Best smart phone for not having the screen washed out in bright sunlight?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I drive around for Uber and Lyft and I’m looking for a replacement phone. What I like least about my current one is how easily it becomes almost unreadable at times early and late in the day when the sun’s coming in from low angles.

Any recommendations?

2

If you’re otherwise happy with your phone, you might be able to buy or rig up some sort of visor, or get a second mount for somewhere else in the car that avoids the glare for those couple hours a day.

My last phone was a cheap Android Tracfone and it absolutely sucked in the sun. Now I have an iPhone Tracfone and it’s fine in the sun, but no idea if it qualifies as “best.”

3

Nokia windows phones behave really well in direct sunlight.

4

My current phone has an IPS LCD screen which is good outdoors. My previous phone had an AMOLED screen, which was beautiful indoors but was not good at all in the sun, it just wasn’t bright enough. So perhaps look for a phone with a IPS LCD screen.

My current phone is a Moto X Pure, but the previous phone was a Moto X. So it varies by phone, don’t rely on brand.

5

Interesting - my experience has been the opposite - OLED screens (because the light parts are actually emitting, and the dark parts are true black) seem to perform better in daylight than IPS.

I concur with drewder on the Lumia Windows phones - the daylight readability there is coming from a combination of OLED screens (on those models that have one) and white-on-black text throughout most of the interface.

6

I had a Moto [something] and it was great. I now have a Samsung and it is not so great. In fact two thumbs down on this phone for a number of reasons. I don’t know what the difference was. They looked pretty similar inside. Maybe an outside brightness adjustment thing?

Anyway, when I bought the Moto they let me take the sales model outside in the sun to look at it. Sure wish I’d done that with the current one.

7

My Pixel looks fine in sunlight when I turn the screen brightness all the way up, even when I’m wearing sunglasses.

I’ve noticed that some people have the auto-brightness feature turned off but never adjust it manually. I’m not saying that’s your issue, but you might want to check to make sure. What seems blindingly bright when reading your phone at night can look black during the daylight. Make sure your brightness is changing for the environment, either manually or automatically.