Differences between the M2 Air screen and a 2016 13" MacBook Pro screen.

[DavidChoux]

Just wondering if there are any differences between the screens. I know now the Air has True Tone which my 2016 MBP doesn't. I think I read somewhere that the new M2 Air screen is 10-bit, but not sure if that is true, and I think my MBP is 8-bit. If it is 10-bit, does that make everything look richer, or does it just work with certain content? Thanks.

 

[BanditoB]

Here are Apple's specs for the M2 MacBook Air display:

• 13.6-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology;1
  2560-by-1664 native resolution at 224 pixels per inch with
  support for 1 billion colors
• 500 nits brightness
• Wide color (P3)
• True Tone technology

Support for 1 billion colors means it is a 10-bit panel. It should be brighter than your MBP and be more color accurate. The 10-bit color would provide you with more shades of each color that can be displayed, so again you get more accurate colors on this display.

With six years of display technology improvements between the MBP and M2 MBA, you should see a better picture on the MBA, but this may only be really noticeable when placing the two displays side-by-side and comparing the same image on both.

 

[537635]

Just wondering if there are any differences between the screens. I know now the Air has True Tone which my 2016 MBP doesn't. I think I read somewhere that the new M2 Air screen is 10-bit, but not sure if that is true, and I think my MBP is 8-bit. If it is 10-bit, does that make everything look richer, or does it just work with certain content? Thanks.

My opinion is, that M2 Air's screen is worse than 13'' Pro's.

I have the 2020 13'' Pro and the 14'' Pro. In the store I could compare M2 Air with 14'' Pro.


- you never actually notice that 10-bit panel, because there is not enough contrast ratio (brightness) to support it. In other words, it looks pretty much the same as the old panel and considerably worse than 14'', especially when viewing graphic and video content.
- resolution is something I just couldn't swallow on the M2 Air. On the 13'' Pro I could work with x2 retina @ 1280 x 720. If you set this scaling on the new M2, the graphic elements are simply too big (13'' Pro was just barely ok). On the other hand the "default" resolution is not sharp.

I just cannot understand why they didn't put the same panel on the M2 Air from the 14'' Pro. They could omit the ProMotion and the HDR, but going below acceptable retina resolution seems like a cheap trick.

 

[DavidChoux]

Here are Apple's specs for the M2 MacBook Air display:

• 13.6-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology;1
  2560-by-1664 native resolution at 224 pixels per inch with
  support for 1 billion colors
• 500 nits brightness
• Wide color (P3)
• True Tone technology

Support for 1 billion colors means it is a 10-bit panel. It should be brighter than your MBP and be more color accurate. The 10-bit color would provide you with more shades of each color that can be displayed, so again you get more accurate colors on this display.

With six years of display technology improvements between the MBP and M2 MBA, you should see a better picture on the MBA, but this may only be really noticeable when placing the two displays side-by-side and comparing the same image on both.

The only differences that I found are the True Tone, 'support for 1 billion colors' (vs. 'support for millions') and the 2016 screen has 3 more ppi (negligible). Both say 500 nits so should be the same brightness, no?

 

[daavee80]

Some empirical testing of the screens -

Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2016, 2.9 GHz i5, Touch Bar) Notebook Review

In-depth review of the Apple MacBook Pro 13 2016 (2.9 GHz) (Intel Core i5-6267U, Intel Iris Graphics 550, 13.3-inch, 1.4) with numerous measurements, benchmarks, and evaluations

www.notebookcheck.net

Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2016, 2 GHz i5, without Touch Bar) Laptop Review

In-depth review of the brand-new Apple MacBook Pro 13 2016 (without Touch Bar), equipped with Intel Core i5 6360U, Intel Iris Graphics 540, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB PCIe-SSD, with numerous measurements, benchmarks, and evaluations

www.notebookcheck.net

Apple MacBook Air M2 Entry Review – A very good, but too expensive daily MacBook

Notebookcheck reviews the new Apple MacBook Air M2 Midnight in the base-level spec with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD storage.

www.notebookcheck.net

- The Air as tested has a superior contrast ratio and better black levels but this could be due to the higher brightness of the tested Pro's and/or sample variance.
- Both the Touchbar and Non-Touchbar 2016 Pro’s showed much higher than their rated 500 nit brightness which is definitely sample variance as it's outside of their design spec.
- The Air has significantly better response times.
- The resolution on the the Air is slightly higher (+0.24%) to account for the notch, although the PPI is slightly lower (-0.88%) due to the greater increase in screen area than in resolution.
- The colour coverage appears to be roughly the same and they both support P3.

Owing to the better response times and contrast of the Air over the Pro I'd say the Air was marginally superior even with the negligible drop in PPI, although in all practicality they’re very similar screens.

 

[DavidChoux]

Some empirical testing of the screens -

Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2016, 2.9 GHz i5, Touch Bar) Notebook Review

In-depth review of the Apple MacBook Pro 13 2016 (2.9 GHz) (Intel Core i5-6267U, Intel Iris Graphics 550, 13.3-inch, 1.4) with numerous measurements, benchmarks, and evaluations

www.notebookcheck.net

Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2016, 2 GHz i5, without Touch Bar) Laptop Review

In-depth review of the brand-new Apple MacBook Pro 13 2016 (without Touch Bar), equipped with Intel Core i5 6360U, Intel Iris Graphics 540, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB PCIe-SSD, with numerous measurements, benchmarks, and evaluations

www.notebookcheck.net

Apple MacBook Air M2 Entry Review – A very good, but too expensive daily MacBook

Notebookcheck reviews the new Apple MacBook Air M2 Midnight in the base-level spec with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD storage.

www.notebookcheck.net

- The Air as tested has a superior contrast ratio and better black levels but this could be due to the higher brightness of the tested Pro's and/or sample variance.
- Both the Touchbar and Non-Touchbar 2016 Pro’s showed much higher than their rated 500 nit brightness which is definitely sample variance as it's outside of their design spec.
- The Air has significantly better response times.
- The resolution on the the Air is slightly higher (+0.24%) to account for the notch, although the PPI is slightly lower (-0.88%) due to the greater increase in screen area than in resolution.
- The colour coverage appears to be roughly the same and they both support P3.

Owing to the better response times and contrast of the Air over the Pro I'd say the Air was marginally superior even with the negligible drop in PPI, although in all practicality they’re very similar screens.

Thanks, forgot about that website! It does seem the Air is just marginally better in all areas except for brightness distribution and what you mentioned.

 

[jm31828]

Here are Apple's specs for the M2 MacBook Air display:

• 13.6-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology;1
  2560-by-1664 native resolution at 224 pixels per inch with
  support for 1 billion colors
• 500 nits brightness
• Wide color (P3)
• True Tone technology

Support for 1 billion colors means it is a 10-bit panel. It should be brighter than your MBP and be more color accurate. The 10-bit color would provide you with more shades of each color that can be displayed, so again you get more accurate colors on this display.

With six years of display technology improvements between the MBP and M2 MBA, you should see a better picture on the MBA, but this may only be really noticeable when placing the two displays side-by-side and comparing the same image on both.

Is there any way to know if this "support for 1 billion colors" means the display is truly 10 bit, or if it's 8 bit + FRC, which means the dreaded temporal dithering to simulate 1 billion colors (which causes eye strain for some people)? If so, this is no different than all other Apple displays even on cheap devices that claim to cover the P3 color gamut (most of the LCD iPads and even the LCD iPhones such as the SE line). These all cause eye strain for me because they use temporal dithering, they are not true 10 bit panels.

Is the M2 possibly different?