Considering a Return, Sadly

[MacBookGamer]

First of all, this laptop is a beast.

Excellent keyboard. That Butterfly nonsense is now a thing of the past. Noo longer do I have to woory about a piece of dust destroying becoming the Bane of my keys.

Extra display real estate. 16" wasn't a significant improvement, but it's nice to have that extra space for windows and media consumption.

Increased pixel density. Makes the display nice and very crisp.

Fast GPU. You can game on this thing with any AAA title at native resolution with 30-60 fps. This was practically unheard of until the Vega chips. Navi just pushes it even further.

Great battery, build quality and mostly everything you'd expect from Apple. No problems with the solid aluminum body. Solid and light as always. The battery will get hours of usage.

So why am I considering returning? The display. I've come to expect only the greatest displays from Apple, but something is just wrong with the 16" model. It's dimmer and has a washed out white. This was the first thing I noticed when comparing to my 13" display. It's just...bad.

Unfortunately, the display is one of, if not the most, important part of a display since it's something you have to look at all the time. Having a display that's beat by a 2015 model is just unacceptable.

I guess they sacrificed the display for the Magic Keyboard. Personally, that's not a worthy compromise.

Not sure where to go from here. Do I play the display lottery and hope I get something decent after a month of exchanges? Do I try to Hackintosh a Windows laptop with a bright display? God forbid I go back to a 13" with Butterfly and hold onto it until the 2020 refresh? Such a pain.

 

[profcutter]

You could do what I did, where a system crash precipitated me needing to buy something immediately. I bought a 2015 fully loaded 15" machine in the hopes that in a year or two everything is sorted and worth the 4k it would take to upgrade.

 

[asphere]

I was also returned the 16" but not due to the display but for the keyboard layout (my local country layout) which this year they suddenly swap my local language from right to left which make keyboard very confused (because every other keyboard sold in the country and other laptop or pc manufacture they put on right) and Catalina because of the slowness in most of my application I need to use (Office etc.)

 

[Sanpete]

If I'm reading this right, and you're saying your 16" isn't as bright as your 2015 13", something is definitely wrong, as the latter is only about 300nits, not even close to even the lowest measurements for the 16".

 

[Hieveryone]

I don't like my 16" display either! It seems yellow. Not quite nice and white like my 2019 15" base model.

 

[Plutonius]

First of all, this laptop is a beast.

Excellent keyboard. That Butterfly nonsense is now a thing of the past. Noo longer do I have to woory about a piece of dust destroying becoming the Bane of my keys.

Extra display real estate. 16" wasn't a significant improvement, but it's nice to have that extra space for windows and media consumption.

Increased pixel density. Makes the display nice and very crisp.

Fast GPU. You can game on this thing with any AAA title at native resolution with 30-60 fps. This was practically unheard of until the Vega chips. Navi just pushes it even further.

Great battery, build quality and mostly everything you'd expect from Apple. No problems with the solid aluminum body. Solid and light as always. The battery will get hours of usage.

So why am I considering returning? The display. I've come to expect only the greatest displays from Apple, but something is just wrong with the 16" model. It's dimmer and has a washed out white. This was the first thing I noticed when comparing to my 13" display. It's just...bad.

Unfortunately, the display is one of, if not the most, important part of a display since it's something you have to look at all the time. Having a display that's beat by a 2015 model is just unacceptable.

I guess they sacrificed the display for the Magic Keyboard. Personally, that's not a worthy compromise.

Not sure where to go from here. Do I play the display lottery and hope I get something decent after a month of exchanges? Do I try to Hackintosh a Windows laptop with a bright display? God forbid I go back to a 13" with Butterfly and hold onto it until the 2020 refresh? Such a pain.

Why sadly ?

The computer is a tool so just get the one that best meets your needs. It doesn't have to be Apple if you don't like what Apple is offering.

 

[Quu]

If you're going to return it I'd recommend trying an exchange first. I went from the 2015 15" to this and the display on the new one looks exactly the same to me and I would notice a difference. Same temperature, same whites, not washed out, same brightness etc

I think the one you have has a bad panel, I don't think it's indicative of the laptop as a whole just one bad unit you have here.

 

[DubCity]

There’s nothing wrong with the 16 screen. You are just looking for reasons to return it because you feel overspent.

 

[TheRealAlex]

First of all, this laptop is a beast.

Excellent keyboard. That Butterfly nonsense is now a thing of the past. Noo longer do I have to woory about a piece of dust destroying becoming the Bane of my keys.

Extra display real estate. 16" wasn't a significant improvement, but it's nice to have that extra space for windows and media consumption.

Increased pixel density. Makes the display nice and very crisp.

Fast GPU. You can game on this thing with any AAA title at native resolution with 30-60 fps. This was practically unheard of until the Vega chips. Navi just pushes it even further.

Great battery, build quality and mostly everything you'd expect from Apple. No problems with the solid aluminum body. Solid and light as always. The battery will get hours of usage.

So why am I considering returning? The display. I've come to expect only the greatest displays from Apple, but something is just wrong with the 16" model. It's dimmer and has a washed out white. This was the first thing I noticed when comparing to my 13" display. It's just...bad.

Unfortunately, the display is one of, if not the most, important part of a display since it's something you have to look at all the time. Having a display that's beat by a 2015 model is just unacceptable.

I guess they sacrificed the display for the Magic Keyboard. Personally, that's not a worthy compromise.

Not sure where to go from here. Do I play the display lottery and hope I get something decent after a month of exchanges? Do I try to Hackintosh a Windows laptop with a bright display? God forbid I go back to a 13" with Butterfly and hold onto it until the 2020 refresh? Such a pain.

1000% agreed, it’s why I use a iPad Pro 120hz ProMotion Display no lag or trailing or ghosting. The 16” MBP Display i unacceptable.

Next year they will IMO have a 120hz Promotion Display and the year following that they will have a version of the link below and claim they invented it.

MSI Global

Welcome to the MSI Global official site. We are the top Gaming gear provider.

www.msi.com

 

[olindacat]

I have a 2015, was considering a 16". This thread is disconcerting to me :-(

 

[maflynn]

So why am I considering returning? The display. I've come to expect only the greatest displays from Apple, but something is just wrong with the 16" model. It's dimmer and has a washed out white.

That seems to be a common theme amongst owners here at MR. I can't say that its common for everyone but I see enough complaints here. I'm not in the market, nor a desire to buy a MBP, and so I'm not really following the MBP as closely as I used too.

 

[Passingby]

There’s nothing wrong with the 16 screen. You are just looking for reasons to return it because you feel overspent.

'Move along nothing to see here' attitude just puts people off the Mac entirely. This isn't a cult. It's a corporation motivated by money. If anything about their product and walled gardens isn't great we will say so. This will annoy people who follow a brand like a religion. For everyone else the criticism pays off in the long run. There will be more customer satisfaction, high quality products and business growth.

A real free fair progressive free market depends on this honesty, openness and competition.

 

[lockerc18]

I don't like my 16" display either! It seems yellow. Not quite nice and white like my 2019 15" base model.

This might be obvious or irrelevant, not sure... but have you tried turning off Night Shift? It comes from the factory turned on. I have never understood the value of that feature. I've tried it, and it just makes my screen darker and off color. I always turn it off and have a nice, white display as a result. And turning up the brightness helps, too. I've done these things on 2 different 15 inch MBPs, my current 13 inch MBP, and my 10.5 inch iPad Pro, and the result is the same.

 

[hvfsl]

There’s nothing wrong with the 16 screen. You are just looking for reasons to return it because you feel overspent.

I agree, I went from a 2012 15inch to this and I think it is amazing. Updated now because it is the first time I could get 1TB storage at a sensible price (my 2012 has 1TB as it can take SATA drives).

But then there have been no perfect Apple laptops, so if you are waiting for that, you will probably be waiting forever. On my last 2 ones for example (2012 and 2008) you could hear static when using wired headphones with a low impedance. The PowerBook G4s I had before that didn't have the issue, but I just learnt to work around it (firewire audio etc). So you could return your current 16inch, but then the next 16inch could have a 120hz display and a side effect of that is it doesn't go as bright as previous ones (like a lot of 120hz phones have dark screens).

 

[matram]

I have calibrated and measured the display using professional equipment, as has others, and no there is nothing wrong with the display.

You do not seem to be interested in a solution as you are not participating in the thread so maybe you should return it and look for products from other companies that fit your needs better.

 

[fs454]

My display is nothing short of great. Brighter than my 2016 Touch Bar 15" model, crystal clear and the ghosting is exactly the same as it always has been. The whites are white and the colors are accurate. Response time is enough for me to dominate in Halo Reach and finish top 3 consistently.

Stop using dark mode so much, maybe.

 

[richinaus]

That seems to be a common theme amongst owners here at MR. I can't say that its common for everyone but I see enough complaints here. I'm not in the market, nor a desire to buy a MBP, and so I'm not really following the MBP as closely as I used too.

Hey Maflynn and Queen6 and others.

I have to say that having bought the 16" and it finally settle down from indexing etc, it has impressed me beyond any doubts.

Maybe I got one from a good batch, but no coil whine or poor screen to report. I understand the ghosting issue but really that is fine [I too am used to iPad Pro scrolling....].

It is the performance of this computer that makes me happy. For everything I have thrown at it so far it has not had any hiccups. This includes hammering the gpu as well as cpu.

Basically rendering speeds on the CPU are similar to my 8 core iMac Pro. The fans do come on and are reasonably loud [which is acceptable for a laptop], but the speed is great.
The GPU is handling real time rendering too - again with fans blasting but is getting the job done in a way I didn't expect.

All the 'pro' apps I have used so far are running well - sketch up / Rhino 3D / Fusion 360 / Twinmotion together with the usual suspects running all at the same time.

I have bought this MacBook Pro as a tool. It is not an emotional purchase and was quite happy to return it if it didn't meet the requirements. I can safely say, it probably is the first laptop from Apple that has for me delivered a near workstation experience.

BTW not a huge fan of the keyboard and preferred the butterfly feel, but is ok. Speakers are awesome.

Specs I bought are : 2.4 i9, 32gb ram 5500 8gb

for the OP I would exchange and get a replacement if not happy. I find it very hard to be negative about this computer.

 

[MacBookGamer]

I have calibrated and measured the display using professional equipment, as has others, and no there is nothing wrong with the display.

You do not seem to be interested in a solution as you are not participating in the thread so maybe you should return it and look for products from other companies that fit your needs better.

There's no solution to make it brighter.

 

[richinaus]

There's no solution to make it brighter.

mine is on 3/4 brightness which seems about right. I guess if you are using it outdoors it could be problematic but I am unsure why it is an issue for you.

 

[MacBookGamer]

mine is on 3/4 brightness which seems about right. I guess if you are using it outdoors it could be problematic but I am unsure why it is an issue for you.

Because the whites look gray.

 

[konqerror]

'Move along nothing to see here' attitude just puts people off the Mac entirely. This isn't a cult. It's a corporation motivated by money. If anything about their product and walled gardens isn't great we will say so.

What, so they buy a PC laptop, where the panel is a 6 bit that's randomly picked from Samsung, AU Optronics or Chi Mei depending on whichever is in stock the day they make it? One that's got 90% sRGB? Color temperature of 7000 K? Those are the panels that make up 90% of the world's market.

The funny thing is when you give somebody something that's bad, they just go an accept it.

When people obsess over minute differences in color temperature and return their laptop 10 times, eventually Apple is going to either switch to the lowest bidder standard panels, like the rest of the industry, or give up on Macs completely.

Really, Apple's volumes are so small, versus the rest of the market, and display factories, like processors, have such a huge capital cost, that I see their special displays becoming a thing of the past in the next 5 years.

 

[MacBookGamer]

What, so they buy a PC laptop, where the panel is a 6 bit that's randomly picked from Samsung, AU Optronics or Chi Mei depending on whichever is in stock the day they make it? One that's got 90% sRGB? Color temperature of 7000 K? Those are the panels that make up 90% of the world's market.

The funny thing is when you give somebody something that's bad, they just go an accept it.

When people obsess over minute differences in color temperature and return their laptop 10 times, eventually Apple is going to either switch to the lowest bidder standard panels, like the rest of the industry, or give up on Macs completely.

Really, Apple's volumes are so small, versus the rest of the market, and display factories, like processors, have such a huge capital cost, that I see their special displays becoming a thing of the past in the next 5 years.

Why would that happen when there are Windows laptops with superior displays?

 

[konqerror]

Why would that happen when there are Windows laptops with superior displays?

Nope. There's exactly one 15.6 inch panel that's high DPI and wide color gamut (Adobe RGB). None of them are in professional-grade laptops, they're in gamer laptops.

It's a chicken and egg supply issue too, nobody will make a big order because it's expensive and supply can't be guaranteed, and so the manufacturers won't dedicate lines to it. Same thing happened with the first-gen OLEDs and even this field-sequential color laptop I had long ago.

 

[Sanpete]

There's no point to prolonging this thread. If your 16" isn't as bright as your 2015 13", something is wrong, a lot wrong, not close to right, either with the display or the settings for it. If you're sure the settings are as they should be, don't waste time, just return it.

 

[ja14000]

Before you return it, disable auto brightness. There is this weird gamma adjustment feature that apple has lumped in with auto brightness, there used to be a way to manually disable it but apple removed it a few versions ago.