures or watching a video, not just from reading text.
Again it's like the Celiac case maxx7 described. You can't reproduce the scenario because your body just doesn't respond to it. But it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. I appreciate the effort to help people who have problem with the screen but please do not be misleading, as it's not what this thread is addressing.