OnePlus 12's ultrabright 4500 nits display: a scam or new flagship specs war?

how this outworldly metric gets measured to arrive at the breathtaking specs list entry, neither Apple nor Samsung have managed to replicate it and peak display brightness is shaping up to be the new flagship phone specs battleground.

Who started the peak brightness wars?

Those who started the great camera war!

You know, like the renewed camera wars that led to not one, but TWO periscope zoom cameras on the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, complete with 50MP sensors at that. Coincidentally, the Find X7 Ultra is also advertised with 4,500 nits of peak brightness, as is its Find X7 sibling. So is the OnePlus 12. And the Realme GT5 Pro.

The Find X7 Ultra display specs are basically similar to the OnePlus 12

Notice a trend? These are all phones made under the BBK Electronics holding umbrella that includes the brands Oppo, vivo, Realme, iQOO, and, yes, OnePlus with PixelWorks. They are the ones that brought granular 1Hz-120Hz refresh rates, MEMS upscaling, and end-to-end HDR to flagship phones way back with the Oppo Find X3, or before it was cool.

The Oppo/OnePlus tag team are now bringing 4500-nit phone displays to market and forcing everyone to up their display game just like last year’s Oppo Find X6 Pro forced Samsung to go from 10X/10MP to 5X/50MP periscope zoom camera on the Galaxy S24 Ultra in 2024, as it got destroyed in low-light zoom shots. Well, Oppo upped the ante with two 50MP folded optics cameras on the 2024 Find X7 Ultra, but that one Samsung will probably catch up to with the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Who made 4500 nits possible and how?

Hint: it’s not Samsung

Samsung’s near-monopoly over OLED displays has been slowly eroding in the past few years, until we are now at the stage where local OLED display company BOE is supplying very high-end phone screens to Chinese phone makers, including ones for their foldable handsets that beat Samsung’s display specs.

The OnePlus 12’s breathtaking display specs

One of those panels is exactly the OnePlus 12 and Oppo Find X7 Ultra 4500-nit screen that is exclusive and has been developed in cooperation with BOE. It sports the latest and most advanced LTPO 4.0 technology, meaning that it is not only more frugal at the same brightness level, but also allows for much higher peak brightness levels, more granular refresh rates and eye-preserving PWM frequencies, as well as near perfect wide gamut coverage and HDR performance, even outdoors. Last but not least, the harmful blue light emissions are restricted to below 6% to preserve your retinas and good night’s sleep, boasts BOE:

The OnePlus 12 is armed with BOE’s 6.82-inch eye-friendly 2K flexible OLED display and its independently developed new-generation LTPO pixel driver circuit and EL device. The upgraded pixel driver circuit enables more stable switch between higher and lower refresh rates. When higher frame rate content is displayed, the screen will immediately switch to a higher refresh rate, and the smear control rate can reach a staggering 72%, so users can enjoy a smooth experience all the time. The OnePlus 12 adopts the new-generation LTPO pixel driver circuit, which can reduce backlight power consumption by 13% for equal brightness, delivering a premium display experience plus strong performance. Thanks to its remarkable strengths, BOE’s flexible OLED display customized for the OnePlus 12 has become the first homegrown 2K flexible OLED display to earn DisplayMate’s A+ grade, and has set 18 new records on DisplayMate’s rankings.

Now, about that last humble brag of BOE and OnePlus. Here are the 18 DisplayMate categories where the OnePlus 12‘s custom BOE display meets or beats all other phone screens out there:

Highest Color Accuracy of White (0.7 JNCD for sRGB and 0.7 JNCD for DCI-P3).
Highest Absolute Color Accuracy (0.7 JNCD for sRGB and 0.7 JNCD for DCI-P3).
Smallest Maximum Color Error (1.5 JNCD for sRGB and 1.7 JNCD for DCI-P3).
Smallest Shift in Color Accuracy with APL (0.1 JNCD for sRGB and 0.1 JNCD for DCI-P3).
Smallest Maximum Color Shift with APL (0.2 JNCD for sRGB and 0.3 JNCD for DCI-P3).
Highest Image Contrast Accuracy and Intensity Scale Accuracy (2.21 Gamma).
Smallest Shift in Image Contrast and Intensity Scale with APL (0.02 Gamma).
Smallest Change in Peak Luminance with APL (0.5 percent).
Highest Full Screen Brightness for OLED Smartphones (1,630 nits at 100% APL)?!
Highest Peak Display Brightness (2,675 nits for Low APL)?!
Largest Native Color Gamut (116% DCI-P3 and 146% sRGB / Rec.709 for the Vivid mode).
Highest Contrast Ratio (Infinite).
Highest Visible Screen Resolution 3K (3168×1440) – 4K Does Not Appear Visually Sharper on a Smartphone.
Lowest Screen Reflectance (4.0 percent).
Largest Color Gamut in 1,000 lux Ambient Light (85% for sRGB and 85% for DCI-P3).
Highest Contrast Rating in Ambient Light (408 for 100% APL and 669 for Peak Brightness).
Smallest Brightness Variation of White with Viewing Angle (24% at 30 degrees).
Smallest Color Variation of White with Viewing Angle (2.2 JNCD at 30 degrees).

Notice something eyebrow-raising? While the record-setting performance of the 4500-nit panel in most other aspects is indisputable, even a professional third-party measuring equipment couldn’t register said 4,500 nits metric. At best, even at 1% APL, or maximum power sent to about 45,000 pixels displaying bright white, the OnePlus 12 panel mustered 2,675 nits of peak brightness. What gives?

We already explained how those peak brightness bragging rights are only achieved at minimal average picture levels (APL), i.e. sending all the power to a very limited number of pixels displaying a white image when the organic diodes can emit their maximum luminance.

In the case of BOE’s newest 6.8-inch LTPO 4.0 display on the likes of OnePlus 12 or Find X7 Ultra, the 4500-nit metric may have been achieved by measuring at even smaller APL or at higher power sent to the lit pixels in lab settings.

A scam? Not really…

Hint: peak brightness does matter

When all of the 4.5 million or so pixels of the OnePlus 12 display are lit up at their maximum level, i.e. the way most of us use their phone outdoors on a bright sunny day to display HDR content, for instance, the full screen brightness is 1630 nits. The top indoor brightness we managed to juice out of the OnePlus 12 was lower, but that goes for most of today’s highly adjustable in terms of luminance and refresh rate HDR phone displays.

For reference, we got a higher number by measuring the Pixel 8 Pro screen but Google says that this is “HDR brightness measured at 100% on-pixel ratio,” while “peak brightness [is] measured at 5% on-pixel ratio,” i.e. it tests the peak at 5% APL while the OnePlus 12 couldn’t hit the advertised 4,500 nits even at 1% APL.

Still, apart from the Pixel 8 series, our brightest phone display rankings are currently all occupied by Chinese phone makers, most with screens made by BOE, and Samsung better take notice nonetheless. In short, no matter how cheesy or relevant the 4500 nits number sounds, it is a fact that the higher the peak brightness, the better the outdoor visibility performance of a phone display.

What’s more, this metric is now a marking of a high quality modern LTPO panel, and this is all that matters, especially if the company also does per-unit panel calibration in the factory like Oppo or OnePlus do.

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OnePlus 12’s ultrabright 4500 nits display: a scam or new flagship specs war?

Who started the peak brightness wars?

Those who started the great camera war!

Who made 4500 nits possible and how?

Hint: it’s not Samsung

A scam? Not really…

Hint: peak brightness does matter

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