Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Eye strain - Returned my 2019 16" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter pragmaLT
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is there any update on this?
I also submitted today... I hope it will bring some change!
It is believed to be due to temporal dithering enabled by default on MacOS with no user controllable method to disable it. Some users have reported booting into safe mode gets rid of symptoms, so maybe try that first to see if that is comfortable (you won't be able to do any serious work on it though). However it does seen to lean towards the driver/rendering as the issue.
On the LED Strain forum, lots of members there are going through similar symptoms with other devices too, not just Apple. I had to sell a brand new £2000 iMac I purchased due to the eye strain/headaches, so this isn't a trivial matter. Apple needs to provide options to disable dithering and potentially uncomfortable rendering for this growing proportion of it's users.
Spent two weeks with MBP 16'' learning the forums and doing all these experiments with Safe mode / graphics tools / eye drops. Tried gfxCardStatus / Gamma Control / SwitchResX etc., turned off all these modern marketing features like TrueTone, Night Shift which promise more comfort for eyes but make the things even worse for me. Love MBP 2014 and MBP 2017 screens. Quoting a similar thread on the same issue.
Returned.
Did you try connecting the MBP to an external display? For anybody else reading this thread with these issues, connect your Mac to a known comfortable external display and see if it makes any difference. If it does, then you're lucky. If it doesn't, then it isn't the display panel at fault in your case, and is the output of the Mac itself to blame.
A year ago I tried to buy a Retina iMac. Had to return them because I couldn't use it for 15 minutes without feeling nauseous and heachachey. My eyes just didn't like it for some reason. I bought several in different variations and had to return them all. I can even feel it in the Apple store if I use one for a few mins. Notably, this effect did not occur with iPad Pros. I didn't feel it as immediately with MacBooks either, but admittedly did not test them for very long. I had to end up buying a Mac Mini with a non-Retina Dell monitor. Works great but I would SO rather have an elegant all-in-one setup. I'm hoping that with the next release of imac, something will change.
A new update: my friend got a new NON-retina iMac. And I have the same exact eye strain / headache / nausea problem with it that I do with the Retina iMac. And I don't have any issues with a retina iPhone or iPad. Point being, I don't think the high resolution is the issue; it's something else about the display. It must either be something with the backlight they're using in certain models, OR it has to do with the glass covering the display creating difficulty focusing because there are two different planes (the glass and then the screen set a bit behind the glass).
*** Adding in the first part of this change I forgot with my original post***
I did a PRAM reset before any of the below changes: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063
I just wanted to share this change I’ve made yesterday and it seems to have improved using my external monitor greatly. In the past I’ve struggled with eye strain after using my MBP 16” with an external screen within a few minutes.
Getting straight to the point here is what I’ve change to improve my eyestrain:
After changing this setting I found it’s helps greatly and it seems a lot easier to focus on the screen.
I’ve also made the following changes in System Preferences > Displays on my Acer 4k USB C monitor
1. Changes the resolution to Scaled and set it to 2560 x 1440.
2. Disabled High Dynamic Range (only an option if your screen supports HDR).
3. Under Colour I’ve downloaded and installed the HD 709-A colour profile as mentioned earlier in this forum.
4. Under Night Shift Turned everything Off.
Hoping this has fixed it but I won’t hold my breath as I’ve only used this for a few hours but this has been the longest I’ve been able to use this so far and will report back if this continues to help.
I did a PRAM reset before any of the below changes: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063
I just wanted to share this change I’ve made yesterday and it seems to have improved using my external monitor greatly. In the past I’ve struggled with eye strain after using my MBP 16” with an external screen within a few minutes.
Getting straight to the point here is what I’ve change to improve my eyestrain:
- I’ve disabled the Automatic graphics switching on the power adapter.
After changing this setting I found it’s helps greatly and it seems a lot easier to focus on the screen.
I’ve also made the following changes in System Preferences > Displays on my Acer 4k USB C monitor
1. Changes the resolution to Scaled and set it to 2560 x 1440.
2. Disabled High Dynamic Range (only an option if your screen supports HDR).
3. Under Colour I’ve downloaded and installed the HD 709-A colour profile as mentioned earlier in this forum.
4. Under Night Shift Turned everything Off.
Hoping this has fixed it but I won’t hold my breath as I’ve only used this for a few hours but this has been the longest I’ve been able to use this so far and will report back if this continues to help.
Last edited:
Oh ok, maybe it was just a placebo effect! I did forget to mention that I Also did a PRAM reset before: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063
I did manage to use my 16” MBP for around 6 hours with very light eye strain at the end of the day! Will do a longer test next week.
I get severe motion sickness on some FPS games, like Alien Isolation. Game was unplayable for me, no matter what fixes I tried. Just ordered a 16inch MBP this morning and now I've seen two threads with big issues on it! Getting worried about it now. Are you guys who're experiencing issues also prone to motion sickness?
I've always had eye strain on Apple screens for over 10 years now I guess. Using things like f.lux helps and the iPhone's new settings like night shift are always on for me, no matter what time of day. Brightness turned down always. That helps.
For me it seems to be the blue light + long periods staring at the screen just blow me up. Once it gets past a certain point, like an elastic band, then I'm wrecked for months, and only days away from the screen has start the recovery process. Not easy to do though when you work from a screen over 10 hours a day. Then spend the night in bed chatting on apps like a saddo!
I've always had eye strain on Apple screens for over 10 years now I guess. Using things like f.lux helps and the iPhone's new settings like night shift are always on for me, no matter what time of day. Brightness turned down always. That helps.
For me it seems to be the blue light + long periods staring at the screen just blow me up. Once it gets past a certain point, like an elastic band, then I'm wrecked for months, and only days away from the screen has start the recovery process. Not easy to do though when you work from a screen over 10 hours a day. Then spend the night in bed chatting on apps like a saddo!
Jacobi wrote:
"A new update: my friend got a new NON-retina iMac. And I have the same exact eye strain / headache / nausea problem with it that I do with the Retina iMac. And I don't have any issues with a retina iPhone or iPad. Point being, I don't think the high resolution is the issue; it's something else about the display."
Maybe you ought to be looking for a Mac Mini to be used in combination with a 3rd-party display...
"A new update: my friend got a new NON-retina iMac. And I have the same exact eye strain / headache / nausea problem with it that I do with the Retina iMac. And I don't have any issues with a retina iPhone or iPad. Point being, I don't think the high resolution is the issue; it's something else about the display."
Maybe you ought to be looking for a Mac Mini to be used in combination with a 3rd-party display...
Haven't noticed anyone mention that. The complaints include content with nothing moving.
YES! With an Asus 27" MX27UC Display (works great for me, anyway).
I've had the eye strain/nausea issues for years with certain devices. I got a 2019 MacMini with an Asus 27" MX27UC Display (ASUS makes all sorts of claims about low eye strain). I love it and can work on it for hours on it each day. I had tried a couple of other 4K displays with the MacMini and I returned them--none could compete with this ASUS monitor for eye comfort. I'd never tried an ASUS monitor before this. https://www.asus.com/us/Monitors/MX27UC/.
I am using the latest version of Catalina 10.15.4 and I am using "Default for display" settings.
Ipads in general, and the iPad Pro in particular, have fast screen refresh rates. iPad Pro is 120 Hz. iPhone X as 60Hz refresh rate, but the touch rate is 120 Hz, so it responds much quick and smoother to touches. iPad pro does 120 Hz on touch and 240 Hz on pencil so operations are very smooth.
I so wish. But you can't outsource it when you are the author!Just outsource it and put your feet up
Update.
Did another order for MBP16. Interestingly, all the mentioned issues has gone with the new unit. No more eye strain. No haze effect (slightly yellowish) anymore. No flickering effect like before. No issues with focusing on text - letters look sharp again, no feeling that I'm wearing too strong glasses. On the first model I had to switch the TrueTone off and now the TrueTone brings more comfort, so I prefer the TrueTone enabled all the time. The white point is good. No need for all these gfxCardStatus/GammaControl/SwitchResX tools.
It's just first impression and need to test more days. Overall I'm glad I did a replacement not leaving my home. Thanks to Apple for this ability.
There were other comments in the thread who kept returning the unit until got a good one.
Not sure if they changed something with 10.15.4, got my original 16” MBP out and been using it all week with little eye strain. Have made some of the other tweaks and using third party tools mentioned but I’m going to start removing them next week and see if it makes it worse again.
There were two 10.15.4 updates. I tried them both on my original MBP16. Updating to the first 10.15.4 version (from 24 March) from 10.15.3 correlated with the time when I discovered my eyes are getting strain. I tried to revert back to 10.15.3 in order to check if the update was the reason (drivers) but failed. It might be with the 10.15.3 I just didn't pay much attention to text during my first 2 days of using MBP16. Then there was another supplemental 10.15.4 update (from April 8) that I tried too. It didn't remove the flickering/haze effect.
Last edited: