I have to admit I'm not overly impressed with the screen brightness on my new 2016 15" MBP. The quality is great, but the brightness...not so much. My Razer Blade which goes up to 350nits seems to be brighter in most cases. Also in comparison to my iPhone 7P, the iPhone is far brighter. Anyone else have this issue? I feel like the screen doesn't really get bright until roughly 75%. I'd be interested to see a brightness comparison with older models.
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Disappointing Screen Brightness?
- Thread starter shadow82x
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That sounds about right. 75% looks bright to you, and I would agree anything less will start to look a little dull. That seems like the % of most devices I own though...phone, tablet, Mac, etc. Dip below around 70-75% and it won't "pop" the same.
Maybe I was just spoiled by my Razer, it barely got dim, it always looked bright even at its lowest brightness setting... I just expect brightness at 50% should be pretty bright, which isn't the case here.
I am curious about this as well, but I have no idea how to measure the thing. I don't have any clue what kind of gizmo one would use to objectively measure light levels, and I certainly don't own one.
Do you have a 15" w/ TB and think the brightness seems oddly low? There are tools to measure lux, but using my eyes alone it seems the display is dimmer than most of my other devices including external monitor, phone, and old laptop.
Hard to say if it's defective without a bit more rigorous testing (maybe go compare it with a store model?), but ya the brightness curve is a bit weird on these displays. I think it's almost a trait of the wide-gamut LCDs that Apple is using as my iPad Pro exhibits similar behavior where it doesn't look reasonably bright until the brightness setting is 3/4 or so and then anything under 1/2 just seems too dim.
It'd be nice if Apple could tweak this as it feels like 1/2 of the brightness range is just pointless unless you're in a very dark place.
It'd be nice if Apple could tweak this as it feels like 1/2 of the brightness range is just pointless unless you're in a very dark place.
It may just be that that, anything about 80% seems sufficiently bright but anything below 70 or 60 is *really* dim.
If anyone has an iPhone, could you compare max brightnesses? Taking a ballpark guess it looks like the iPhone is 25-35% brighter.
The iPhone 7 should be brighter than the MBP screen, that's normal. Anandtech tested the regular 7 at 600 nits and 7 Plus at 550nits. The 6s and 6s Plus are also both 550+ nits.
For what it's worth, on max brightness my 15" screen is plenty bright for my uses and I'd basically never need to run it at max unless it was a very sunny day and I was outside.
For what it's worth, on max brightness my 15" screen is plenty bright for my uses and I'd basically never need to run it at max unless it was a very sunny day and I was outside.
Technically speaking aren't these MBP screens supposed to be 500 nits though? Which is pretty darn close to the output of my iPhone.
That's actually my photo.Not my photo so can't comment of what brightness was set at but the tMBP looks hands down better than the Razer so I'm going to say you've got a dud
Those were both at max brightness. And while the viewing angles were crap on my Razer, when viewing it straight on, it looked like the Razer was equally as bright and that panel is rated at 300nits.They are claimed to be that, ya. I haven't seen a review with a direct measurement of it yet however. If you really feel like yours is defective I'd try taking it into a store and comparing it with some display models.
I can try and measure mine when I'm home tonight, I have a good colorimeter.
It seems like the brightness ramps up slowly from 0-~70% or so, then rises quickly from there. Someone would have to take some measurements to be sure.
Remember that "50% brightness" is not a useful quantifier. That can mean anything, depending on what your device you're using.
Max nits is what we should be concerned about, and I think the new MBP does fine here. Unless I'm sitting in sunlight, I highly doubt I'll ever come close to using max brightness.
Remember that "50% brightness" is not a useful quantifier. That can mean anything, depending on what your device you're using.
Max nits is what we should be concerned about, and I think the new MBP does fine here. Unless I'm sitting in sunlight, I highly doubt I'll ever come close to using max brightness.
That's actually my photo.
Still going to say something's not right then, Mobile Tech Review stated;
"insanely bright 516 nits per our Spyder4 Pro colorimeter."
So their model is outputting at over the quoted 500nits, I'm going to say your best option is to take it to an Apple Store and compare it side-by-side with another.
I'm not familiar with macOS but is it possible you have some type of "power saving" option enabled somewhere??
I'd be very interested in that actually as it doesn't seem anywhere near 500 nits to me.
Thank you in advanced for doing that. Unfortunately I'm nowhere near an Apple Store right now, so I can't just casually walk in and check their display models. Any Best Buys around? They should all have them by nowI'd be very interested in that actually as it doesn't seem anywhere near 500 nits to me.
Here is my 13 next to the 12 it's replacing (the 12 is going to another employee in the company). Both are set at 3 clicks in from the max. Comparatively, it looks brighter, so maybe i'm imagining it? Sorry for the photo quality, taken with an iPhone 7 but bad office lighting.
How does one Calibrate a Macbook Pro Screen? When you do, can you post the settings you used so those of us who are calibration inept can try your settings too?
I don't have a 2016 model but it's interesting to hear about the screen brightness. On my 2014 13" and most devices I've seen in store, the lower 50% of the brightness settings seem to be totally pointless. It's almost like you want the scale to start at the current 50%. I rarely use my machine at less than 12 clicks