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How good is the M1 MacBook Pro screen really?
- Thread starter R_Allonce
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To clarify, are you talking about the 13" M1 MacBook Pro screen, or the 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro screen?
The M1 Pro MacBook Pro screens have very good contrast because of the mini-LED backlighting. They support 120 Hz refresh but have pretty bad response times so you might see ghosting on the screen with fast motion.
Edit: There are 11 pages discussing the response times here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...w-120-hz-are-fake-old-lcd-technology.2321091/
You see that makes sense, at first I thought it was OLED because black is so dark and colors really pop. And what is ghosting, if I may ask?
It is probably only noticeable if you are playing a high speed game. Not something very common on MacBooks.
It’s also pretty obvious with small-ish white icons or text on black backgrounds, though i guess that’s more the blooming issue of these screens
There are very few computer screens on the market that offer similar combination of color accuracy, contrast, refresh rate, definitely not at that power consumption. The response time is pretty bad, that's true, but accurate displays usually have bad response time (this is what you pay for an increase in image quality), and it's pretty much unnoticeable in everyday work unless you really need extremely smooth window move animations.
Yes, pretty much this. All displays come with compromises, Apple chose what's best for a general-purpose productivity computer. In that regard I am yet to see a laptop screen I'd consider as good as that of the 16" mini-LED.
I had the same thought, I upgraded from a 3-year old 16" MBP. I would love to see a new 27" iMac. I am sure the 27 Apple display is excellent but $$$ adds up very quickly when you consider a Mac Studio to go with it.
When you say "good", it would help if you referred to good for what exactly. What a photographer and a gamer might find appropriate are two different things.
Objectively, the screen is excellent. It features mini-LED backlighting for 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a peak brightness up to 1,600 nits in the HDR mode. It also has a resolution of 3456 x 2234 (which is 'retina' quality, as Apple likes to say). There's also 120hz refresh rate (Pro Motion).
Furthermore, DCI-P3 is at 99% accuracy. It also has over 90% Adobe RGB, but keep in mind that this can alter from panel to panel, and that Apple doesn't market or push for this since there are panels out there with even higher A-RGB values.
So what does this all mean? On paper it's one of the most well-rounded laptop screens you can get. It has enough accuracy for the overwhelming majority of content creators and a refresh rate to suit video editors well. 'Blooming' isn't an issue provided you use the brightness sensibly.
A full technical analysis can be found here:
www.techspot.com
Objectively, the screen is excellent. It features mini-LED backlighting for 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a peak brightness up to 1,600 nits in the HDR mode. It also has a resolution of 3456 x 2234 (which is 'retina' quality, as Apple likes to say). There's also 120hz refresh rate (Pro Motion).
Furthermore, DCI-P3 is at 99% accuracy. It also has over 90% Adobe RGB, but keep in mind that this can alter from panel to panel, and that Apple doesn't market or push for this since there are panels out there with even higher A-RGB values.
So what does this all mean? On paper it's one of the most well-rounded laptop screens you can get. It has enough accuracy for the overwhelming majority of content creators and a refresh rate to suit video editors well. 'Blooming' isn't an issue provided you use the brightness sensibly.
A full technical analysis can be found here:
Apple MacBook Pro's Liquid Retina XDR Display Review
After looking at the performance of Apple's M1 Pro SoC powering the new MacBook Pro 16, there's another unique component in this laptop that's worth looking into,...
www.techspot.com
No, the old one was Retina. This one is a 3.5K display. Amazing for a laptop. 😍
Retina in branding terms simply means the screen size relative to the viewing distance offers a great enough PPI that individual pixels can’t be discerned; so it is Retina but Apple picks and chooses when to use this phrase.
This myth stems from Steve Jobs making a fuss at the iPhone 4 keynote. Retina means a screen running in HiDPI mode with @2× pixel doubling. Apple can't sell you a typical viewing distance or a perfect eye sight. Technologically Retina always means pixel doubling compared to whatever resolution they sold before. Super Retina always means @3× pixel tripling and Non-Retina is the old @1× resolution. The name tells you exactly wether a small system icon is drawn with 16, 32 or 48 pixels.
This a great thread! Would you please explain the following quotation? Does it mean that less brightness tends to suppress blooming? Thanks!
That “myth” is why Apple chooses the PPIs that it uses for different screens.
the iPhone 14 screen is 460ppi
The 14” MBP screen is 264 ppi.
The 24” iMac screen is 218 ppi.
The intent is to give a screen where pixels cannot be discerned by the someone with good eyesight at a typical distance. Phones are assumed to be help close to the eye and laptops are kept at arms distance and the iMac is assumed to be further away. Obviously these distances are approximations and not everyone’s eyes are the same, but they do broadly apply to how people use their devices.
Apple does keep visual elements on the screen from being two small by using doubled scaling for dimensions but the pixels are not doubled in size.
Yes, but keep in mind that almost all professionals who work in a colour grading environment have a strictly controlled lighting setup, which would mitigate any possibility of blooming anyway.
The issue with blooming is that many people are forcing it to happen through unrealistic scenarios, such as having the brightness turned right up in a completely dark room.
No it's not. They choose screens with exactly twice as many pixels horizontally and vertically, so that when they draw the whole UI @2× everything stays the same size. The slightly higher PPI of the new 14" and 16" MacBook Pro displays means the UI now shrinks a little at standard resolution. Luckily Apple's five pre-selected scaled resolutions don't look too shabby either. But ideally you would want to avoid scaling and always run a display at its native resolution for best results. So it's kind of important that text and icons don't become too bit or too small when drawn @2× with twice as many pixels.
No, the 14/16" displays return back to the standard @2x resolution, the 2016-2019 13/15" (and the current M1/M2 MBA and 13" MBP) use(d) what would amount to ~1.73:1 which meant text and UI elements are not as sharp and slightly less performant (not noticeable in real world use however) due to not easily divisible scaling
It is beautiful
I would say pretty well, it all depends on how you use it. There are monitors that offer faster or more controllable refresh rates, or that have better response rates. Pixel densities, and and resolutions are factors. Basically, in my mind there's so many variables regarding displays that if you're happy with the MBP's display then be content and not worry about what else might out there.
I personally don't notice refresh rates, I can set my Razer's refresh rate to beyond 60hz, but I don't really notice a change, either playing games, or just working. Likewise the 14" MBP uses promotion and it can change the refresh rate, truth be told, I don't see any difference. YMMV
Okay, I read about that. They draw the whole UI @2× and then scale down every frame to the actually available resolution. And they still called that "Retina"? So maybe the word indeed means nothing. 😂