OnePlus 12 and its exorbitant 4,500-nit peak brightness explained،
OnePlus 12 boasts no less than six major advances
THE OnePlus 12 was announced in China last week, and while it's quite an intriguing device, one unique and head-turning aspect surely caught our attention: its record-breaking peak brightness of 4,500 nits.
With the OnePlus 12, the company is proud to have equipped the device with one of the best screens on a phone currently available. It appears that six major display advancements are being used here, along with no less than nine “world-first” features adorning the OnePlus 12 screen. Some 18 other records also appear to be broken. All of this sets the bar for our expectations quite high.
Maximum brightness of the OnePlus 12 compared to the next best thing
How do other manufacturers measure brightness?
In the table you're about to see below, we've gathered the official peak brightness measurements claimed by each manufacturer for some of the most popular flagships released in 2023. Keep in mind that not all manufacturers do not reveal the details of how the brightness readings. were measured.
| Phone | Typical Brightness | HDR Brightness | Maximum brightness | Specificities of the measurements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OnePlus 12 | 1,600 nits | – | 4,500 nits | |
| GooglePixel 8 Pro | – | 1,600 nits | 2,400 nits | *HDR brightness measured at 100% pixel ratio (100% PLA) *Peak brightness measured at 5% pixel ratio (5% APL) |
| Google Pixel 8 | – | 1,400 nits | 2,000 nits | *HDR brightness measured at 100% pixel ratio (100% APL) *Peak brightness measured at 5% pixel ratio (5% APL) |
| Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra | – | 1,750 nits | – | |
| AppleiPhone 15 Pro Max | 1,000 nits | 1,600 nits | 2,000 nits | – |
| Xiaomi 13 Ultra | – | – | 2,600 nits | – |
| Redmi K7 Pro | – | – | 4,000 nits | – |
| Oppo Find X6 Pro | 800 nits | 1,500 nits | 2,600 nits | – |
This is one of the reasons we typically measure lower maximum brightness levels than advertised. For example, the Pixel 8 ProThe peak brightness of 2,400 nits translated to 1,449 nits of peak brightness measured in our testing.
We measured 1,086 nits of peak brightness on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which has a claimed peak brightness of 1,750 nits. All these measurements are correct, the margins can be attributed to the different measurement processes.
We've reviewed a ton of phones in 2023; Here are the flagships with the highest brightness levels that have passed through PhoneArena's front door.
Some other terms often used by phone manufacturers are typical and peak brightness.
Typical brightness is generally referred to as the maximum brightness achievable by a fully illuminated display, usually at 100% APL. This is what you can generally expect from a screen, and it's the closest measurement to what you can expect from a screen when it comes to brightness.
Peak brightness, on the other hand, represents the maximum brightness of a small part of the screen that displays a completely white image, while the rest of the screen is off. This is what some manufacturers often call maximum HDR brightness for marketing purposes.
The peak brightness of 4,500 nits, more than double that of most flagship phones currently sold in the US, is most certainly real. Here again, the OnePlus 12 is surely no more than twice as bright as most of its rivals.
It all comes down to how brightness is measured and how AMOLED displays work.
It is common knowledge that an OLED display is made up of separate self-illuminated pixels, which combine three distinct red, green and blue sub-pixels. Pixels can be selectively turned on or off by the display's TFT backplane in various combinations, allowing the display to display over a billion colors.
Change the three subpixels of a pixel and you get a white color; no power, and you get black. The amount of pixels powered relative to an all-white screen is called APL, or Average Picture Level. A screen displaying a completely white image (with all pixels lit) is at 100% APL, while a black image measures 0% APL because none of the pixels are lit. Fully green, red, or blue images measure 33% APL each, respectively, because only a third of the necessary subpixels are on, the rest are off.
So when a single pixel of an AMOLED display is turned on, the display can allocate more power to it, increasing its brightness beyond what the full display can achieve. In this situation, the APL would be less than 1%.
How did OnePlus achieve such an unusually high maximum brightness?
We're pretty sure the 4,500 nit peak brightness of the OnePlus 12 is a real metric that can be easily supported by the business. However, we are also certain that the brightness measurement was done at a very low APL, likely attributing the maximum power to a single white pixel in HDR mode, which peaked at around 4,500 nits.
In real life, it is almost impossible to achieve such exorbitant maximum brightness. The reason is simple: even with dark mode enabled, we rarely use our devices at lower APL levels, so the maximum brightness is significantly lower than what a single white pixel can theoretically achieve. So, even if your OnePlus 12 will be technically capable of providing such high maximum brightness that you will hardly be able to use it.
OnePlus claims this peak brightness record from a competitor cited as offering a peak brightness of 4,000 nits. This is most likely the Redmi K7 Pro, announced at the end of November.
What is the actual maximum brightness of the OnePlus 12?
Actual testing of the Chinese version of the device seems to support this.
At 1% APL, meaning only 1% of the screen's pixels emit light, DisplayMate measures 2,675 nits of brightness, which largely coincides with the screen's peak brightness of 2,600 nits previously announced. OnePlus 12.
We sure can't wait to get our dirty mitts on the OnePlus 12 and see how bright its screen can really get.
