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Your opinion of the notch – one year later

redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Original poster
Oct 17, 2014
8,646
9,302
Colorado, USA
Another notch thread, huzzah!

I'm typing this on my 16" MacBook Pro with ye old Intel Core i9, but I also have the newer M1 MacBook Pro 14" from work. For a lot of people the space in the middle of the menu bar went unused, but not for me. I use iStat Menus to fill that space with all sorts of interesting system information at a glance. iStat Menus was the best way to make use of that space, until...yep, the notch came to town and ruined the fun. There's way less space for iStat Menus to do its thing on my work MBP to the point that it's basically unusable.

The M1 is amazing in every other way, but because of this I'm not a fan of the notch and hope that a notch-less design is in the MBP's future soon. What're your thoughts on it, now that the M1 MacBook Pro has been out for a year?
 
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Tagbert

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,261
7,285
Seattle
redheeler said:
Another notch thread, huzzah!

I'm typing this on my 16" MacBook Pro with ye old Intel Core i9, but I also have the newer M1 MacBook Pro 14" from work. For a lot of people the space in the middle of the menu bar went unused, but not for me. I use iStat Menus to fill that space with all sorts of interesting system information at a glance. iStat Menus was the best way to make use of that space, until...yep, the notch came to town and ruined the fun. There's way less space for iStat Menus to do its thing on my work MBP to the point that it's basically unusable.

The M1 is amazing in every other way, but because of this I'm not a fan of the notch and hope that a notch-less design is in the MBP's future soon. What're your thoughts on it, now that the M1 MacBook Pro has been out for a year?
Click to expand...
Do you use Bartender? When I started using iStatmenus, well before the new MacBook Pros with notch came out, I immediately ran out of space for menubar icons. I found Bartender and it brought order to that big pile of icons. Now, most menubar icons are hidden and only appear when I click on the Bartender "..." icon. Only the ones that need quick and/or continual glancing are granted top level status.
 
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poorcody

poorcody

macrumors 65816
Jul 23, 2013
1,339
1,584
Funny story, I recently set up a new MacBook M2 Air for a friend. Literally three weeks after she had it, she texts me in a panic saying there is a blank space in the middle of the menu bar and she thinks the screen may have gone bad. It took her that long to even notice the notch.
 
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A

ahurst

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2021
410
815
Thought it was an awful design compromise when it was introduced but bought a 14" MBP anyway, absolutely haven't thought twice about it since.

Unless you use the menubar like the OP, your attention is almost never going to be focused on the top-middle of the screen: you're either going to be focused on content you're working on, the left of the menu bar for the actual menu, or the right side for spotlight and other controls. Personally enjoying the increased screen real estate it offers!
 
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L

Love-hate 🍏 relationship

macrumors 68040
Sep 19, 2021
3,057
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it's usually fine ,

1-on the pros, since you have mini-led, it's completely hidden for fullscreen content . unlike on the mba m2.

2-it's very annoying for menu-bar elements , especially on the 14. i have a lot of menu bar apps, and the notch not only takes a lot of space, but it also doesn't allow the apps to cross that notch area. where previously i could have menu bar apps going all the way to the left, it's now restrained to the middle
 
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153957

macrumors newbie
Jul 26, 2006
20
65
I use SwitchResX to change the display resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio, that way it fits everything neatly under the notch, The menubar is its normal height and menu items and extra tools can use the full width. Everything next to the notch is just black, so it just looks like a larger top bezel, so it's not in my way.

So I usually do not notice the notch, except sometimes when connecting a new external display the internal display resets to use the full screen.
 
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L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,525
19,688
My opinion is the same as it was when the notch was originally announced: it’s absolutely unnoticeable in daily operation and a smart solution to have both a bit more space on a screen and a better camera.

P.S. Regarding iStat Menus… it’s none of my business how you configure your computer of course, and your personal tastes are your own, but it’s not like iStat offers any information that’s even remotely useful to a daily computer operation. So you can see the CPU temperature at a glance, great, and then what? Having these things permanently on not only uses up valuable system resources (sampling counters is not free) and wastes screen space but also is a great way to develop an OCD.
 
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U

unrigestered

Suspended
Jun 17, 2022
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it can be a tad distracting in apps that support true full screen, but i appreciate the extra pixels around it i otherwise wouldn't have.
this doesn't interfere with the functionality though, as those apps don't have important stuff "under" the notch anyway.

so my conclusion is still that i can still live with it, despite being unnecessary and i'd gladly trade a 720p camera for a notchless experience, if that truly is the issue that 1080p can't be had notchless.
 
L

Love-hate 🍏 relationship

macrumors 68040
Sep 19, 2021
3,057
3,235
unrigestered said:
it can be a tad distracting in apps that support true full screen, but i appreciate the extra pixels around it i otherwise wouldn't have.
this doesn't interfere with the functionality though, as those apps don't have important stuff "under" the notch anyway.

so my conclusion is still that i can still live with it, despite being unnecessary and i'd gladly trade a 720p camera for a notchless experience, if that truly is the issue that 1080p can't be had notchless.
Click to expand...
what apps support true fullscreen? i am yet to encounter any .
 
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unrigestered

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Jun 17, 2022
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Reaper (a digital audio workstation)

i think i've seen a few more, but that what i can list for sure for now.
 
B

bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,699
153957 said:
I use SwitchResX to change the display resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio, that way it fits everything neatly under the notch, The menubar is its normal height and menu items and extra tools can use the full width. Everything next to the notch is just black, so it just looks like a larger top bezel, so it's not in my way.

So I usually do not notice the notch, except sometimes when connecting a new external display the internal display resets to use the full screen.
Click to expand...
That was my plan if I was to actually buy a 14" MBP. I even had one on order, but I decided to cancel and get the Studio.
 
HobeSoundDarryl

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Feb 8, 2004
13,215
17,954
Hobe Sound, FL (20 miles north of Palm Beach)
No fan of the notch at all. There's room at the bottom of the lid to shift the screen down a few millimeters to preserve the "extra real estate to the left & right" used to justify a MB notch among us. That shift would not need to be very much.

iPads show that a thinner bezel (than traditional notch-less MB pro screens) can "fit" a front-facing camera- presumably the same one- inside that bezel, so my preference would be to adopt the iPad thin bezel at the top and shift the overall screen down by the difference to preserve the "extra" screen real estate and free up the extra RE covered by the notch too... for even more extra screen RE.

However, at this point, I'd be just as happy if they entirely jettison the camera (and thus notch) from the lid and lean on the superior camera of iDevices with Continuity Camera for times when people want to FaceTime on their laptops. That seems like it could thin the bezel even more (for even more "extra" screen RE) while upgrading the camera for that purpose.

Thinner bezel, lighter MB, superior camera! Bonus: Apple could perhaps cut the MB price with the elimination of the camera and normalizing the screen shape (hahahaha)... or "courageously" take the added cost savings as even more profit per unit sold.
 
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