I agree. Gaming laptops with their 144Hz display is more noticeable and scrolling is smoother than on the MBP. I can only assume it's how Apple is handling the adaptive refresh rate, as it's not running at full 120hz most of the time. There's a difference over 60hz, but very slight. It should be smoother IMO.
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Is ProMotion actually meaningful in everyday use?
- Thread starter woolypants
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Yes I noticed rhe text smear too, thought it was just me! Big letdown as i wanted it for reading primarily.
I think it is significantly worse than on my ipad pro. Im not sure what the cause of this sissue is on the mbp 14.
“Eerily smooth” is a very good phrase, that really describes it with expose and window resizing etc. That aspect of it is cool
It's down to a poor pixel response time. This now infamous YouTube video explains more:
That said, it's a shame there is a poor pixel response time. I don't understand this technology hugely but the reviewer in that video suggests it could be fixed by Apple overdriving the screen—and I suspect that would impact battery life and possibly heat (which is already an issue with these displays, because they're known to shutdown if on full brightness in a warm environment).
When I eventually get the 16in I'll take a few videos with the 240FPS camera on the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and compare it to my current mid-2015 15in MacBook Pro. I expect them to be essentially indistinguishable when it comes to scrolling in webpages in Safari, with perhaps a marginal improvement with the 16in.
Overdriving the pixels just means pushing more voltage to them. This can improve pixel response times but can also introduce overshoot (color/luminosity of a pixel goes beyond the intended value before settling down to the correct value) which can be visible as negative ghosting - bright trails instead of dark trails. It should not have any significant effect on power use or how hot it gets.
Most desktop displays offer a number of overdrive settings where there is usually a sweet spot that performs best for the particular panel - achieving both good response times and no or negligible overshoot.
Most TVs instead offer multiple modes where some favor image processing over response time and input lag while others like game modes favor low input lag and response time but disable some processing features to speed things up.
It would be good for Apple to offer something like this too. For example they could have a "content creator mode" that favors image accuracy above all and then a "normal" mode that is snappier for regular desktop use, watching videos etc. Or even separate modes for graphics designers (favor color accuracy for static images) and video editors (favor motion performance).
I have no idea how Apple can consider it acceptable to have such absolutely terrible response times on their laptop displays. For perspective, the 5K Apple Studio Display is much faster and even that is slightly slower than is required for 60 Hz, causing extra motion blur. Apple's Pro Motion Macbook Pros cannot keep up in pixel response times for 60 Hz let alone 120 Hz.
Either the issue is that Apple did not bother dealing with pixel response time at all or their mini-LED backlight is abysmally slow too so the pixel response time is tuned to work with that. I really hope they perform better for the M2 Macbook Pros as this to me would be an easy area where they could improve the performance.
Using adaptive sync for variable refresh rate is at most a battery saving feature on Macbook Pros as the display can drop to very low refresh rate when the image is static and then immediately ramp back up to 60-120 Hz in motion.
Absolutely useful!
I use a Magic Mouse on my MBP16 and my impression is that when I use the internal display with ProMotion, the cursor is waaaay smoother than when I my external display (Studio Display).
It's not like the mouse is jerky on the external display but when you see the difference you can barely go back.
Can't wait for Studio Display with ProMotion.
I use a Magic Mouse on my MBP16 and my impression is that when I use the internal display with ProMotion, the cursor is waaaay smoother than when I my external display (Studio Display).
It's not like the mouse is jerky on the external display but when you see the difference you can barely go back.
Can't wait for Studio Display with ProMotion.
As others have pointed out, the pixels on this screen are actually too slow to keep up with 120hz.
As a test I’ve set my 16-inch to 60hz today and there’s virtually no (perceived) difference in smoothness. It does however feel smoother then my 15-inch from 2017 which also has a 60hz display, so the smoothness has more to do with the GPU then with Pro Motion.
I think Promotion is more of a means to save battery power with the added benefit of being able to boost up to 120hz.
As a test I’ve set my 16-inch to 60hz today and there’s virtually no (perceived) difference in smoothness. It does however feel smoother then my 15-inch from 2017 which also has a 60hz display, so the smoothness has more to do with the GPU then with Pro Motion.
I think Promotion is more of a means to save battery power with the added benefit of being able to boost up to 120hz.
Thanks for your reply. In describing what overdrive is, I think you answered your own question here.
The desktop displays are better because they have essentially unlimited power, and better cooling potential because they don't have to be crammed into a thin lid.
And like I said, creators don't need fast response times. Apple doesn't target gamers. Apple surgically targeted the video/photo editors and 3D modellers with the MBP 14 and 16in range. And by all measures succeeded with things like the media encoding engines in the Pro/Max range. Nobody right now in mainstream media is creating videos higher than 8K at 60FPS. And even that is rare. More likely people will be working at 4K at 30FPS, or 1080P. For that, the screen refresh is fine.
I think they could still do better. Apple Macbook Pros seem to have anything from 50-100ms response times and that's a huge amount when the Studio Display is around 20ms and many 4K displays are well under 10ms.
60 Hz pixel response time should be under ~16.7ms for no added motion blur. 120 Hz pixel response times should be under ~8.3ms. So Apple's laptop displays are several magnitudes away from that.
Targeting content creators is a poor excuse considering motion performance would matter for video editors and 3D animators.
Isn't that counter-productive? As I heard, low power mode just caps the maximum frame rate at 60 fps. But if the machine can achieve 10 Hz for a second instead of 60 Hz, these savings should way outweigh the resources needed to switch to said Hz.
You could be right. I've read conflicting statements about exactly what is disabled by the low power mode and part of it is probably how people define ProMotion. Unfortunately, very little information about how low power mode works comes directly from Apple, so a lot of times it's just hearsay.
Here in the UK a few decades ago there were some TV adverts for small vans. It showed several vans from different competitors, all lined up. It then showed them all being filled with one tonne loads. The soundtrack then said, "All these vans could take one tonnes. But only one can drive away."
And they showed this, and it was obviously the van they were advertising.
I feel this message applies a lot to nearly all discussions about the M1 Pro/Max 16in MBPs.
People say things like, "My PC gaming laptop has a high refresh rate screen and is perfect!" or nowadays, "Intel and AMD both have high-end chips that outperform the M1 Max!"
True. But none of these can be be driven away, which is to say, they will literally struggle to last even an hour under difficult workloads on battery. The MBP, though? It will last 4-5 hours. Possibly even your whole working day, depending on the workload.
This message is increasingly becoming lost.
And they showed this, and it was obviously the van they were advertising.
I feel this message applies a lot to nearly all discussions about the M1 Pro/Max 16in MBPs.
People say things like, "My PC gaming laptop has a high refresh rate screen and is perfect!" or nowadays, "Intel and AMD both have high-end chips that outperform the M1 Max!"
True. But none of these can be be driven away, which is to say, they will literally struggle to last even an hour under difficult workloads on battery. The MBP, though? It will last 4-5 hours. Possibly even your whole working day, depending on the workload.
This message is increasingly becoming lost.
I knew this would be the case once the M2 MacBook Air was launched. Design change or not, price increase or not, it is absolutely crazy that a computer this thin and light is as powerful as it is, especially for the price. The result? It upsets people, because it remains a disruptive product. The MacBook Air has been a disruption since the first generation, and every time it gets a major update, it's a big deal. This always bothers the Windows people. And Apple Silicon REALLY bothers Windows people.
Expect people to try to fluff over AS Macs for the next several years. They did it with the iPhone and iPad, the Apple Watch, the iPod, and everything else Apple has ever made. It will be a while before people give in and admit that Apple has changed the game yet again.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I am curious as I just bought my first device with a ProMotion display (iPad Pro). You mentioned the high refresh rate being better for eye strain. What about the fact that ProMotion slows down well below 60Hz (as low as 24Hz) depending on what is happening on the screen. Do you feel there is more eye strain in that scenario on one of these ProMotion displays, is it better to have one that is locked at 60Hz than a variable refresh rate display that goes anywhere between 24Hz and 120Hz depending on what type of motion is on the screen- specifically in regards to eye strain?
your right the brain can only see around 30 frames a second, but if you run something at 30 fps and it has issues, you notice it immediately.
I cant link the video because work blocks gaming sites but if you look up mynintendonews, the have an article called "Super Mario RPG near perfect" and they talk about how the game is 60 fps, but during slowdowns it can dip to 30 and you can dramatically see the shuttle this causes.
mostly 120hz is to provide a fluid like experience when switch between applications or scrolling, if you think of your screen like a picture book, at 120hz you have 120 images per second appear on screen, at 60 its only 60 images per second...
Between my iphone 13 mini and 14 Pro, i dont notice anything but my Macbook Pro 13 vs Ipad pro, I notice it alot..
I think it's really a luxury feature, more than a functional one. It's one of those things where if you never used it you probably wouldn't even notice it. But once you have it, you really want it on everything
It's a bold claim that high refresh rates reduce eye strain and it's not within Apple's marketing. I would suggest this is only the case if the individual is extremely sensitive to motion on screens. The individual would also be young, because our brains lose this supernatural ability pretty quickly as we get older (although saying that, I can instantly tell the difference between 30 and 60FPS video playback, and I'm 50 years old!).
People who fall into this camp would probably get eye problems from many other sources, such as movie screens, for example. So, they would certainly be aware that they have unusual visual acuity.
As for ProMotion slowing down to low hertz rates to save battery, this happens when the screen is essentially static. So, you literally don't notice it. If anything happens on-screen at 24Hz then, within 1/24th of a second, the screen refresh rate is ramped back up to a higher rate.
ProMotion is nice but on Apple hardware it's poorly implemented because Apple underdrives the screens, probably to save battery life. This causes blurring. So, things look buttery smooth — but once things start moving then it's a blurry mess. This includes scrolling and dragging around windows, for example. This makes ProMotion little more than a marketing gimmick, although the screens are otherwise considered excellent in terms of colour reproduction and HDR. You can google this issue to find several YouTube videos that explain more.
High motion looks smoother at high refresh rates. Slow motion and movie for example are fine at lower refresh rates. But even moving my mouse and scrolling in the browser I can see the individual frames at 60fps so it just irritates my eyes.
So you are saying that ProMotion where it ramps up to 120Hz when there is motion on the screen is indeed easier on your eyes than another screen that is only 60Hz?
Thanks for clarifying! I am just trying to get a grasp of the benefits here, as when I did a side by side quick test in the store, I was not able to really see any difference between the 60Hz screen on the M1 Air and the 120Hz on the Pro M2, no matter how fast I scrolled through web pages or Reddit pages- but figured there had to be other benefits such as being slightly less eye-irritating.
For me yes. Your mileage may vary and my eye doctor said it does generally help especially with long working days. I am quite sensitive to 60Hz with general computing.
I can tell by just moving my mouse cursor between 60 and 120.
That's fascinating- thanks for sharing! Interesting that your eye doctor even commented on that!
What about the fact that ProMotion is not fixed at 120 Hz, so you often have refresh rates that are below 60Hz depending on what is on the screen. Seemingly no concerns with that, I assume?
Keep in mind that we all have somewhat different perceptive abilities, what would go unnoticed for you could be very different to someone else.