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Love my 11.6" MBA, but my eyes don't!

A

ATHmathieu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2010
111
4
Roger Williams Park - Rhode Island
I love the weight, design, and portability of my 11.6" MBA. However, the screen has been starting to annoy my eyes. This is the only non-IPS display I use and to my the colors are way too neutral/not true and the viewing angles are horrible (TN panels need to be banned). I'm constantly tilting the screen and turning the brightness up and down.

After about 10 mins of use my eyes are starting to hurt and I have to switch back to my X41 Tablet and my eyes thank me. I'm afraid I'm going to have to sell the MBA. I don't want to because I love the new design so much, but my eyes just can't take it anymore.

If only they made it with IPS or at least a PVA panel. :(
 
ATHmathieu said:
Whilst I love the screen on the iPad, it's just not the device for me. Thanks for the offer of help though :)
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Heh, no worries. I am getting mixed reports. I've not seen one of these myself and as such, I can't really comment.

All I know is that I can't type anything of any worth on the iPad. Just quick things.

Hey ho.
 
Perhaps it is a good time to invest in a good quality external monitor for prolonged use :)
 
ATHmathieu said:
I love the weight, design, and portability of my 11.6" MBA. However, the screen has been starting to annoy my eyes. This is the only non-IPS display I use and to my the colors are way too neutral/not true and the viewing angles are horrible (TN panels need to be banned). I'm constantly tilting the screen and turning the brightness up and down.

After about 10 mins of use my eyes are starting to hurt and I have to switch back to my X41 Tablet and my eyes thank me. I'm afraid I'm going to have to sell the MBA. I don't want to because I love the new design so much, but my eyes just can't take it anymore.

If only they made it with IPS or at least a PVA panel. :(
Click to expand...

I understand it well. I have a week left on taking mine back to get a maxed 13". Hate to do it so I keep working on this one. Good luck
 
On one hand, its hard to justify an IPS panel for a 999 laptop, especially since apple (anyone?) doesn't even use IPS for any of their other laptop offerings.

On the other hand, I agree with the OP, its 2010, and the use of IPS panels should be more common place, even if apple uses them in the MBP line.
 
teerexx52 said:
I understand it well. I have a week left on taking mine back to get a maxed 13". Hate to do it so I keep working on this one. Good luck
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Really? I thought you returned a 13" for the 11"? Are you going to go back to the 13"?
 
I sold my ipad but miss it however i think the 11.6 is much better on my eyes, no glare.

teerexx52 said:
I understand it well. I have a week left on taking mine back to get a maxed 13". Hate to do it so I keep working on this one. Good luck
Click to expand...

I thought you bought the 13'' already?
 
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I've read other comments that you get used to it. So far I'm okay with it but I do notice it's smaller. I think I will be fine. I just love everything else about it especially the form factor!
 
New glasses, maybe? Readers? Just a thought. I finally got progressive lenses, and my eyes don't bother me on small computers or print now.
 
Pipper99 said:
New glasses, maybe? Readers? Just a thought. I finally got progressive lenses, and my eyes don't bother me on small computers or print now.
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This.

While we don't like to admit it, our eyes do age and there comes a time to get them checked. Could be the problems with the new screen is a sign of maybe needing glasses. I know I certainly need to go get mine checked and probably adjusted to the "over 40 and you just plain need glasses" now thing.
 
Although I was very tempted my the 11 inch MBA, I finally chose the 13 inch model because I wanted it to replace my MBP as my every day computer. I was a little afraid the 11 inch MBA's screen would be a little too small for that purpose.

Nonetheless, I think the $999 entry level MBA would be a great iPad substitute for those who don't need the iPad's 3G feature. The MBA is almost as small and lightweight as the iPad and is exponentially more powerful. The downside, of course is that the 64GB MBA costs $300 more, about 42 percent, than the 64GB WiFi only iPad.
 
I'm the one here who's always complaining about screen quality and I'm surprised to read your comments.

I think the 11 and 13" MBA screens are incredible, sharp crisp fonts, super easy to read, one of the notebook screens on the market in my experience and I've used a LOT of notebooks.....

So easy to zoom to increase the font size too!
 
I had the same problem on the 11" - so I returned it. Text so small, eye-strain right away.

I'm trying a 13" now, but It's not much better... I think I'll be sticking with my RevB MBA - even if it is a bit slower (I have an SSD one so it's not *that* much slower).
 
iRun26.2 said:
Who would want to do that all of the time? I would never have ordered my 11.6" MBA had I needed to do that when I was checking one out at the store.
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I used the :apple:+ keyboard shortcut even with my 17 inch MBP. It wasn't necessary often but I inevitably came across sites once in awhile on which the fonts used were so tiny it was far easier to use the keyboard shortcut to increase it. Also, the shortcut only affects the page you are on. Any other pages that you haven't made the adjustment to will look as they always did. When the font looks too big you can simply use :apple:- to make it smaller. What the heck, that's why those shortcuts are there so why not use them?
 
silverblack said:
Did you try hitting "Command +" on your keyboard?
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Bless you for that; I didn't even know of this "command", and to my delight, it works wonderfully well. An ease for strained eyes. Thank you.

To the OP, you have my sympathy. As it happens, I wear glasses, and while I love my MBA (13" Rev C SSD), - it's a superb computer - when I got my 15" MBP back from repairs, I noticed at once the the difference in the screen, and that my eyes have been a bit more strained using the MBA.

Cheers
 
Dont feel bad, I had to returm my 11 for the exact same reason. While the display is crisp, my eyes struggled to focus correctly on the display. Pulled it away from me and I was good for 2 minutes, brought it closer and it was fine for another two.

The form factor is great! But I would only be comfortable using it in short bursts.

Now, if we could only get Apple to give us an Anti-Glare option for the 13. :)
 
Changing the resolution really not an option in Mac OS?

I have never used Mac's before, considering buying my first one (MBA) though. If the texts appear too small to me, I would definitely want to adjust the resolution to suit my eyes.
 
bcaslis said:
Really? I thought you returned a 13" for the 11"? Are you going to go back to the 13"?
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Nope. Just worried over time if my eyes will hold up. Planning on keeping this one. One of the things I keep thinking about is that someone posted a bit back that the 13" MacBook Air's font is 6% bigger than on the 11.6". Another guy posted he went from the 11.6 to the 13 because he was having trouble reading the screen and said it made little difference. Could be that 6% difference really isn't going to help to switching to a 13" isn't going to help??? Make any sense?
 
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gloryunited said:
Changing the resolution really not an option in Mac OS?

I have never used Mac's before, considering buying my first one (MBA) though. If the texts appear too small to me, I would definitely want to adjust the resolution to suit my eyes.
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There are at least 3 ways to change screen resolution on OS X:

(1) Use the :apple:+ or :apple:- keyboard shortcut to either increase or decrease the size of the image being displayed

(2) Go to Displays Preference and change the screen resolution from, in the case of the 13 inch MBA, 1440 X 900 to 1280 X 800; this will automatically increase the size of the image, although it will, of course, reduce the resolution

(3) Use the trackpad to two-finger scroll vertically while depressing the control key to zoom in or out.

This is all very quick and easy to do. The only one that is even remotely tricky is (2) to change the screen resolution. If you check Show displays in menu bar option, you can do this one from the desktop.
 
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