Hi everyone,

i read some older posts but no one seems to be active. I bought a new MBA with M1, switching from a ‘19 15 MBP. I am getting eye strain after few minutes of use. It gives me headache. This has never happened with the previous machine. My eyes are ok, i had a medical consultant two weeks ago. At work I use a windows machine without any effort for hours. Is this a display issue? Something related to Big Sur? Anyone experimenting the same problem?

    mattiadebiaggi

    Not much you can tweak with the new M1's at the moment. Some users of this forum have bought, tested, and returned.

    You may be best to return it and go back to your old MacBook unfortunately.

    I am not going to be much of help, but sometimes in February or March this year I tested in a shop a couple of MACs with M1. The MacBook Air - can't recall the details but it was the cheapest of the series - looked okay after 15-20 minutes, whereas the MacBook Pro gave me instantaneous eye strain and neck pain. I am not qualified to tell you what the reason for the difference could be, though.

    Have you tried a MacBook Air?

      AGI

      It was the air, see title of post.

      I would suggest op stocks up on old mac's that work for them. At least have one backup device to fallback on.

      Or a long shot, maybe try a warranty return. Play dumb and mention there's a flicker in the screen. You maybe sent a new one that could be ok, if it's related purely to the display hardware.

      • AGI replied to this.
        • [deleted]

        I looked at the same M1 one in the store and could not stand it. Immediate eye strain in just a few minutes. I don't think there are much to tweak, your best shot is to return it, use the one you're comfortable with and wait for the next model.

        15 days later

        thorpee

        My bad, sorry.

        Anyhow, I must now use a Mac Mini at work. As soon as I looked at the display last Friday, I got immediate eyestrain and neck tension. Horrible experience for the moment. I will see if symptoms diminish with time, but I am not very positive.

          I bought a Macbook air M1 and the first day or so had a strain, but now i dont have a problem. Ive been looking at the new iMac and instore that seems fine to me. I cant use Windows 10 because of the eye strain/headaches so this may well be my replacement for my 7 years old Windows 8.1 machine.

          • AGI likes this.

          The more I read about dithering for color, the more I feel this is a very overlooked issue.

          Check this page out regarding temporal dithering and look at the very slowed down image and see if it makes you feel weird. Please also read their data.

          It is my belief that dithering is used for HDR. I'm still trying to verify this. If so, this explains why all of the current TVs are out of my reach.

            Clokwork It is my belief that dithering is used for HDR. I'm still trying to verify this. If so, this explains why all of the current TVs are out of my reach.

            I think the HDR "certifications" only "mandate" that displays are native 8-bit, all else is kind of "ad-hoc", but I could be wrong. 😐

              JTL

              Thanks for that. I will need to see what the full requirements are and what manufacturers do to meet them.

              • JTL replied to this.

                Off the top, the color gamut could be where dithering is used as a trick? I’m firing in the dark here.

                Clokwork

                Their example with the GTX 1650 further confirms our finding here that newer Nvidia GPU always dither, even when dithering is turned off in Nvidia settings on Linux. They say it’s likely due to a driver bug. I’m pretty sure this communities suspicion that it’s set to always dither in the vbios is more correct.

                I was reading (here possibly) that AMD cards may have more direct ways to disable dithering. If I find this to be true, I will be building a full AMD PC here soon. I’ve wanted a good excuse to upgrade, but this would be a very good reason to do so.

                  Clokwork Just a heads up. I've only confirmed that's the case with the Radeon Pro W55500 under Linux.

                  I haven't completed my testing, but I have reason to believe other Radeon cards may not be okay for dithering.

                  I'm noticing big issues in OS versions on Mac devices. It has nothing at all to do with dithering

                  3 months later

                  Apple deciding to use temporal dithering from here on out 100% excludes me from their lineup. Somehow my iPhone X works for me. Seems it will be my last i device unfortunately.

                    Clokwork Mee too! The Iphone X is one of the best device i've ever had. Zero eye strain..
                    Honestly i've never tried other recent iphone, but next year i will try to change it.

                      Clokwork

                      Lauda89

                      It's odd that the X works for you guys, I wonder what makes it different than the later OLED iPhones. The X was extremely harsh on my eyes, just like the 11, 12, and 13.

                      Do either of you have issues with any of the modern iPads or Macs?

                        bkdo

                        I absolutely do. All of the new products with screens that apple makes currently are unusable for me. I wish I could get apple to confirm, but I am close to 100% certain my issue is temporal dithering. This is the only common factor I have found across displays I have issues with. PWM doesn't bother me apparently according to what I use currently.

                          dev