I just returned my M1 Pro (screen calibration issues)

[Nordman 52]

I expected the screen to match my iPad Pro M1 but the iPad is much more contrasty. I’m a designer and photographer and I couldn’t accept such huge differences in screen color out of the box. I have to have class external screens at work and I wanted to have great accuracy considering the price we pay for these macs. My iPad M1 had wonderful colors out of the box.

* I use apple sidecar. My mac was a M1 Pro 16go / 1T.

Just beware if colors is something import to you. ill wait the next generation of MacBooks as I don’t wanna take the risk again.
Extremely disappointed…

 

[cupcakes2000]

If calibration is important to you, you should be using an external hardware calibration device surely. It’s hardly acceptable to assume all devices have the same calibration ‘out of the box’ as another completely separate device. Most mac or iPad screens are well calibrated in the factory, for each device. Expecting it to exactly match another random screen without any modifications from yourself is a little bit of an impossibility I would think.

 

[Toutou]

Good advice. For totally incompetent designers and photographers, that is.

 

[CoffeeMacBook]

I can understand if you're using an iPad as your primary sketching device, as opposed to Wacom Cintiqs with a color calibrator.

However, I would've kept the laptop and sold the iPad if color accuracy was important. The M1 2021 16" MBP have the ability to color calibrate where as I'm not sure if the iPads do? I mainly use my iPad as a reference display on sidecar, or for just listening to videos. Occasionally I will do rough sketches, which I transfer onto my MBP and finish on a color accurate monitor.

If color consistency is important, it's important to note that you have to be prepared/willing to take the time to color calibrate your setup. Especially if you're working with print, textiles, magazines, etc... Apple touts factory color calibration, but there's always going to be some discrepancy.

For iPad color calibration app, check out this Datacolor article by DP Review.

I would also check out this video by ArtRight that cover color calibration on the new MBPs (description on the video shows all the timestamps with topic markers):

It's good to note for anyone who values color consistency but doesn't want to dive into color calibration.

I've tried Wacom Calibration, XRite, and Datacolor's Spyder. I find XRite to be the best option for external monitors. I don't have my 16" MBP yet, but will be testing out how Datacolor Spyder works with the MBP.

Edit: I see some people reporting screen problems so perhaps it was a defect offshoot? I’ll take a closer look when I get my hands on the device.

 

[8CoreWhore]

Good advice. For totally incompetent designers and photographers, that is.

That's it? You call the guy incompetent, you should say why.

 

[matram]

Any photographer should know that you need a color calibrated workflow covering all your devices: camera, screens and printer.

For that you need a spectrophotometer from a company like xrite to create a profile for each device. You cannot expect different devices to be perfectly calibrated against each other ”out of the box”.