16 inch MacBook Pro causes eye strain/pain while 15 inch Retina does not?

[Samorap]

Just bought the 2019, 16-inch MBP and I also suffered from severe eyestrain, headaches, nausea, etc. Someone posted this Reddit link that contains a solution to the dithering eyestrain problem. It worked for me!

 

[feraple]

I think we should all report this to Apple all together either by contacting them directly or go to :

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

so Apple knows and acknowledges this problem. Also if we can make it viral on the internet like twitter it will surely get their attention on it. I recently reset and update my 6th gen ipad where before the reset and update i can use it for many hours without any problem at all. Now after 10 minutes use, i got this pressure and throbbing on my forehead and like the user above said there is something weird with the text, when i scroll it looks like it has a shadow trailing it and it’s like there is another layer on top of the text.

 

[jimmy_uk]

It's a really odd feeling when looking at the screen of my 2020 MBP as superficially it often looks fine but after reading for a few seconds I notice text around what I'm focussing on shimmer/flickering/shaking as though it isn't stable.

Also, it feels like a strain trying to focus on the text I'm reading. When focusing on the display if feels like I'm going almost cross-eyed. As though what I'm trying to focus on isn't stable and is constantly shifting in and out of focus. Very strange as I've never noticed any issues with any kind of display in the past and I have an up to date eyesight prescription?

If it is an issue with the Intel drivers would that also mean we'd see the same issue if we connected an external display to the Macbook as presumably it would use the same dithering algorithm for the display?

Perfect description.

I get the worst eye strain within 15 mins on any of the OLED iphones, it always resulted in a migraine and I felt crap for several days - I put it down to PWM. No OLED iPhone for me.

I've also had issues with the iphone 11 which is LCD, so with some research, I put it down to dithering or maybe its face ID as there is no PWM? I could see shimmering in the edge of my vision, like a torch was being flashed across my eyes.

I got to spend a few hours on the 2021 iPad Pro 12.9" and found the front of my eyes feeling very slightly strained once again. Very much as hungryghostly described, I felt like I had to read a line of text twice because my vision drifted as I read it.

What is going on with these damn screens?

 

[son2018]

Just bought the 2019, 16-inch MBP and I also suffered from severe eyestrain, headaches, nausea, etc. Someone posted this Reddit link that contains a solution to the dithering eyestrain problem. It worked for me!

Which profile did you end using? My MBP had "Color LCD" selected and not P3 as the post says, and I dont recall changing it before.

 

[Photodog99]

No way. It's hardly larger than my previous 15.4 inch MBP. And I've used 27 inch iMacs for years before, as well as 17 inch CRT monitors, even TV screens and the LG ultrafine 5K. Never, in my 30 years of existence, has a screen caused me eye strain. I've used computers for 13 hours straight, 5 days a week, with and without glasses, sitting way too close to the screen, turning the brightness way too high, and I have never had any discomfort.

But now, the moment I open my 16 inch MBP, it's like there's this invisible, damaging energy emanating from it. I can sit close or far from it, I can turn the brightness up or down, I can spend 1 minute or 10 hours in front of it, and it hurts like hell. Every minute of using this computer feels like my eyes are going to explode. I have never experienced anything even remotely similar to this.
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Not yet. I have 3 more days to decide. The issue is that returning it would mean switching back to Windows (previous generations of MBP have the butterfly keyboard, and the ones before are too slow for what I need). It's quite a big and permanent life-changing decision and I was really not prepared to have to make this decision now. This kind of sucks right now. I'm doing tests and so far here are my results:

MBP screen brightness tests

• Dec 22-23:
  • True Tone: OFF
  • Auto Brightness: OFF
  • Brightness level: 100%
    • NO EYE STRAIN WHATSOEVER
    • Supports PWM theory: max brightness usually does not use PWM
      • There may be other brightness levels that don't use PWM, but hard to determine which ones. Need to test further.
• Dec 24:
  • True Tone: OFF
  • Auto Brightness: OFF
  • Brightness level: 3 notches below max
    • Some eye strain after 5-10 minutes (feels like wearing the wrong prescription glasses: pressure, strain, I constantly want to look away from the screen)
    • Pain behind eyes when looking from side to side after 30 minutes
    • More pressure and pain after more time
    • No redness
• Dec 25 (same settings):
  • A little eye strain
  • Does not get worse over time
• Dec 26
  • Not much eye strain today
• Dec 27:
  • 6 notches below max brightness
  • No eye strain
• Jan 1:
  • 3 notches below max
  • Turned off night mode on all websites (= more white backgrounds instead of black/dark backgrounds)
  • This is now definitely worse
  • Noticeable eye strain after 20 minutes when looking left/right/up
    • Pain behind/around eyeballs
    • Feels like invisible burning force is pushing against my eyes from the screen’s direction
  • Maybe lack of eye strain was due to limited white screen areas thanks to dark themes on websites?
• Jan 2:
  • Auto brightness enabled
    • Noticeable pain after a few minutes
    • Pain behind eyes when looking left/right/up
    • Very difficult to keep eyes on screen, the longer I stare at it, the more it hurts
      • Looking away is relieving, almost pleasurable
• Jan 3:
  • Auto brightness still enabled:
    • Eye pain after just a few minutes
    • Pain increases with time
    • Screen feels like it’s emanating some kind of damaging light (feels like staring into the Sun despite not being too bright at all)
  • Auto brightness disabled:
    • Less eye strain
• Jan 4:
  • Auto brightness disabled
  • 4 notches below max
  • A bit of eye strain after 10 minutes

• In the past few days, I have been waking up every morning with sore, dry eyes, friction pain when opening/closing eyes. Subsides after 10-20 minutes of being awake. This was definitely not happening before.

Hi Baryon,

So great you have bought this subject up.
I too have this exact problem.
I have had it with many PC laptops over the years. At present I have bought a 2015 Mac Book pro AMD duel graphic 2.8 and have the eye problem you describe.
My old MacBook pro is a mid 2012 duel graphic Nvidia GeForce 2.3 and is the nicest to look at laptop screen I ever had at any setting. I have auto graphic switching off to force the AMD card to run all the time.
I have spent a lot of time with different glasses but it is just about the same it is a problem with the laptop not my eyes.
Thanks for all you testing the forced full brightness helps a lot will see how it goes.

 

[Samorap]

Which profile did you end using? My MBP had "Color LCD" selected and not P3 as the post says, and I dont recall changing it before.

I changed the color profile to SRGB and my eyestrain problems went away. It was originally set to "Display P3." I hope Apple fixes this problem, or at least give us a choice of using the 2015 color profiles.