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chronos1919

macrumors member
Oct 26, 2016
43
65
Extended use of 13” and 11” are certainly contributing to dry eye. Not as bad as the mini-LED 12.9” did though. Still waiting for PWM #s for the M4 Pros and M2 Airs from a site like Notebookcheck. Planning to return my 11” today and order either a 13” Pro or 13” Air. The latter if it’s proven that PWM isn’t an issue. The former if they both have PWM. I’ll just have to limit use.

Edit: Notebookcheck just reviewed the 11" iPad Air and found no PWM. I'm assuming (hoping) that the 13" uses the same tech and also has no PWM. Just ordered one in Starlight. Shame they had no silver option to match the rest of my Mac stuff.

 
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QuattroRS6

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2020
33
31
Germany
With the Air from 4th gen to 6th gen. PWM is not the Topic, the Topic will be Temporal Dithering which leads to Eye Strain, Nausea and Dizziness in some People, so i hope, that you will have fun with the new iPad Air.

Now where i send back the IPP M4 i miss it totally...
 

Maven1975

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 24, 2008
1,014
275
Extended use of 13” and 11” are certainly contributing to dry eye. Not as bad as the mini-LED 12.9” did though. Still waiting for PWM #s for the M4 Pros and M2 Airs from a site like Notebookcheck. Planning to return my 11” today and order either a 13” Pro or 13” Air. The latter if it’s proven that PWM isn’t an issue. The former if they both have PWM. I’ll just have to limit use.

Edit: Notebookcheck just reviewed the 11" iPad Air and found no PWM. I'm assuming (hoping) that the 13" uses the same tech and also has no PWM. Just ordered one in Starlight. Shame they had no silver option to match the rest of my Mac stuff.

Hopefully the readings are accurate.
 
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chronos1919

macrumors member
Oct 26, 2016
43
65
A really shame but to be expected. Can't say I'm enthusiastic about the trend of all panels moving to OLED. I do think they look incredible but unfortunately they exacerbate my dry eye. English version of the M2 Air review was uploaded. Doesn't appear that temporal dithering was tested.

I'll just have to try it out for myself. Two weeks to return it if it fries my eyes. 😅
 
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QuattroRS6

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2020
33
31
Germany
The Notebook Check Statetment of 240 Hz PWM suprises me, i read often in the last Days on russian and chinese Websites that it should be 480 Hz. So i ask myself, if the reason could be the different Panels, because i read in the Web that in the first Time Samsung and LG produced Panels for the 11 inch.

Some Weeks ago i buyed here in Germany a Samsung GalaxyTab S9 with OLED for 529 EUR, it had also 240 Hz PWM and the Eye Strain started faster then on the iPad Pro, but i had zero Feeling of dizziness, i only felt that my Eyes get tired.

In my Opinion the M2 Air has Temporal Dithering, a Friend of me buyed the new IPA with M2 and he told me about a strange Feeling and mild dizziness after looking at the iPad for 30 Minutes and he could not explain it, because on his old iPad he has no Problems. So i visited him last Week at Work, where i showed him under a digital laboratory microscope that the Pixels are flickering or pulsing.
 
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Zest28

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2022
2,581
3,931
Certainly worth an attempt. The 12.9 LED bothers my eyes quite a bit. I hope this is better than that. No real information on it yet, that I’ve seen. One Chinese video that seemed to say the frequency was in the 400-500 range but then the Tech Chap video saying it was higher than the 12.9 LED, which is 6401. Those obviously conflict. Waiting for something more concrete. Haven’t seen a review from Notebookcheck and they usually cover PWM.

According to Google Translate, it is only 240hz. This is terrible if true.

I guess this was necessary in order to have a big improvement in battery life.
 
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Clincero

macrumors newbie
Jun 11, 2011
18
3
The Notebook Check Statetment of 240 Hz PWM suprises me, i read often in the last Days on russian and chinese Websites that it should be 480 Hz.
Despite what they write, it is 480 Hz, and Notebookcheck's own graphs confirm that. That first graph is zoomed in 40x, probably near minimum brightness. I think the graph at 50% is more concerning, as it shows significant modulation.

RigolDS3.jpg
 

QuattroRS6

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2020
33
31
Germany
Ahh you are right, shame on me, german is my native Language and i didnt read carefully. Behind the 239 HZ there is a Note, that this is the Worst Case.

And this is what i feel, everything i would say above 30 or 40% Brightness is okay, no Problems, but at 10 or 20% its terrible for me.
 

Clincero

macrumors newbie
Jun 11, 2011
18
3
Sorry for the confusion, I just wanted to confirm what you wrote - everybody (including notebookcheck's measurements) seem to agree it is 480 Hz, I don't know why they put 239 Hz in the text box.
 

rpmccool

macrumors newbie
Mar 26, 2012
4
1
Regardless of the actual number, I also experienced eye strain with the 11" m4 iPad Pro. It is really a shame because it is a great piece of hardware. My 14 days expired yesterday, so I returned it to the Apple store and grabbed the new iPad Air, which is not causing eye strain problems.

Let's hope they get this fixed for the next version.

Anecdotally, I asked the Apple salesperson if he had any other people returning it because of eye strain. The response was negative. Perhaps I am in a small minority here.
 

Zest28

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2022
2,581
3,931
Regardless of the actual number, I also experienced eye strain with the 11" m4 iPad Pro. It is really a shame because it is a great piece of hardware. My 14 days expired yesterday, so I returned it to the Apple store and grabbed the new iPad Air, which is not causing eye strain problems.

Let's hope they get this fixed for the next version.

Anecdotally, I asked the Apple salesperson if he had any other people returning it because of eye strain. The response was negative. Perhaps I am in a small minority here.

It was fixed with the M1 12.9 iPad Pro as the PWM was estimated to be around 6000hz to 19.000hz.

Maybe Apple should have just fixed the local dimming zones so the mini-LED panel in the iPad has no more blooming.
 
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QuattroRS6

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2020
33
31
Germany
Sorry for the confusion, I just wanted to confirm what you wrote - everybody (including notebookcheck's measurements) seem to agree it is 480 Hz, I don't know why they put 239 Hz in the text box.

I understand this and i explained why they put 239 Hz in the Box, its written in german behind the Box. It is because in the Worst Case it flickers with 239 Hz. The box shows the lowest value that the measurement resulted in.


Anecdotally, I asked the Apple salesperson if he had any other people returning it because of eye strain. The response was negative. Perhaps I am in a small minority here.

In my opinion, not admitting to problems is absolutely typical of Apple. How often have there been "gates"? The Internet was full of them in many forums and Apple Support told me that they had never heard of such a problem, whether in the store or on the phone.

I own an IT company and we serve hundreds of customers, so I can tell you that even people who have never had problems with any iPad before are now complaining about nausea and tired eyes with the M4 Pro. Most of them are the same People which had the same Problems with iPhone 12 Pro, which had the same low PWM Rate.
 

Zest28

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2022
2,581
3,931
Sorry for the confusion, I just wanted to confirm what you wrote - everybody (including notebookcheck's measurements) seem to agree it is 480 Hz, I don't know why they put 239 Hz in the text box.

It's not 480hz. The frequency changes with the brightness and 240hz is the lowest they measured, which was at 50% brightness I believe.

480hz is at 100% brightness, which is still very low.

People who are sensitive to PWM flickering are going to have a lot of fun with these M4 iPads.

Probably Apple figured it is just a very small group of people who is sensitive to PWM and they just accept that a very small group of people won't like it and have a much improved battery life instead (which probably leads to more sales in the end).
 
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xpxp2002

macrumors 65816
May 3, 2016
1,217
2,872
In my opinion, not admitting to problems is absolutely typical of Apple. How often have there been "gates"? The Internet was full of them in many forums and Apple Support told me that they had never heard of such a problem, whether in the store or on the phone.
I feel like this is part of their training.

When I was in line at a store for the iPhone X launch day, they went through the line asking which carrier we had.

I told them I want the Verizon model because it will be unlocked, but will have the Qualcomm modem. They told me that they had no Verizon models that were not already claimed by preorders or those earlier in line. But apparently my response prompted them to ask why I was looking for this combination. So I explained about how the reverse audio path would drop all the time during calls on my Intel iPhone 7, the poor data performance compared to my iPhone 6s, and they all had never heard of any of this. Or at least pretended to.

Their lead wanted to set me up with a Genius Bar appointment to look at the phone. I had to explain that these are known problems with that hardware — you can easily find others reporting the issues online at that time. I was just here to buy a new phone that wasn’t affected. Queue the “shut up and take my money” GIF.
 

Basic75

macrumors 68020
May 17, 2011
2,098
2,446
Europe
Maybe Apple should have just fixed the local dimming zones so the mini-LED panel in the iPad has no more blooming.
"Fixed?" No more blooming with "mini-LED" would require a per-pixel backlight, not even the Pro Display XDR has that.
 

Zest28

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2022
2,581
3,931
"Fixed?" No more blooming with "mini-LED" would require a per-pixel backlight, not even the Pro Display XDR has that.

You really think Apple is the benchmark here? My TV destroys the iPad. There is no blooming at all watching HDR movies pushing over 2000+ nits.

This is an Apple problem.
 

klasma

macrumors 604
Jun 8, 2017
7,440
20,730
Maybe Apple should have just fixed the local dimming zones so the mini-LED panel in the iPad has no more blooming.
That's not possible to fix. If you have dimming zones, you have blooming. That trade-off is tne whole idea behind mini-LED.
 
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Zest28

macrumors 68030
Jul 11, 2022
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That's not possible to fix. If you have dimming zones, you have blooming. That trade-off is tne whole idea behind mini-LED.

I really believe there is something wrong with Apple their implementation because my TV does a way better job.

Even my 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro doesn't have this level of blooming like my M1 12.9 iPad Pro does.
 
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