It has been fairly some time since we have seen a brand new show expertise that actually catches on. OLED debuted on cell gadgets 15 years in the past with the discharge of the unique Samsung Galaxy, ultimately usurping LCD because the de facto normal show sort.
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Nevertheless, the tides are shifting, and prospects need one thing extra user-friendly than OLED, a expertise that appears nice however causes complications and eye pressure in a notable proportion of individuals. Enter TCL’s NXTPAPER expertise, a customized sort of LCD that features a number of consolation layers and customized tuning, together with a matte anti-glare layer and black ranges beforehand thought unachievable for the tech.
The TCL NXTPAPER 60 Extremely is the primary smartphone outfitted with the newest model of NXTPAPER, and it simply is perhaps my favourite smartphone show of all time. As somebody who usually seeks out various varieties of shows with higher consolation rankings, NXTPAPER tremendously appeals to me. Now, with NXTPAPER 4.0, I am lastly seeing the fruits of TCL’s labor and may totally suggest it as a legit various to OLED. Listed below are all the small print.
Consolation above all
As I mentioned in my Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely show overview, all trendy flagship telephone shows look good. Any ranking assigned to 1 over the opposite is usually nitpicking between traits that the common particular person merely does not see or care about.
That is why consolation is the brand new benchmark of show high quality. A excessive consolation ranking ensures all customers can see and revel in content material on a show, irrespective of in the event that they’re taking a look at it for five minutes or 5 hours.
Within the trendy digital age, the place a smartphone is virtually important for on a regular basis life, it is turning into more and more extra vital for firms to make gadgets that work for everybody, together with these of us with visible disabilities or limitations.
Reflectivity and brightness
An up-and-coming pattern in smartphone shows is glare discount. All NXTPAPER gadgets characteristic a matte anti-reflective layer, however NXTPAPER 4.0 encompasses a redesigned substrate and nano-matrix lithography software to boost brightness and coloration accuracy.
This up to date anti-glare layer is extremely efficient, decreasing reflections a lot that the show appears to be like nearly equivalent to full-color paper printing. It is really wild trying on the display screen all through the day and seeing such a beautiful, flat-lit show that does not drive me to squint or pressure to see.
The impact is finest in any indoor situation or when exterior in partial shade. Inside, the anti-glare layer is ideal for decreasing these annoying reflections from adjoining lights or any brightly lit object. On this surroundings, zero reflection of any type is seen, and it makes the telephone a pleasure to make use of versus another show expertise I’ve used so far.
Considered one of my favourite issues about NXTPAPER 4.0 is its means to create an excellent image with out following regular show expectations. Take daylight viewability, for instance. At 850 nits, you’d anticipate this to be troublesome to see within the daylight. The Pixel 10 collection hits 3300 nits to make sure it is good and vivid, as an illustration, however you may rapidly study that the issue wasn’t brightness all alongside. It was glare.
Out of doors visibility comes with an attention-grabbing caveat, although. It is tremendous simple to see in direct daylight, however provided that the solar is not instantly reflecting off the matte floor. I am penning this at 3 pm, sitting in my automobile whereas I wait to select my son up from faculty, and it is extremely simple to see. It is also wonderful for dashboard navigation. But when I had been making an attempt to sort this up on my again deck with the solar overhead, I might have to carry it at an angle.
That angle is the one actually bizarre factor about this show, because the matte layer will utterly occlude the show if the solar is shining straight into your imaginative and prescient. It isn’t an enormous deal because you solely must barely alter the angle — you’ll by no means preserve the solar instantly on another show, both — however it does look totally different from a traditional reflective show. I might suggest utilizing the scheduled gentle/darkish theme choice to preserve gentle mode on in the course of the day in case you spend quite a lot of time exterior, as that additionally makes an enormous distinction for visibility.
Elsewhere, the brightness stage is just good and at all times feels snug. It might probably even get right down to 2 nits when additional dim show is enabled, one thing that was an issue with earlier generations of NXTPAPER. I’ve at all times discovered these shows to be too vivid to learn in mattress at evening, however the TCL NXTPAPER 60 Extremely fixes all that.
One of the best half is that it achieves this with zero flicker, in contrast to OLED. That is as a result of OLED usually has to change to PWM dimming if you get to decrease dimming ranges, creating an uncomfortable flicker that may trigger complications and eye ache. Not one thing you need proper earlier than mattress.
This telephone is totally flicker-free and by no means makes use of PWM dimming at any time. It is true voltage-adjusted DC dimming, and it is one of many strengths of this show tech.
Eye consolation settings
NXTPAPER 4.0 encompasses a built-in blue gentle filter that performs exceptionally effectively. Moreover, the telephone options two automated modes that alter the show’s coloration temperature to match the time of day or robotically primarily based on ambient gentle temperature. You’ll be able to allow each modes on the identical time, in case you like.
For the reason that display screen does not use PWM dimming, there is no must have any sort of flicker discount choice. By default, nonetheless, the telephone makes use of temporal dithering to regulate show colours and to create extra correct gray colours. Turning off all three choices beneath NXTVISION show settings reduces the quantity of dithering system-wide.
Sticking to regular and black & white ink modes ensures the least quantity of dithering, and utilizing sRGB or Pure coloration house choices appears to disable dithering fully when NXTVISION is disabled. The telephone’s Coloration Paper show mode appears to dither it doesn’t matter what choices are chosen.
TCL encompasses a notable variety of further eye care options discovered beneath the NXTPAPER zone menu. An automatic alert may be enabled that may inform you to take a break after a set quantity of display screen time that will help you stave off digital dependancy.
A variety of posture alerts may enable you right issues with regular system use. Staring on the display screen too intently can generate a posture alert, and the identical will occur in case you lie down and browse with the telephone for too lengthy.
It’s also possible to allow alerts for if you’re utilizing the telephone in an surroundings that is too shaky — on a practice or some place else that would trigger eye-strain whereas studying — or if you’re in environments which can be too vivid or too darkish to have a look at the display screen for a very long time. All of those choices may be enabled in case you like, and are disabled by default.
Colours and ink modes
One of the vital distinctive components of NXTPAPER expertise is the flexibility to change between full coloration, “coloration paper,” and black & white “ink” modes with the change on the correct aspect of the telephone. Switching takes a couple of seconds and is accompanied by a ravishing animation to indicate the progress.
NXTPAPER gadgets have at all times had these three choices, so that they’re no totally different visually from these. Regular mode is what you anticipate: a full-color expertise that appears like a contemporary smartphone show. Coloration Paper makes all of the whites a heat, off-white coloration and adjustments most colours to pastel. Ink Paper makes every thing black and white.
A fourth mode, Max Ink mode, makes use of the black & white visible look of Ink Paper mode however closes all apps apart from those you whitelist. The concept right here is to not solely save battery life but in addition to behave as a “digital detox” mode for if you want downtime or need to be much less distracted.
As with the “studying modes” or “e-book modes” on some telephones, these modes simply alter the colour of the show. They do not alter the backlight itself or change the character of the show itself, so they don’t seem to be fairly the identical as utilizing an E Ink telephone for eye care.
Movement, decision, viewing angles
The TCL NXTPAPER 60 Extremely’s show robotically swaps between 120Hz and 60Hz, however you may choose to maintain it at 60Hz for battery or eye consolation causes. At 7.2 inches, this large show appears to be like just a little delicate with 2340 x 1080 decision.
I do not suppose the show appears to be like historically low-resolution, which usually infers which you could see the person pixels or that edges of icons and textual content have a stair-stepping sample to them. The whole lot right here is clear and clear, it is simply softer than you may anticipate due to the extra gentle scattering and matte filters above the panel.
Lastly, we’ll check out a number of the historically weakest factors of LCDs: movement blur, viewing angles, and black ranges. Viewing angles and black ranges are downright spectacular and are the perfect I’ve ever seen on an IPS-based show. More often than not, I can not inform the distinction between the black ranges on this show and an OLED, though OLED continues to have higher total distinction.
When utilizing the telephone to scroll in darkish mode or in low gentle, you may be arduous pressed to inform the distinction between it and a high-quality OLED panel. Most OLEDs are inclined to “bleed purple” if you slowly scroll in low gentle or in darkish mode, and that impact is equal to the slight movement blur you may see from the slower-refreshing pixels of NXTPAPER’s IPS base.
That distinction turns into extra readily obvious when utilizing gentle mode or when the backlight is turned up brighter, particularly when scrolling with black textual content on a lightweight background. This impact is much less obvious in movies or whereas gaming.
In brief, movement decision is worse than OLED however higher than a conventional IPS show. I can simply learn phrases as I scroll, even when I flick the display screen rapidly, so I might nonetheless fee this as “good” even when it is not the perfect.
Verdict
The TCL NXTPAPER 60 Extremely has one of the unbelievable shows I’ve ever used on a smartphone. It is totally flicker-free and presents aid for each folks delicate to PWM dimming and dithering, one thing that is merely unparalleled in 2025 when telephones both use some type of dithering or PWM-style dimming, which each introduce flicker to the expertise.
NXTPAPER 4.0 additionally breaks from expectations of LCDs, providing very good black ranges and viewing angles, wonderful coloration copy, and tons of eye care modes. Out of doors visibility remains to be the weakest level of the expertise, however it’s considerably higher than any earlier NXTPAPER show by a large margin. It isn’t arduous to see in daylight, however it’s not as simple as E Ink or some OLED shows.
The general look of the show is extremely fascinating due to a mix of a number of bespoke visible filters and a matte floor, giving it a novel appear and feel. Readability is significantly better on this show than most, and I discovered myself entranced by the show over the previous week. It is attractive to have a look at, and ushers in a brand new period for IPS shows and TCL as a brand new high quality contender.
With eye consolation at its core, the TCL NXTPAPER 60 Extremely is the only option for anybody involved about eye well being with out sacrificing visible high quality. It is a paperlike show with lively stylus assist, so you may take notes and browse books in consolation whereas nonetheless having fun with all the traditional smartphone belongings you want.
