Android mobile with good HDR < 25k

Buying Advice Phone Buying Advice
1

Continuing from here but with new thread to avoid confusion –

My father bought Redmi 14 ( he is happy with it ) I looked at display’s HDR, it does seem to be there but doesn’t work on primevideo, only yt. Tried to play 4k HDR local test video through vlc and it was verrry slow.

Even though it says 2000nits max, it doesn’t seem to pop as much as my 1k nits ( but usually lower) monitor. Weird, maybe i need to configure it somewhere, dunno.

Now i am looking for a mobile for my own use. Already have M30s, happy with it too. But jio has made 4g much worse these days, even wifi hotspot works worse with bad pings ( but wired hotspot is ok).

Main requirement - 1) good 5g speeds/latency. I use it as back up internet. 2) Good display, preferably with good HDR that works on PV/netflix etc. 3) Reasonable specs everywhere else, nothing that is too bad. I have given up 3.5mm and SD card requirement. 4) Also i don’t like adding extra screen protection, makes day to day usage worse so should have adequate protection oob.

My use case is only browsing and watching videos on yt/primevideo/etc. No gaming. Occasional camera usage. Even M30s is fast enough for me. So Even basic sub 15k oleds should do, but i want try and see if i can get one with decent HDR on it.

Question - Is high nits HDR on mobile android displays actually fully usable ?? Do apps like primevideo/netflix/other change output to match display capability?

On desktop i can tweak things, and firestick tv just works for my monitor. Not sure about mobile. Also a big problem seems to be compatibility with PV/Netflix. Many phones have the display but apps dont work with HDR ( ex nothing and redmi)

Shortlist

  1. Realme P4 ~15k. On paper this seems to be good enough. 4.5k nits amoled, 7000 mah battery + 80W charger. Slower soc, but probably doesnt matter for my use case. Does not have gorilla glass but something else which is probably good enough.

  2. Realme P4 Pro ~21k-23k. Bumps to 6.5k nits. Better soc. Is it worth it ? This is probably my curremt choice. Has Gorilla Glass. But people say ‘curved’ display is more fragile ?

These two also have an image processing chip that does Motion smoothing and add a sharpness filter. Both of these things are interesting to me, but i dont see any clear review of how well they work.

  1. iQOO Neo 10R ~23k- Faster soc, 4.5k nits, 6.4k battery. I was looking at this before i came across P4 which is cheaper with slower soc, but comparable display. And has that Image processing chip.

  2. OnePlus Nord CE5 - ~22.3k. Less than 2knits peak. 7k battery. Lot of praise for this as a balanced phone. 6y security updates, warranty against green line issue.

All of these i think support HDR in PrimeVideo and Netflix which i would like to have.

Thoughts ?

2

You might already know that Netflix has a page with supported phones here (expand the “Netflix in HDR” section), but I don’t think it’s been updated with this year’s phones (too much to expect from small, indie company I guess).

Since good deals could probably be had on older phones that could still be worth buying, the list should still be helpful. If you want Dolby Vision support, that would narrow things even further.

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HDR isnt make or break, just wanted to have it as bonus. I dont think i will go for older phones which will stop supporting sooner.

Also, couple of times i have seen on reddit that a phone supports HDR on these apps initially, and then they release an OS update and break it.

So iQOO Neo 10R had it at launch and apparently its broken right now. So that’s out, but it doesn’t give any confidence that others will hold up. We can always do local playback i guess ..

https://www.reddit.com/r/GadgetsIndia/comments/1k2tqsk/comment/mpzipsj/

It seems its a common problem. Has happened with oneplus in the past too, even pixel ??

Well it seems this is pointless for streaming services at least.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ml9lle/pixel_devices_changing_to_widevine_l3_on_ota/

4

Not sure why you are only looking at peak brightness for all the models. They are okay for immediate use under the sun but quite pointless from playing back HDR content as no display can maintain that brightness level for sustained periods without killing the display and the battery.

HDR content requires proper processing of the metadata and also maintaining the contrast between black and white on the same scene.

5

I don’t know how these mobiles work, but generally higher peak brightness should give you higher nits at different windows. So bright parts can stand out vs darker parts more and that makes a nice impact/pop.

My father bought a redmi phone, and although it claims 2k max it did not pop that much vs my monitor ( Dell aw32). So just seeing if i can get something better. On TVs we get even brighter peaks than my monitor ( 1k for a small window vs 2k+ ). Larger windows too have higher nits, and from what i have heard it makes quite an impact.

That said, yes i have no idea how to identify which phone has better HDR in real usage among these, there is hardly any review. Also this is just a bonus and not mandatory. Most of my watching will do on monitor.

Dont know what you mean by sun, Not looking for full screen high brightness as such. I will use it indoors most of the time. But small windows with high nits can give you that HDR impact.

The metadata part from what i understand only creates an additional benefit by optimizing each scene for the device. Oleds already have great contrast by default since we have pixel level control, so HDR comes naturally to oleds for this.

Anyway, ill probably just take Realme P4 and call it a day. It should be enough for my use case and has HDR as bonus. Neo 10R might be ok too, but it doesnt work with apps anymore and P4 pro has a curved display which apparently is more fragile.

That or Nord CE5, but dunno how its HDR compares with P4.

6

Yes, but some of them mess up the colour space as well, making things extremely washed out by pushing the blacks as well to a higher brightness level and killing the contrast. You do need good software processing as well along with the hardware and some manufacturers just do a bad job of it.

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yeah commom problem in a lot of games with ugly raised blacks trying to look like ips. Even cyberpunk HDR is messed up, but renodx fixes it up nicely.

I have lots of tools to deal with it on pc, but dunno about mobiles.

If any one of these or another is known to have good HDR, ill like to know. Firestick + primevideo does it very well on my monitor, so i know its possible on Android.

Else ill just take a chance with any of these, doesn’t matter that much.

8

So many people seem to have a low opinion of realme software update quality for long term usage. Apparently they release a lot of phones and dont do good QC ?

I am not a power user, but i don’t want hassles and bugs and overheating. Samsung for me has been ok.

Oneplus Vs Nothing vs iqoo vs realme vs oppo - How do they stack up in terms of software stability ?

9

I would suggest to look at poco x7 pro

10

On the Android side, you only have Google and Samsung in Tier 1.

OnePlus offers longer support than the other Chinese brands now but quality is a mixed bag. At least it has the least invasive skin among BBK companies. Can probably put Nothing in the same category but with fewer updates.

Vivo and its subsidiaries like iqoo comes next.

Realme and Motorola, probably have no idea what an update means.

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I have 99% decided to go with CE5. Gonna order soon ( ~20k from croma)

Samsung alternative at similar price is A55 which seems worse.

Would have gone for P4 but with realme bad reviews, have dropped it.

Nothing looks good too but HDR apparently doesn’t work at all, perhaps even with youtube.

CE5 lists Primevideo and Netflix HDR support officially in its specs and so hopefully will work as a bonus. Has SD card too, so ill go base variant.

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Okay, just check some reviews first then. OnePlus also has a history of breaking things with updates.

13

yeah, thanks for info.

I ordered it already, have had enough looking at phones now, dekha jayega.

My usage is very basic, i am happy even with M30s, so should be fine. I read that you can revert updates with them ( resets phone ), so worst case will do that.

Looks nice, but i am skipping xiaomi.

14

I thought of purchasing the nord 5. But the price has not come down at all. Paying this much for garbage midrangers is annoying. Anyone knows which place is selling it for the lowest?

15

I bought ce5. Nord 5 did not seem like worth it for me.

Cheapest i saw was with TATA croma via tata neu.

My family member buys from tata neu frequently and they have some additional bonuses on top of 5% cashback from card and instant discount from icici. In the end it cost ~21.3k with cashback still due later so maybe in 20s. This is for 8+128. Listed price is 23.5k

You can also look at iqoo Neo 10R i guess which is faster and discounted on amazon with 2k/3k coupon + card discount. I skipped it because people reported issues with HDR and people seem to rate oneplus over iqoo for os support and green line warranty (if bought from official distributor like croma/amazon+darshita) helps too.