M1 MacBook Air black uniformity (red glow)

[justinf77]

I only ever noticed this red tint issue when I brought my MBA into a 100% pitch black room and cranked up the brightness to 100%.

As someone who is known to be slightly crazy about screen uniformity (I've exchanged more MBPs and iPads than I care to admit because of uneven screens), I can honestly say that this specific issue doesn't bother me one bit as I have not once noticed it in real world use.

 

[0906742]

It affected my workflow. When I had the MBA M1 for a few weeks before I returned it, the screen on it had a reddish tint in various degrees. The red tint was showing in all light conditions from dark to dim to natural light. I never used full brightness on the MBA. I used only from 60% to 70% brightness levels. The red tint display got worse last week that I returned the MBA and got a MBP.

So yours got worse.
Did you see this red glow also in lighter images always? Mine only show in full black and some above black levels up to say 10% grey. Whites and lighter greys are perfect with no red tint on the right side.

Did you take a photo of yours showing the problem? Especially interested if you have photo showing how bad it got eventually.

Any you are sure you just did not keep noticing this issue more due to paying more attention to it or was it so obviously getting worse?

 

[me22]

One, probably very obvious to most cause of a red tint can also be the wallpaper and transparency. I know its obvious but for anyone reading this it might be worth checking.

Heres a couple of pics showing it. These are taken with activity monitor at different parts of the screen.

This can also affect apps on top of other apps - see pics View attachment 1698319 View attachment 1698320 View attachment 1698321 View attachment 1698322

LOL

This is a feature. Turn it off in System Preferences > General... Allow Wallpaper Tinting in Windows.

 

[Krm.]

Upon closer inspection, I feel like the left side is a little bit brighter than the right side when looking at darker areas, like a dark gray website. Not sure if it is the warmer right side that makes it look darker.. Don’t you think the left side looks a little brighter in the black photos we have posted here?

Try this website: https://www.dpreview.com/ Then turn on dark mode in the upper right corner. Then compare the two gray columns on etiher side of the feed while having your head centered in front of the screen. My left side certainly looks brighter. But then again, when I move my head to the right, the right side looks brighter haha To make thing even more crazy. I feel like white backgrounds have the opposite effect, where the right side feels brighter haha yup, crazy stuff.

When writing on white backgrounds, I see a warm white in different places depending on how I position my head in front of the screen or where I’m looking. The coating was certainly not like this ln my previous MBP.

 

[0906742]

It affected my workflow. When I had the MBA M1 for a few weeks before I returned it, the screen on it had a reddish tint in various degrees. The red tint was showing in all light conditions from dark to dim to natural light. I never used full brightness on the MBA. I used only from 60% to 70% brightness levels. The red tint display got worse last week that I returned the MBA and got a MBP.

Could you elaborate exactly in what situations this red tint appeared and how or in what situations it got worse?
Was there tint in lighter colors too or just with black.
Just wondering if this red tint on the right is just due to faulty display or did yours suffer from some other fault?

So yours got worse.
Did you see this red glow also in lighter images always? Mine only show in full black and some above black levels up to say 10% grey. Whites and lighter greys are perfect with no red tint on the right side.

Did you take a photo of yours showing the problem? Especially interested if you have photo showing how bad it got eventually.

Any you are sure you just did not keep noticing this issue more due to paying more attention to it or was it so obviously getting worse?

 

[gregpod9]

Could you elaborate exactly in what situations this red tint appeared and how or in what situations it got worse?
Was there tint in lighter colors too or just with black.
Just wondering if this red tint on the right is just due to faulty display or did yours suffer from some other fault?

The red tint showed in all light conditions. It didn’t matter if there was lighter colors and darker colors on the screen.

If you watched The Matrix before you’ll noticed the green tint in many scenes which was filmed in that way. It’s like the same effect with the red tinted MBA screen that is on display all the time. If can go as low to a pinkish red on light colors to red hues in darker colors. Also lighting conditions played a role as well.

Within the first week that I got the MBA, the red tint was barely noticeable, but within 3 weeks of ownership, the screen got worse. I’m not sure if the MBA had a defective panel or was part of the panel lottery. I wish I took pictures of the red tinted screen before I returned it back to Apple but wasn’t sure how it would have turned out. Another reason I returned the MBA is that I really disliked the mushy and slippery feel of the keyboard.

Anyway I now have the MBP 8GB/512GB. It has a noticeable better display, better keyboard, and I don’t mind the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar could still use some more work, but it offers more functionality over the function keys.

 

[0906742]

The red tint showed in all light conditions. It didn’t matter if there was lighter colors and darker colors on the screen.

If you watched The Matrix before you’ll noticed the green tint in many scenes which was filmed in that way. It’s like the same effect with the red tinted MBA screen that is on display all the time. If can go as low to a pinkish red on light colors to red hues in darker colors. Also lighting conditions played a role as well.

Within the first week that I got the MBA, the red tint was barely noticeable, but within 3 weeks of ownership, the screen got worse. I’m not sure if the MBA had a defective panel or was part of the panel lottery. I wish I took pictures of the red tinted screen before I returned it back to Apple but wasn’t sure how it would have turned out. Another reason I returned the MBA is that I really disliked the mushy and slippery feel of the keyboard.

Anyway I now have the MBP 8GB/512GB. It has a noticeable better display, better keyboard, and I don’t mind the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar could still use some more work, but it offers more functionality over the function keys.

So yours did not only suffer from right edge reddish in black or near black test images but with every level up to white? Was the red tint still on the right edge only or did the whole picture area suffer from it?
Was there still also this red tinted right edge in black image?

But yeah, it MBP M1 screen is anything like it was in MBP 2019 it is a lot better in many ways, like contrast ratio is like 70% higher. But in bright images uniformity in my MBA definitely match my previous MBP 2019 or even exceeds.

 

[Paul1980]

The red tint showed in all light conditions. It didn’t matter if there was lighter colors and darker colors on the screen.

If you watched The Matrix before you’ll noticed the green tint in many scenes which was filmed in that way. It’s like the same effect with the red tinted MBA screen that is on display all the time. If can go as low to a pinkish red on light colors to red hues in darker colors. Also lighting conditions played a role as well.

Within the first week that I got the MBA, the red tint was barely noticeable, but within 3 weeks of ownership, the screen got worse. I’m not sure if the MBA had a defective panel or was part of the panel lottery. I wish I took pictures of the red tinted screen before I returned it back to Apple but wasn’t sure how it would have turned out. Another reason I returned the MBA is that I really disliked the mushy and slippery feel of the keyboard.

Anyway I now have the MBP 8GB/512GB. It has a noticeable better display, better keyboard, and I don’t mind the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar could still use some more work, but it offers more functionality over the function keys.

I returned my MBA yesterday because of the screen. I had a patch on the right hand side that was off white. No red that I could notice but definitely an issue with pure white. If you were on google you could just see a dirty haze on the right hand side. Apple agreed it wasn’t right and I returned it and picked up a Pro 8gb/512. I completely agree the screen and keyboard are noticeably better.

 

[0906742]

I returned my MBA yesterday because of the screen. I had a patch on the right hand side that was off white. No red that I could notice but definitely an issue with pure white. If you were on google you could just see a dirty haze on the right hand side. Apple agreed it wasn’t right and I returned it and picked up a Pro 8gb/512. I completely agree the screen and keyboard are noticeably better.

Whoa, you changed your mind quickly. What happened? I thought from your previous comments that you were very happy with the MBA screen and saw no real problems with it?

I have no idea what problem is with lighter or white image with this machine that you and one other person in this thread are talking about. It would be interesting if someone suffering from that would post photos.

Mine is as good or even better than my MBP was in light image.

But in many ways MBP screen is better due to higher contrast but there are some many other things I don't like about it. For example touchpad and keyboard are simply too loud in my opinion and keyboard feels to me exactly like butterfly with just a bit longer keytravel. I just couple days ago was in one store selling these and tried them and sure Air and MBP have different sounding and feeling keyboards but if I did know for sure, I would have said MBP M1 had butterfly keyboard. Plus speakers in MBP sound much worse IMHO (and looks like my ears were right as that was confirmed in Notebookcheck review).

By the way, Notebookcheck MBP M1 review is finally out:https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...o-gets-the-M1-performance-boost.510883.0.html
It is 96 nits brighter than MBA.

I do see some red if I do that test with the black image in a dark room but I don't ever see the red in any other circumstances. If it caused a problem in normal use then I would return it but I don't ever notice it and if I hadn't of seen this thread then I would never of seen it.

This is really getting blown out of proportion in my opinion. If I photograph my screen in pitch black at 100% brightness I can see some red in the photo. Its barely noticeable to the naked eye though and the camera just exaggerates it. I would never look at my screen in these conditions and as James_c previously said its like listening to a speaker at 100% volume and wondering why its distorted. My MBP M1 had more screen issues, Uniformity issues and backlight bleed.

read this review https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...mbles-Intel-and-AMD.508057.0.html#toc-display

"The color accuracy of the panel is excellent in our tests. The color tests as well as the grayscale are significantly better than with the Windows competitors. The display is therefore very well suited for photographers and others using applications that are dependent on color accuracy"

I don't doubt 0906742 might have a slightly worse case possibly but I don't see this as a wide spread issue and not something that should put you off trying the Air. The MBP has screen issues and as most people have already mentioned the LCD lottery isn't just Air related. Its any device that uses an LCD screen.

 

[Paul1980]

Whoa, you changed your mind quickly. What happened? I thought from your previous comments that you were very happy with the MBA screen and saw no real problems with it?

I have no idea what problem is with lighter or white image with this machine that you and one other person in this thread are talking about. It would be interesting if someone suffering from that would post photos.

Mine is as good or even better than my MBP was in light image.

But in many ways MBP screen is better due to higher contrast but there are some many other things I don't like about it. For example touchpad and keyboard are simply too loud in my opinion and keyboard feels to me exactly like butterfly with just a bit longer keytravel. I just couple days ago was in one store selling these and tried them and sure Air and MBP have different sounding and feeling keyboards but if I did know for sure, I would have said MBP M1 had butterfly keyboard. Plus speakers in MBP sound much worse IMHO (and looks like my ears were right as that was confirmed in Notebookcheck review).

By the way, Notebookcheck MBP M1 review is finally out:https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...o-gets-the-M1-performance-boost.510883.0.html
It is 96 nits brighter than MBA.

I never noticed the dull white issue until yesterday morning. I don’t believe it was there when I bought the Air but I guess it could of been and I just didn’t notice it.

Apple agreed it wasn’t how the display should be so offered a replacement but after trying the pro for a bit I just returned the Air and got the Pro. There’s a few thing I prefer on the pro, screen, keyboard and speakers and battery life is always a bonus. I know these are all subjective so I would definitely not say the pro is better, it’s just more to my liking.

Here’s a pic of the problem. The camera does change it slightly but it was noticeable on any whites.

 

[johnkree]

I just got my MacBook Air yesterday and I can't reproduce the black screen problem or the white screen. It's just awesome... I tried it in a dark room, I tried it in a normal daylight room. No issues so far.

 

[0906742]

I never noticed the dull white issue until yesterday morning. I don’t believe it was there when I bought the Air but I guess it could of been and I just didn’t notice it.

I need to check mine but last night I used it last time and tested white pages, it was fine.
I also posted photo of my MBA displaying white image on the first page of this thread (2nd post I think).

Apple agreed it wasn’t how the display should be so offered a replacement but after trying the pro for a bit I just returned the Air and got the Pro. There’s a few thing I prefer on the pro, screen, keyboard and speakers and battery life is always a bonus. I know these are all subjective so I would definitely not say the pro is better, it’s just more to my liking.

Have you checked your MBP M1 screen yet? Seems like there are already complaints about issues with screen uniformity here and some changed machines already for it and gotten the same again. This is part of the display lottery and those can suffer from all types of issues. I don't think my MBP 2019 was even as good as my MBA M1 with white image. My MBA M1 even pass that touch "tree" test image. Search forums from MBP uniformity issues, you'll see the image I mean. Pretty few displays pass that test if looking really.

You really like MBP speakers sounding better? Interesting, even Notebookcheck test scored it only 90% for speakers while MBP M1 got 95%.

Here’s a pic of the problem. The camera does change it slightly but it was noticeable on any whites.

That looks pretty bad but could be from the coating or angle. It looked like that viewing straight too?

 

[0906742]

I just got my MacBook Air yesterday and I can't reproduce the black screen problem or the white screen. It's just awesome... I tried it in a dark room, I tried it in a normal daylight room. No issues so far.

You manually put screen 100% brightness when testing black image in dark room? Because if AB was used it put screen so dim, it won't show then. Could you list our machine serial numbers first two and fifth characters (show manufacturing plant and week it was made)?

Also could you take a photo of your MBA M1 displaying black image in dark with some good camera (preferably at least iPhone X or never/equal good)?

 

[0906742]

Here’s a pic of the problem. The camera does change it slightly but it was noticeable on any whites.

This is mine in photos take today. Passes even demanding "tree" test.

 

[0906742]

This is one photo of my MBP 2019.

 

[Paul1980]

You really like MBP speakers sounding better? Interesting, even Notebookcheck test scored it only 90% for speakers while MBP M1 got 95%.

I don't think there is a huge amount in it, I think there is some slight deeper base on the Pro and the Air seems a little louder though.

Have you checked your MBP M1 screen yet? Seems like there are already complaints about issues with screen uniformity here and some changed machines already for it and gotten the same again. This is part of the display lottery and those can suffer from all types of issues. I don't think my MBP 2019 was even as good as my MBA M1 with white image. My MBA M1 even pass that touch "tree" test image. Search forums from MBP uniformity issues, you'll see the image I mean. Pretty few displays pass that test if looking really.

I have checked the Pro screen and it seems a lot better than my previous Air. The white issue isn't there and the uniformity is good so im happy.

 

[0906742]

I don't think there is a huge amount in it, I think there is some slight deeper base on the Pro and the Air seems a little louder though.

Actually I found bass in much deeper in Air.

I have checked the Pro screen and it seems a lot better than my previous Air. The white issue isn't there and the uniformity is good so im happy.

Also black image uniformity perfect?
Anyway, I found with my MBP that screen changes when it age or maybe due to heat. There was some blue spots coming noticeable in mine which I guess is also rather common and mentioned here often.

Could you post a photos of your MBP test images just for fun?
I'm still on the fence with these but probably leaning on keeping this and most reviews seem to think MBP M1 is small update.

 

[Paul1980]

ould you post a photos of your MBP test images just for fun?
I'm still on the fence with these but probably leaning on keeping this and most reviews seem to think MBP M1 is small update

Heres black, grey and white. grey and white kind of look similar on camera though.

 

[0906742]

Not bad but looks like pretty noticeable hot spot in the middle. Also darker edges greenish edges and pinkish middle in brighter photos. Very usual with LCDs. Anyway, I think issue with MBA might have something to do with the coating. I remember seeing first MBA demos and they looked like there was something wrong with the edges displaying white image. There was like bluish bar on the edge. I think something like that can be seen when testing under different type of bright lights.

Could you try that "tree" test with your MBP? That is very revealing if there are issues with white uniformity you might not have noticed yet. I've learned (the hard way) it often take a while until start seeing issues with new screens (just learned my lesson with iPhone 12 Pro I thought looked decent at first).
I think that picture or link to it was here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/uneven-tint-uniformity-on-1500-2016-mbp.2020764/

BTW, about how many hours you used your MBA until noticed issue or it started happening (if it was not there already? If you can remember how many charge cycles your battery had in the end would give pretty good ballpark about usage hours.

 

[Paul1980]

Not bad but looks like pretty noticeable hot spot in the middle. Also darker edges greenish edges and pinkish middle in brighter photos. Very usual with LCDs. Anyway, I think issue with MBA might have something to do with the coating. I remember seeing first MBA demos and they looked like there was something wrong with the edges displaying white image. There was like bluish bar on the edge. I think something like that can be seen when testing under different type of bright lights.

Could you try that "tree" test with your MBP? That is very revealing if there are issues with white uniformity you might not have noticed yet. I've learned (the hard way) it often take a while until start seeing issues with new screens (just learned my lesson with iPhone 12 Pro I thought looked decent at first).
I think that picture or link to it was here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/uneven-tint-uniformity-on-1500-2016-mbp.2020764/

BTW, about how many hours you used your MBA until noticed issue or it started happening (if it was not there already? If you can remember how many charge cycles your battery had in the end would give pretty good ballpark about usage hours.

The screen when showing the black at 100% looks nothing like the photo really. With the naked eye it looks a lot better, as with the other pictures, the camera exaggerates any issues.

I can’t find that tree test on that thread.

 

[jdb8167]

The screen when showing the black at 100% looks nothing like the photo really. With the naked eye it looks a lot better, as with the other pictures, the camera exaggerates any issues.

I can’t find that tree test on that thread.

The file for the tree test:

 

[bsmr]

You really like MBP speakers sounding better? Interesting, even Notebookcheck test scored it only 90% for speakers while MBP M1 got 95%.

Also tested both - for me the MBP M1 is much better than MBA M1 speakers!

 

[bsmr]

The file for the tree test: View attachment 1699601

Thx.

I can see a difference. The trees on the right side of my MBA M1 are going into warmer saturation as on the left - they're looking more 'blueish'.

 

[Paul1980]

Thx.

I can see a difference. The trees on the right side of my MBA M1 are going into warmer saturation as on the left - they're looking more 'blueish'.

So is that classed as just normal with these screens? Does it bother you at all?

 

[bsmr]

So is that classed as just normal with these screens? Does it bother you at all?

I realized that something is wrong when I got it - then I tested it and found out that the display has the red glow at the right side (and more green at the left).

While surfing etc. no - it does bother at all. But while working with photos/illustrations and while watching movies I do see it.