MacBook Air to Get More Advanced LCD Panel Before Transition to OLED

[svish]

It is taking a long time for OLED to come to Air lineup. But not surprising considering that the base model iPhones still don't have 120Hz. So looks like it will take a few years after the MacBook Pro lineup gets OLED for the Air to get OLED too.

 

[NT1440]

But totally in keeping with Apple's policy of (very slowly) dripping features slowly from Pro down to consumer tiers...


Apple has already switched to this OLED tech in the latest iPad Pro, so clearly they are already happy with the reliability of a 13" tandem OLED panel, so I'm not sure that argument holds up.

The absurdly expensive and new tandem OLED?

That’s gonna take time for economies of scale to lower costs enough. I’m not sure there is enough manufacturing capacity on the planet to produce the numbers of Airs sell…

 

[nathansz]

Sure, but you gain more menu bar real estate (I'm only partly joking)

No

You gain the number of pixels that the menu bar would otherwise be using

 

[SlightWince]

I wish they would just put a mini-led panel in it like the current macbook pro's have. I have no desire for OLEDs on a laptop with static images, and I don't care how far the tech has come.

 

[Elusi]

If you mean you got the Macbook Air released in July 2022, it has a better screen than the first M1 Air released in 2020. The 2020 Air has a standard Retina LED backlit IPS LCD, at 400 nits and 13.3 inches diagonal (I find it a little dim), and the 2022 has a Liquid Retina LCD (better contrast and color accuracy) at 500 nits, and it's slightly larger at 13.6 inches.

I'm guessing that might be why you waited to get the 2022 model, due it its better display?

Nah I just needed a new computer in 2022 and the Air had a nice enough screen (been having "nice enough" for me since 2018) combined with enough computational performance for me to go that route. I love the ultraportable aspect of the Air, but have certain expectations for both screen quality and performance.

Seeing as I want to toy around with HDR colour grading privately in the future, the current MBA screen no longer cuts it for me, though. I'll have to spring for Pro yet again and just deal with the bulk.

 

[ThomasJL]

This is good news and bad news. The good news is that Oxide TFT LCD panels offer a better user experience than the current panels. The bad news is that Tim Cook is clueless and mediocre, so the panels will probably have a notch and have rounded edges (instead of 90-degree edges) on the top of the screen.

 

[kovalchuk71]

With the announcement of the M4 MBA today, I did not see any differences in the panel listed on the Apple website. Does anyone know if this "new" panel is confirmed, or was it just a false rumor?