You can now watch YouTube HDR videos on your smartphone

Last year saw Google implement HDR support on YouTube, allowing users to both upload and watch HDR-enabled videos.

The move meant that those with compatible smart TVs could get in on the action. But smartphone owners were left out of the lurch for a while though, which was no surprise when the Note 7 was the only HDR-compatible phone at the time.

Now, it seems like Google has flicked the switch for mobile HDR, judging by a recent reddit post. And after an update to the YouTube app on our Galaxy S8, we were able to see mobile HDR videos as well.

YouTube’s take on the standard sees it enabled at every quality setting. So you can opt to watch a 144p video in HDR or a 1440p video.

 

We successfully tried it on the Galaxy S8, but there are quite a few other HDR-compatible phones out there, such as the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, XZ1, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and LG G6.

We’ll be trying YouTube’s mobile HDR videos on the XZ Premium and G6 and update the article with our results.