What is mobile HDR and how does it work?

You’re probably familiar with the concept of HDR (High Dynamic Range) for TVs and monitors. HDR is a ‘collection of standards’ offering a higher contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of a scene, alongside a wider colour gamut, that together can make films and games look much more vibrant and punchy.

But how does HDR work on smartphones, why would you want it, and which phones actually have it? That’s exactly what our lovely member wsjudd will be covering in this blog, so read on!

What is HDR in mobile?

First, let’s cover the basics. We mentioned in the intro that HDR is a collection of standards, but what do we mean by that?

There are a few competing options that all fall under the HDR umbrella, from the base HDR10 spec to more advanced options you might have heard of, like HDR10+ and DolbyVision.

While the base HDR10 spec allows for more information to be presented each frame, with a greater range of brightness and colour values, the open HDR10+ standard and Dolby’s proprietary DolbyVision standard go even further by adding dynamic metadata, which makes it easier for a display to tweak things like brightness and tone-mapping from scene to scene or even frame to frame. This means dark scenes can be shown in a way that means they’re visible, without making brighter scenes too vibrant.

Most phones tend to support one of these advanced formats or the other. So, if you watch content from certain sources that support the wrong format, you’ll instead get the more basic HDR10 or SDR presentation. For example, Netflix only supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 in its mobile app, so if your phone only supports HDR10+ then you’ll get an HDR10 presentation instead. Similarly, YouTube only supports HDR10+ and HDR10. This isn’t a massive deal, typically, but it’s something you might want to research if you want to watch a lot of HDR content on your phone from a specific source.

What phones support HDR?

So, now you know what HDR is on mobile, it’s time to uncover which are the best HDR phones on the market. We’ll break this down into two sections: iOS and Android.

iOS phones with HDR

On the Apple side of things, the iPhone 8 and later all support HDR, which includes the second-gen iPhone SE, iPhone X and all of their successors.

For the iPad, the iPad Pro 10.5", iPad Pro 11" and iPad Pro 12.9" (2nd-gen) and their successors all support HDR. Referring to Netflix’s page of supported iOS devices (under Netflix Features > High Dynamic Range) can be useful here!

However, if you’re looking for the absolute best HDR experience on iOS, I’d have to suggest the latest iPhone 14 Max model, as it has the largest and most advanced display. Recent iPad Pro models are also exceptional here.

Android phones with HDR

Most Android phones with high-end displays also support HDR in one form or another. That includes Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets (S9, Note 8, Fold, Tab S3 and their successors), OnePlus models from the OnePlus 7 onwards, Google’s Pixel 3 and onwards, Sony’s Xperia 1 / 5 / 10 / XZ1 and later, and so on.

Again, I found Netflix’s page of supported Android devices quite useful when searching for the most HRD-compatible devices. If you’re after a recommendation, the Galaxy S23 Ultra seems like a great choice thanks to its advanced display tech and just overall large display.

You can check your current Android phone for HDR compatibility by using the HDR Display Check app. You could also check the app you want to use for HDR, e.g. by playing an HDR video on YouTube and checking that the quality setting includes ‘HDR’, or by looking at Netflix > Profile > App Settings > Playback Specification.

Is an HDR phone worth it?

Finally, let’s touch on one final point. Is mobile HDR even worth worrying about? After all, most people probably don’t want to watch long movies on their phone. Phone screens are relatively small, streaming in 4K HDR can be data-consuming and you might need battery-sapping maximum screen brightness to enjoy an HDR presentation.

For me then, mobile HDR is a nice-to-have, something that will make some videos look better, but not something that I’d be gutted to miss out on if I picked up a phone that didn’t support it. But that’s coming from someone who has an HDR TV at home and doesn’t spend much time travelling. If I was commuting to work every day, I’d probably feel quite differently, and both outlooks are valid in my eyes!

So that’s our take on mobile HDR. Thanks for reading and be sure to get in touch via Twitter; I’m reachable at @wsjudd. Or, if you’ve got questions or tech tips of your own, why not share them on the giffgaff community forum?