HDR, or high dynamic range, is too broad a term to exhaust in a few words in a way that is easy to understand. My go-to is still what I wrote in 2018 when the Android 9 Pie preview landed.
As that clearly shows, HDR content has been supported officially on the Android platform since 2018 when Android 9 Pie rolled out.
Prior to that, even without official support for the format, Korean device makers LG and Samsung had led the way with their own flagship 2017 smartphones arriving with ready support for HDR content. LG went first with the G6 before Samsung chimed in weeks later with the Galaxy S8 and S8+ helping bring to the mainstream smartphone market a format that had erstwhile been the preserve of television sets.
Build and they will come… So they say.
Come they did.
Netflix has since taken advantage of the HDR-capable Android devices to avail HDR content beyond the big screens in our living rooms.
As of now, March 2020, these are the devices that support Netflix HDR:
- Asus ROG Phone II
- Google Pixel 3
- Google Pixel 3 XL
- Google Pixel 4
- Google Pixel 4 XL
- Google Pixel 4a
- Honor 10
- Honor Play
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro
- Huawei Mate 20
- Huawei P20
- Huawei P30
- Huawei P30 Pro
- LG G6
- LG G7
- LG G7 One
- LG Q9 One
- LG X5
- LG V30
- LG V35
- LG V40
- OnePlus 7
- OnePlus 7 Pro
- OnePlus 7T
- Oppo Find X2
- Oppo Find X2 Pro
- Razer Phone
- Razer Phone 2
- Samsung Galaxy Fold
- Samsung Galaxy Fold 5G
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8
- Samsung Galaxy Note 9
- Samsung Galaxy Note 10
- Samsung Galaxy Note 10+
- Samsung Galaxy S9
- Samsung Galaxy S9+
- Samsung Galaxy S10
- Samsung Galaxy S10+
- Samsung Galaxy S10 5G
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
- Samsung Galaxy S10e
- Samsung Galaxy S20
- Samsung Galaxy S20+
- Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G
- Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
- Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G
- Samsung Galaxy Note 20
- Samsung Galaxy Note Ultra
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S3
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S7
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2
- Sony Xperia 1
- Sony Xperia 1 II
- Sony Xperia XZ Premium
- Sony Xperia XZ1
- Sony Xperia XZ2
- Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium
- Sony Xperia XZ3
- TCL 10L
- TCL 10 Pro
- TCL 10 Plus
- TCL 10 5G
- Xiaomi Mi 9T
- Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro
- Xiaomi Mi 10
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
- Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
- Xiaomi Redmi K20
- Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro
While the above devices are the ones that support Netflix HDR via the HDR10 standard, other HDR formats do exist. The most prominent, Dolby Vision, is only supported by one Android device: the LG G6. The G6 was the first phone to support the Dolby Vision HDR format created by Dolby Labs (the same people behind the Dolby audio we love so much) when it launched in 2017 and remains pretty much the only one with Netflix certification to access content in that standard format.
It is worth noting a glaring omission from the list above: the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, the latest smartphones from Google. While they were once HDR10 certified – alongside the Asus ROG Phone II – they have since been removed from Netflix’s list for reasons we do not know. As such, they don’t feature in the above list.
It is worth noting that besides the official HDR support on the above devices, other compatibility factors, in order for the format to be available, include the device running at least Android 5.0 Lollipop (which shouldn’t be an issue for the devices listed above) or later versions and be signed in through an account subscribed to the Premium tier.
