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Donnation

Suspended
Nov 2, 2014
1,686
2,083
+1
This is exactly what my point of view is. Im wholly aware of screens and how they work (they all have some form of blur etc). For a device aimed at content creators it kind of baffles me why they chose to stick a slow response time screen in their flagship product. There will be many other products with displays that don't ghost. My AOG 1440p 165hz is 4ms and thats fine. Thats not blisteringly quick like some panels but its good. This makes me think its a 6-10ms screen, which is kinda bad for this price point/device.

I tried to demonstrate here, but make your own mind up by going and using one:

Lol this is showing absolutely nothing. Again, if you honestly feel like this is a huge deal to you then just take it back. You cannot read text scrolling like that on any machine.
 

StONE_ROdGEr

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2019
89
74
Any movement - a n y - is ghostly. The point in that is to show the issue (it’s excessive at points except the launch pad swiping which is standard across all). Seriously, can you not see it in that?

Regardless it doesn’t seem like something that can be resolved via updates from Apple. I’ll return and refund, hopefully the 14” next year doesn’t have the same ailment.
 

warfed

macrumors regular
Apr 16, 2011
177
60
I might go this route too, despite having issues with ghosting. It is only visible during scrolling on a page (worst in night mode colors - ie white text on black bgnd) and I mostly code on this machine.

hmmm...

I thought I got used to it... but the more I use it the more it's starting to bother me again. Going back to the store today. Going to upgrade my PC instead and offload some dev work on it. I wish Mac mini would have been refreshed, probably would have gone down that road instead of PC.
 

sat24

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2019
230
146
I am finding that if I turn off hardware acceleration in the new Edge browser, then it is less blurry. It's the butter smooth scrolling that exacerbates this issue! (I do want butter smooth scrolling tho)
 

warfed

macrumors regular
Apr 16, 2011
177
60
Found it! 2019-10-14...

It's going back!

Let us know if the new one you get is better... assuming you get it replaced. I returned mine yesterday. Might wait for the rumoured MicroLED next year, though one year is a long time to wait.
 

StONE_ROdGEr

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2019
89
74
Let us know if the new one you get is better... assuming you get it replaced. I returned mine yesterday. Might wait for the rumoured MicroLED next year, though one year is a long time to wait.

Nah, going for a straight up refund. I've seen a few in a shop and they were the same. I have a couple of choices:

#1 Get a refund and wait for the next iteration.
#2 Get a refund and buy a bit later in case it was a particular panel issue (panel lottery etc)
#3 Get a refund and buy a 13" until the new 14" comes out and see if the 14" suffers the same. I think the 13" isnt as bad from what I remember, but I will test this before buying.

Annoyingly the 13" is butterfly, which is why I waited for the 16". In hindsight I missed a great deal on the 13" which I should've taken.

All in all, I can't justify this bad response time on such an expensive device. It's definitely ruining the user experience.
 
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MrGunnyPT

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2017
1,313
804
Yeah I noticed this while playing WoW early this evening, it isn't a biggie for me since I can just connect to an external monitor or TV and it's done for me.
 

Idec50

macrumors regular
Feb 22, 2019
108
50
TX
I tend to believe people when it comes to ghosting or motion blur because I have a 144hz screen that I use for gaming and it is amazing. I even sometimes use ULMB to make it even better.

However, I just don't believe that there is a significant difference between the 16'' and the 2016-2019 15.6''. I just tried one right after the other and recorded videos in slow-mo that I played those back on my 144hz screen. I don't see it. I didn't see the difference in person. They both have terrible motion blur. And this is fine for what I use it for.

Here's how you would need to do to properly compare it with an image: https://www.blurbusters.com/motion-tests/motion-blur-photo-examples/.

Notebookcheck released their review and they measured 34.9 ms rise and fall response time: see 16'' review. However, they reviewed my 2017 MBP at 33.8 ms (certainly within the margin of error) on this review.

P.S. I do disagree with those that are saying that you never read scrolling text (I do it all the time on my 144hz screen and my iPad Pro). You start doing it naturally when you have a screen with a high refresh rate.
 

Quu

macrumors 68040
Apr 2, 2007
3,442
6,876
I tend to believe people when it comes to ghosting or motion blur because I have a 144hz screen that I use for gaming and it is amazing. I even sometimes use ULMB to make it even better.

However, I just don't believe that there is a significant difference between the 16'' and the 2016-2019 15.6''. I just tried one right after the other and recorded videos in slow-mo that I played those back on my 144hz screen. I don't see it. I didn't see the difference in person. They both have terrible motion blur. And this is fine for what I use it for.

Here's how you would need to do to properly compare it with an image: https://www.blurbusters.com/motion-tests/motion-blur-photo-examples/.

Notebookcheck released their review and they measured 34.9 ms rise and fall response time: see 16'' review. However, they reviewed my 2017 MBP at 33.8 ms (certainly within the margin of error) on this review.

P.S. I do disagree with those that are saying that you never read scrolling text (I do it all the time on my 144hz screen and my iPad Pro). You start doing it naturally when you have a screen with a high refresh rate.

I think for some of us we're coming from the 2015 15" or older which had faster response times. Obviously the 2016 models with touchbar have a slower response time but better colour (P3).

I use a 165Hz 1440p IPS panel on my desktop and like you I can read text in motion and do so regularly. Not something I care about on my notebook display though, as I said a few times the "ghosting" on this display is not annoying to me. It's worse than my old 15" 2015 sure but not to a degree that I'd return it, for me minor blip that I already don't notice anymore.

I would like to note one thing from that review though is when they discuss the response time they say this:

The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers.
In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.8 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 90 % of all devices are better.
This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (24.8 ms).

For something this costly I would expect it to be in the top 30% at-least not in the bottom 10%.
 

sat24

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2019
230
146
I think for some of us we're coming from the 2015 15" or older which had faster response times. Obviously the 2016 models with touchbar have a slower response time but better colour (P3).

I use a 165Hz 1440p IPS panel on my desktop and like you I can read text in motion and do so regularly. Not something I care about on my notebook display though, as I said a few times the "ghosting" on this display is not annoying to me. It's worse than my old 15" 2015 sure but not to a degree that I'd return it, for me minor blip that I already don't notice anymore.

I would like to note one thing from that review though is when they discuss the response time they say this:



For something this costly I would expect it to be in the top 30% at-least not in the bottom 10%.
Yes thanks for highlighting that part. I saw that too and was dismayed. I come from a 2014 rMBP and the blurring during scrolling is pretty visible compared to that device. I use XCode heavily - in general, coding tools where text is predominant. Now, I dont go scrolling there as much - but while reading forums, I do scroll quite a bit. I have to see if I "get used" to this device in the next week, if not I will exchange it (will be unit #3) and if that still doesnt have an improved screen (panel lottery) then I will end up returning it. It will be a bummer after having patiently waited for months/years for this refresh. I just have to be more patient I guess for the mini-led screen to solve the refresh rate issue - and in the meanwhile, go back to my trusty old 2014 rMBP. It is a bit slow but what can you do.​
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I thought I got used to it... but the more I use it the more it's starting to bother me again. Going back to the store today. Going to upgrade my PC instead and offload some dev work on it. I wish Mac mini would have been refreshed, probably would have gone down that road instead of PC.
Have you returned the unit? Or replaced it?
 
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_Kiki_

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2017
961
281
I tend to believe people when it comes to ghosting or motion blur because I have a 144hz screen that I use for gaming and it is amazing. I even sometimes use ULMB to make it even better.

However, I just don't believe that there is a significant difference between the 16'' and the 2016-2019 15.6''. I just tried one right after the other and recorded videos in slow-mo that I played those back on my 144hz screen. I don't see it. I didn't see the difference in person. They both have terrible motion blur. And this is fine for what I use it for.

Here's how you would need to do to properly compare it with an image: https://www.blurbusters.com/motion-tests/motion-blur-photo-examples/.

Notebookcheck released their review and they measured 34.9 ms rise and fall response time: see 16'' review. However, they reviewed my 2017 MBP at 33.8 ms (certainly within the margin of error) on this review.

P.S. I do disagree with those that are saying that you never read scrolling text (I do it all the time on my 144hz screen and my iPad Pro). You start doing it naturally when you have a screen with a high refresh rate.

actually in this review GTG is really slow 52.4ms , it's slower than 15.4 2018 which had 43.2 ms, so it's a 9.2 ms difference
 

sat24

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2019
230
146
I am finding that if u turn off inertia for scrolling, then the blurry text effect is largely reduced. You can access it from Accessibility settings.

Of course, this still doesnt solve it elsewhere like watching videos, although even watching 4K60 on youtube looks pretty smooth.
 

RedTheReader

macrumors 6502a
Nov 18, 2019
532
1,312
I am finding that if u turn off inertia for scrolling, then the blurry text effect is largely reduced. You can access it from Accessibility settings.
Isn’t this just because without inertia the scrolling has a tendency to move less? It just stops moving when you’re done scrolling immediately. Seems like a poor solution. If you don’t want to see issues with moving content, have less moving content?
 

sat24

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2019
230
146
Isn’t this just because without inertia the scrolling has a tendency to move less? It just stops moving when you’re done scrolling immediately. Seems like a poor solution. If you don’t want to see issues with moving content, have less moving content?
Yup that is what it is - avoid the blur. This is NOT a fix obviously. Not unlike the other suggestions made here like turn off font smoothing, true tone, etc.

Edit: the reason why this is borderline acceptable for me is 1) If this is by-design for 16" laptops (in which case, winning the panel lottery has the same odds as winning the real lottery, then I dont want my OCD-ness to prevent me from making forward progress (those iOS/macOS apps arent going to build themselves, sadly), and 2) I come mostly from 90% windows world, where really-smooth scrolling doesn't exist. Even my Surface Book 2 moves in increments of pixel-multiples when "smooth" scrolling. Butter-like smoothness is really an Apple thing and if that is what exacerbates the ghosting issues, I dont really miss it much personally. For my use-cases on the MBP (development and training on Apple tech) this is ok.
 
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alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
Yes it's pretty bad. My desktop monitor is 165Hz, so it's definitely more noticeable on the Mac built-in display. But I don't play games, so it's fine for day to day use.

EDIT: So I re-read through the threads... it seems the ghosting that the OP describes and what I see are not the same. I just notice the lower refresh rate especially scrolling, but I don't have any problems with image retention and artifacts when switching apps, nor do I have stutters.
 
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StONE_ROdGEr

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2019
89
74
I tend to believe people when it comes to ghosting or motion blur because I have a 144hz screen that I use for gaming and it is amazing. I even sometimes use ULMB to make it even better.

However, I just don't believe that there is a significant difference between the 16'' and the 2016-2019 15.6''. I just tried one right after the other and recorded videos in slow-mo that I played those back on my 144hz screen. I don't see it. I didn't see the difference in person. They both have terrible motion blur. And this is fine for what I use it for.

Here's how you would need to do to properly compare it with an image: https://www.blurbusters.com/motion-tests/motion-blur-photo-examples/.

Notebookcheck released their review and they measured 34.9 ms rise and fall response time: see 16'' review. However, they reviewed my 2017 MBP at 33.8 ms (certainly within the margin of error) on this review.

P.S. I do disagree with those that are saying that you never read scrolling text (I do it all the time on my 144hz screen and my iPad Pro). You start doing it naturally when you have a screen with a high refresh rate.

Thank you for the link with the in-depth screen information! This essentially backs up my findings about both the 16 and 13. And I'm glad there are people other than myself who can read whilst scrolling.

It'd be amazing if these VERY expensive laptops didn't require "winning the panel lottery" to get a great experience.

I dont think the ghosting will vary much, I reckon this is very much by design.

I returned my 16" because of this exact ghosting issue, it was making me dizzy, and got a 13" - the 13" panel is so much brighter and doesn't ghost at all. maybe i'll try again next year.

Mine didn't make me feel ill luckily, just annoyed. Hopefully the 14" is better.

Yes it's pretty bad. My desktop monitor is 165Hz, so it's definitely more noticeable on the Mac built-in display. But I don't play games, so it's fine for day to day use.

EDIT: So I re-read through the threads... it seems the ghosting that the OP describes and what I see are not the same. I just notice the lower refresh rate especially scrolling, but I don't have any problems with image retention and artifacts when switching apps, nor do I have stutters.

No, it seems you're having the same issue as me! That's not a lower refresh rate you are seeing (assuming you're set to 60hz?) that's the poor response rate that we've been discussing! Its not like image burn, more trailing.

It's interesting to think how many units Apple will have sent back due to the issues with the launch (popping speakers, ghosting etc). Hopefully the 14" solves these issues, or perhaps a full new model? Its about time, 2016-2020, right?
 
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