This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus for improving power efficiency of display devices. Control logic of a display device can use content adaptive backlight control (CABC) for displaying certain image frames with reduced illumination intensity. CABC can be used to determine a scaling factor for scaling up pixel values in an image frame and for scaling down the illumination intensity of a backlight used for illuminating the image frames. The control logic can determine a number of image subframes that have been rendered imperceptible to the human visual system (HVS) due to the reduced illumination intensity of the backlight, and refrain from displaying the determined number of image subframes. The control logic can utilize the additional time made available as a result of not displaying the determined number of subframes to further improve the power efficiency of the display device and/or improve image quality.