4 ms·

Note that "true black" saves almost no additional power on an OLED vs a dark grey.

dartdartdart1 7y ago
"almost"
Someone1234 7y ago
Indeed. But it does look nicer/work better for what black themes are actually good at: Using at night. So while the additional battery savings between "true black" and grey are within the margin of error, the battery benefits remain for both and the non-battery benefits remain for our eyes.
- mopay 7y ago
  Feels like "dark mode" is an advertisement gimmick more than a useful feature for some products now.
  - bmurphy1976 7y ago
    No way, dark mode is great. Combine it with an internet browser that has a night mode (Samsung's fork of Chrome) and the phones are significantly more pleasant to use at night.
    - mopay 7y ago
      Dark mode is only great if absolutely every single website and app you use support it, and you are never shown bright images ever, because then your eyes explode. This is, it's useless.
      - Someone1234 7y ago
        That's a fallacious argument. Imperfect solutions can still be superior to the unmitigated problem, and they are in this case. You're essentially arguing that unless the solution is perfect, they shouldn't even try, and I'd point out you haven't justified or even tried to justify that black or white point of view.
        mopay 7y ago
        In this case, yes. I think it's better to use light apps at a low brightness level than to use dark apps that might or might not blast a white screen at you. I think that flash of light is terrible for your eyesight, much worse than constant light apps.
        bdefore 7y ago
        I'm inclined to agree with you that sustained periods of darkness that include rapid change of light level may be less healthy for the eyes than consistent levels of overall brighter display with such shocks, but I'd like to see some research to back it up.
      - input_sh 7y ago
        > if absolutely every single website prefers-color-scheme recently landed in all major browsers: https://caniuse.com/#search=prefers-color-scheme https://caniuse.com/#search=prefers-color-scheme > and app you use support it This is a prerequisite for that. You're not gonna manually turn on dark mode in every single app for much longer, your OS will support it as a setting and third-party apps (including browsers) will read that setting and adjust accordingly.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    In the post you replied to I stated two specific benefits of dark mode. I don't understand how you got from that post to "gimmick." - Dark mode saves battery (for OLED displays). The discussion was on "true dark" Vs. grey. Not dark Vs. non-dark modes. - Dark mode is useful in low light/dark rooms/night usage. It isn't a gimmick and a lot of people like it. I happen to be one of them. I'd use it even without any battery savings.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I dislike "dark modes" and don't use them at all, but I can see that they are of real value to a lot of people and not just a gimmick.
  - vdnkh 7y ago
    I love dark mode because it hides my eye floaters
- kec 7y ago
  True black looks nicer in the same way that oversaturated TVs look "nicer" in the showroom: it's great for grabbing your attention, but a pretty crap experience in the long run. White on True black UI has way too much contrast and is much more fatiguing than white on dark gray.
  - selectodude 7y ago
    Not to mention OLEDs don’t turn completely off and on very quickly so you get a lot of smearing on full black screens. Gives me a headache.
  - burtonator 7y ago
    grey text on black background looks decent. Does this hold up for a true black background?
  - xbkingx 7y ago
    Eh, I don't agree at all. Maybe that's the case if you don't use adaptive brightness and your whites are max intensity. I prefer a dark theme I can use all day and let the brightness setting modulate the contrast. That way, direct sunlight kicks in the high contrast capability to make the theme usable during the day (which destroys these gray "dark" themes), while dropping the overall contrast ratio to something similar to these gray themes and emitting less light overall at night. Pure black doesn't feel like I'm looking at a box light and makes transitions between text and media much more consistent. I end up futzing with the brightness for mixed media (like embedded videos or images) far more when using a gray dark theme, since the true brightness will be much more intense for "media white" than "text white", and the perceived brightness between them will be even higher than that. Dark themes used to be about practicality and health. Current gray dark themes seem to be born from poor contrast ratio LCD limitations and justification for the aesthetics around the old Holo theme. As someone that has religiously converted their most common sites to dark themes with custom CSS (a few hundred as of now), gray on gray themes feel foggy and I only use light-but-still-dark gray backgrounds on sites that change frequently so I can see if there's a new text element that needs to be styled. (But, I'm probably in the minority. I also drop font sizes to reasonable levels, delete rounded corners on elements, and remove the miles of whitespace from sites unwilling to accept that a two paragraph "story" isn't worthy of the engagement metrics they get by wasting the reader's time scrolling.)
windsurfer 7y ago
Do you happen to have a source? I am having trouble finding a source online for this information.
- readams 7y ago
  Here's one source at least: https://www.xda-developers.com/amoled-black-vs-gray-dark-mode/ https://www.xda-developers.com/amoled-black-vs-gray-dark-mod...

"almost"

Indeed. But it does look nicer/work better for what black themes are actually good at: Using at night. So while the additional battery savings between "true black" and grey are within the margin of error, the battery benefits remain for both and the non-battery benefits remain for our eyes.

mopay 7y ago
Feels like "dark mode" is an advertisement gimmick more than a useful feature for some products now.
- bmurphy1976 7y ago
  No way, dark mode is great. Combine it with an internet browser that has a night mode (Samsung's fork of Chrome) and the phones are significantly more pleasant to use at night.
  - mopay 7y ago
    Dark mode is only great if absolutely every single website and app you use support it, and you are never shown bright images ever, because then your eyes explode. This is, it's useless.
    - Someone1234 7y ago
      That's a fallacious argument. Imperfect solutions can still be superior to the unmitigated problem, and they are in this case. You're essentially arguing that unless the solution is perfect, they shouldn't even try, and I'd point out you haven't justified or even tried to justify that black or white point of view.
      - mopay 7y ago
        In this case, yes. I think it's better to use light apps at a low brightness level than to use dark apps that might or might not blast a white screen at you. I think that flash of light is terrible for your eyesight, much worse than constant light apps.
        bdefore 7y ago
        I'm inclined to agree with you that sustained periods of darkness that include rapid change of light level may be less healthy for the eyes than consistent levels of overall brighter display with such shocks, but I'd like to see some research to back it up.
    - input_sh 7y ago
      > if absolutely every single website prefers-color-scheme recently landed in all major browsers: https://caniuse.com/#search=prefers-color-scheme https://caniuse.com/#search=prefers-color-scheme > and app you use support it This is a prerequisite for that. You're not gonna manually turn on dark mode in every single app for much longer, your OS will support it as a setting and third-party apps (including browsers) will read that setting and adjust accordingly.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  In the post you replied to I stated two specific benefits of dark mode. I don't understand how you got from that post to "gimmick." - Dark mode saves battery (for OLED displays). The discussion was on "true dark" Vs. grey. Not dark Vs. non-dark modes. - Dark mode is useful in low light/dark rooms/night usage. It isn't a gimmick and a lot of people like it. I happen to be one of them. I'd use it even without any battery savings.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I dislike "dark modes" and don't use them at all, but I can see that they are of real value to a lot of people and not just a gimmick.
- vdnkh 7y ago
  I love dark mode because it hides my eye floaters
kec 7y ago
True black looks nicer in the same way that oversaturated TVs look "nicer" in the showroom: it's great for grabbing your attention, but a pretty crap experience in the long run. White on True black UI has way too much contrast and is much more fatiguing than white on dark gray.
- selectodude 7y ago
  Not to mention OLEDs don’t turn completely off and on very quickly so you get a lot of smearing on full black screens. Gives me a headache.
- burtonator 7y ago
  grey text on black background looks decent. Does this hold up for a true black background?
- xbkingx 7y ago
  Eh, I don't agree at all. Maybe that's the case if you don't use adaptive brightness and your whites are max intensity. I prefer a dark theme I can use all day and let the brightness setting modulate the contrast. That way, direct sunlight kicks in the high contrast capability to make the theme usable during the day (which destroys these gray "dark" themes), while dropping the overall contrast ratio to something similar to these gray themes and emitting less light overall at night. Pure black doesn't feel like I'm looking at a box light and makes transitions between text and media much more consistent. I end up futzing with the brightness for mixed media (like embedded videos or images) far more when using a gray dark theme, since the true brightness will be much more intense for "media white" than "text white", and the perceived brightness between them will be even higher than that. Dark themes used to be about practicality and health. Current gray dark themes seem to be born from poor contrast ratio LCD limitations and justification for the aesthetics around the old Holo theme. As someone that has religiously converted their most common sites to dark themes with custom CSS (a few hundred as of now), gray on gray themes feel foggy and I only use light-but-still-dark gray backgrounds on sites that change frequently so I can see if there's a new text element that needs to be styled. (But, I'm probably in the minority. I also drop font sizes to reasonable levels, delete rounded corners on elements, and remove the miles of whitespace from sites unwilling to accept that a two paragraph "story" isn't worthy of the engagement metrics they get by wasting the reader's time scrolling.)

windsurfer 7y ago

Do you happen to have a source? I am having trouble finding a source online for this information.

readams 7y ago
Here's one source at least: https://www.xda-developers.com/amoled-black-vs-gray-dark-mode/ https://www.xda-developers.com/amoled-black-vs-gray-dark-mod...