Brightness levels on Mini-LED MacBooks

[cigz]

A month ago I upgraded from base 2016 MacBook Pro to M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14" and the first thing I noticed is that the brightness levels are not "spread" through the whole "bar" but it's mostly in the first half of the bar.
What I mean is that every change of the brightness in the range of 0-50% is noticeable but going from 50-100% there's almost no difference at all.

It's quite annoying because there are times the screen is either too dim or too bright. On my old MacBook the brightness levels are spread nicely, you can see the difference in every step from 0 to 100%, not just in the first half.

Do you have the same problem? Is it happening with every Mini-LED MacBook, even the ones with M1 and M2 chips?

 

[Beau10]

Seems pretty even on my 16" M3 Max... pretty substantial difference between 50-75% and then 75%-100%, and those differences feel in equal measure to say 25-50% - each 1/4 is perceptually about twice as bright as the previous. 100% is WAY brighter than 50%. I've had M1 Pro 14" and 16" and didn't notice any issue with those either.

This might be a perception due to environment issue. In bright environments you may not perceive the changes nearly as much, but the lower end changes may become far more apparent. Try this test out where 50% seems about comfortable (fairly low light place) and shooting to higher brightness levels induce some eyestrain.

Unsure why there would be a difference compared to your previous MBP, it could be a case that they did adjust the scaling in the past, possibly to save battery. Because of localized dimming it's a bit more efficient.

 

[1096bimu]

I just got an M3 Pro, and yes I think your observation is correct, there's a clear division at exactly 50% where the steps are much smaller over 50% and much bigger under 50%.

I wouldn't call it an "issue" and it doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Moreplease]

I don’t have such a machine so can’t comment on the behaviour.

But if you find a full increment of adjustment too much in the lower range, hold Option–Shift while adjusting the brightness for finer adjustment.

Also works to finely adjust the audio volume.

 

[mikethebigo]

There is one step between like 40-45% where it seems like there's such a big jump in brightness with just one tick. Then yeah, in the second half, it's much less noticeable.