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

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

How this out-of-this-world metric is measured to arrive at the jaw-dropping entry in the specs list, neither Apple nor Samsung have managed to replicate it and peak screen brightness is shaping up to be the new field flagship phone spec battle.

Who started the maximum brightness war?

Those who started the great camera war!

You know, like the new camera wars that have led to not one, but TWO periscope zoom cameras on the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, with 50MP sensors to boot. Coincidentally, the Find X7 Ultra is also advertised with a peak brightness of 4,500 nits, just like its Find X7 sibling. The same goes for the OnePlus 12. And the Realme GT5 Pro.

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

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

The Oppo/OnePlus team is now releasing 4,500 nit phone screens and forcing everyone to up their display game, just like last year's Oppo Find periscope zoom 10X/10MP to 5X/50MP on the Galaxy. S24 Ultra in 2024, as it was destroyed when zooming in low light. Well, Oppo upped the ante with dual 50MP folded optics cameras on the Find X7 Ultra 2024, but that one Samsung will probably catch up with the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Who made 4,500 nits possible and how?

Hint: It's not Samsung

Samsung's near-monopoly on OLED displays has slowly eroded over the past few years, until we are now at the point where local OLED display company BOÉ supplies very high-end phone screens to Chinese phone makers, including those for their foldable handsets that exceed Samsung's display specifications.

The OnePlus 12's breathtaking display specs - The OnePlus 12's ultra-bright 4,500 nits display: a scam or a new flagship spec war?

The breathtaking display specifications of the OnePlus 12

One of these panels is exactly the OnePlus 12 and an exclusive Oppo Find X7 Ultra 4500 nits screen developed in cooperation with BOE. It sports the latest and most advanced LTPO 4.0 technology, which means it is not only more economical at the same brightness level, but also allows for much higher peak brightness levels, more granular refresh rates and eye-friendly PWM frequencies, as well as near. Perfect wide-range coverage and HDR performance, even outdoors. Finally, harmful blue light emissions are limited to less than 6% to preserve your retinas and a good night's sleep, says BOE:

The OnePlus 12 is equipped with BOE's 6.82-inch 2K flexible OLED display, its independently developed next-generation LTPO pixel driver circuit and EL device. The improved pixel driver circuit allows more stable switching between higher and lower refresh rates. When higher frame rate content is displayed, the screen immediately switches to a higher refresh rate and the smudge control rate can reach a staggering 72%, so users can enjoy a seamless experience at all times. The OnePlus 12 adopts the next-generation LTPO pixel driver circuit, which can reduce backlight power consumption by 13% for equal brightness, providing a high-end display experience and strong performance. With its remarkable strengths, BOE's flexible OLED display customized for OnePlus 12 became the first local 2K flexible OLED display to achieve A+ rating from DisplayMate and set 18 new records in DisplayMate's rankings.

Now let's talk about this latest humble boast from BOE and OnePlus. Here are the 18 DisplayMate categories where the OnePlus 12The custom BOE screen meets or beats all other phone screens:

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 change 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).
Image contrast accuracy and highest intensity scale accuracy (2.21 Gamma).
Smallest change in image contrast and intensity scale with APL (0.02 Gamma).
Smallest change in peak brightness with APL (0.5%).
Highest full-screen brightness for OLED smartphones (1630 nits at 100% APL)?!
Maximum screen brightness (2,675 nits for low APL)?!
Widest native color gamut (116% DCI-P3 and 146% sRGB/Rec.709 for Vivid mode).
Highest contrast ratio (infinity).
Highest visible screen resolution 3K (3168 x 1440) – 4K does not appear visually sharper on a smartphone.
Lowest screen reflectance (4.0 percent).
Widest color gamut in 1000 lux ambient light (85% for sRGB and 85% for DCI-P3).
Highest contrast index in ambient light (408 for 100% APL and 669 for maximum brightness).
Smallest variation in white brightness with viewing angle (24% at 30 degrees).
Smallest color variation from white with viewing angle (2.2 JNCD at 30 degrees).

Notice something that raises eyebrows? Although the panel's record performance of 4,500 nits in most other aspects is unquestionable, even professional third-party measuring equipment would not be able to record this 4,500 nits metric. At best, even at 1% APL, or maximum power sent at around 45,000 pixels displaying bright white, the OnePlus 12 the panel mustered 2,675 nits of peak brightness. Which give?

We have already explained how these brightness peaks are only achieved at minimum average picture levels (APL), that is, by sending all the power to a very limited number of pixels displaying a white image when organic diodes can emit their maximum luminance.

In the case of BOE's latest 6.8-inch LTPO 4.0 display, such as OnePlus 12 or Find X7 Ultra, the 4,500 nits metric may have been achieved by measuring at an even smaller APL or higher power sent to the lit pixels in laboratory settings.

A scam? Not really…

Tip: Maximum brightness is important

When all of the approximately 4.5 million pixels of the OnePlus 12 The screens are lit at their maximum level, which is how most of us use our phones outside on a sunny day to view HDR content, for example, full screen brightness is of 1630 nits. The maximum interior brightness that we managed to extract from the OnePlus 12 was lower, but that's true for most of today's highly tunable HDR phone displays in terms of luminance and refresh rate.

For reference, we got a higher number by measuring the Pixel 8 Pro's screen but Google says it's “HDR brightness measured at 100% pixel ratio,” while “maximum brightness [is] measured at 5% pixel ratio“, that is to say it tests the peak at 5% APL while the OnePlus 12 couldn't reach the claimed 4,500 nits even at 1% APL.

Still, with the exception of the Pixel 8 series, our brightest phone screen rankings are currently all occupied by Chinese phone makers, most with displays made by BOE, and Samsung would still be wise to do so. take note. In short, as ridiculous or relevant as the 4,500 nits figure is, it is a fact that the higher the maximum brightness, the better the outdoor visibility performance of a phone screen.

Additionally, this metric is now a hallmark of a high-quality modern LTPO panel, and that's all that matters, especially if the company also performs per-unit panel calibration at the factory like Oppo or OnePlus do.