new Air gives me a headache

[superh1]

Specifically the 13" M3. I have other displays, latest gen iPad mini which I read/watch all my shows on (which has PWM afaik, but it doesn't matter since Air doesn't). I went down a long rabbit hole of turning off dithering, white point, night shift, gamma, etc.

I've narrowed it down to the fact that it has this "always on basic/bad HDR" look to the display. The whites are disproportionately brighter than other colors. Adjusting brightness doesn't change this disproportion. Whites need to come down a touch and all the grays, black on a gray scale need to come up a touch.

I called Apple, I was told even if I exchanged I'd have the same issue and this is a matter of preference. So is this normal?

There's no way to really communicate but I think this is a bad example because it's a photo, and my issue is with text, but it's the most visual way to illustrate I can think of..

Google images "portrait" and it's the first image, which is https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/p5quSf4dZXctG9WFepXFdR.jpg

Look at her right side of the nose. You can argue it's 'slightly over-exposed' on the right side of her nose. But there is detail there, and it's intentional. This is what I see on my iphone, ipad, other monitors etc.

On the Air, it's blown out, there's a hot strip of white there on the right nose, no detail.

It's just a nose on a random, but apply how it thinks it should display this white to all the white websites in the world. Similarly sites that have some soft gray shadow around a text box, it's not visible

 

[chabig]

Play around with the Accessibility settings. I'm sure you'll find a combination that works for you.

Change Display settings for accessibility on Mac

On your Mac, set options to make text bigger, make items onscreen easier to see, reduce onscreen motion, and adjust display colors or tint the screen.

support.apple.com

By the way, that portrait of the girl looks normal on my M3 MacBook Air.

 

[za9ra22]

I'm not sure that on my 13-inch M1 or 15-inch M3, I see anything untoward in that image. It is fractionally contrasty, but on both systems looks just about identical, including detail. I tried it on my phone, but the radically different screen size makes it impossible to judge.

I'd be the first to say the MBA range has less than perfect displays, but if you're seeing these artifacts in contrast you're describing, it isn't 'normal'. Whether it's the display or your sensitivity to it isn't possible to determine, but in either case that isn't what this should be like to use.

@chabig has pointed you at the place where much of these type of issues can be adjusted, but there are also options in the Displays setting, where you might find turning True Tone off helps, or changing the Color profile - there are preset options there, but also a 'Customize' option to set your own white point, contrast and color balance. All worth playing with since none are permanent.

Alternatively, we know that there are some users who find the MBA displays problematic, so I'd suggest you switch this unit for another just to make sure, and if the second is similarly unsatisfactory, get a refund.

 

[DisplaysShouldntBeTVs]

Specifically the 13" M3. I have other displays, latest gen iPad mini which I read/watch all my shows on (which has PWM afaik, but it doesn't matter since Air doesn't). I went down a long rabbit hole of turning off dithering, white point, night shift, gamma, etc.

I've narrowed it down to the fact that it has this "always on basic/bad HDR" look to the display. The whites are disproportionately brighter than other colors. Adjusting brightness doesn't change this disproportion. Whites need to come down a touch and all the grays, black on a gray scale need to come up a touch.

I called Apple, I was told even if I exchanged I'd have the same issue and this is a matter of preference. So is this normal?

There's no way to really communicate but I think this is a bad example because it's a photo, and my issue is with text, but it's the most visual way to illustrate I can think of..

Google images "portrait" and it's the first image, which is https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/p5quSf4dZXctG9WFepXFdR.jpg

Look at her right side of the nose. You can argue it's 'slightly over-exposed' on the right side of her nose. But there is detail there, and it's intentional. This is what I see on my iphone, ipad, other monitors etc.

On the Air, it's blown out, there's a hot strip of white there on the right nose, no detail.

It's just a nose on a random, but apply how it thinks it should display this white to all the white websites in the world. Similarly sites that have some soft gray shadow around a text box, it's not visible

M2 and M3 Airs actually DO have PWM contrary to what some reviews (cough cough notebookcheck) say.

You can verify this by setting the wallpaper to the Stone dark gray Solid Colors preset, max brightness, film it at 240hz slow motion on your phone camera with slightly reduced exposure. You will see flicker!

The only reason some people didn't catch this is that it's hard to see if you use a white background, but it's super obvious on darker shades.

I've tried this on two M2 Airs with totally different panels (screen lottery) and both of them flickered in the exact same way on camera!

The only Apple Silicon Mac out of all the ones I've tried to not flicker on camera on dark grays at all is the M2 13" Touch Bar MBP.

Unlike the other MBP models with mini-LED, the M2 Touch Bar MBP only uses an standard IPS LCD.

Because it lacks the flicker, unlike all of the Airs, the M2 Touch Bar might work better for you!

In my case the M2 Touch Bar works WAY better for me than any of the Airs, noticeably better than even the M1 Air too!

I'm assuming you disabled dithering with the Stillcolor app or the "GPU Dithering Image Adjustments" option in BetterDisplay? Those are currently the only two methods that actually are known to work on Apple Silicon. (Other "fake methods" like virtual screen mirroring do NOT actually disable dithering.)

 

[PaulD-UK]

Is the ‘flicker’ PWM or FRC?

 

[DisplaysShouldntBeTVs]

Is the ‘flicker’ PWM or FRC?

On the M2/M3 Air it's most likely coming from some form of PWM or other backlight-related issue for the most part, as even though it's most easily captured on dark gray it can be captured on pure white too if you turn down the camera exposure a LOT.

(BTW, even the original M1 Air has the same flicker issue too!)

The flicker happens over the whole screen at the same time which is reminiscent of PWM. Also, FRC usually can't be caught on camera.

All I know is that unlike the Airs, the M2 13" Touch Bar MBP doesn't have the flicker issue. In addition, M2 Touch Bar MBP appears entirely FRC-free to my eyes after disabling OS-level temporal dithering with the Stillcolor app!

(I can immediately notice even the most mild FRC on external monitors as I'm very sensitive to it. On the other hand, the M2 Touch Bar is one of the only screens I've used in a long time that feels entirely still to my eyes — as long as Stillcolor is activated.)