Videos of MacBook Air M2 flickering

Rikl Unfortunately I don't think I had good luck.

PWM-like flicker on solid colors detected on slow-motion camera on MacBook Air (M1, 2020), exactly the same as MacBook Air M2. Even when Stillcolor is enabled.

The only Apple Silicon MacBook that I've used at all so far that does not flicker on camera at all is the M2 Touch Bar MacBook Pro.

Will upload a video recording sometime later if any of y'all want to see it

Also, the first M1 Air is late 2020, not early 2020. An early 2020 MacBook Air would be the very last Intel one, not M1. Does it say M1 in your About This Mac?

EDIT: This post is outdated!

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Finished trying out the M1 Air on both 13.0 and 13.6.6. PSA y'all the M1 Air (at least mine) flickers on camera on gray backgrounds even when dithering is disabled in the same exact way that two M2 Airs I tested also flickered. M1 Air is affected by this too.

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(EDIT: weirdly enough, although it's true this flicker exists on the M1 Air too — it somehow doesn't seem to bother me on the M1 Air, unlike the M2…)

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Max brightness, no True Tone, no auto brightness, @2x resolution, no lights on in the room, it's bright outside so no artificial light coming in from outside either.

I also made sure to test with BetterDisplay mirroring and other color profiles, and these did not stop or affect the flicker in any way.

For those curious: On M2 Airs, I also tried essentially every IOKit frame buffer registry item possible to modify, both on/off and numeric ones, and they did not stop the M2 Air flicker. I do not think any of them will stop M1 Air flicker either.

The ONLY Apple Silicon MacBook that is flicker free to my iPhone 14 Pro camera is the M2 Touch Bar Pro.

I have previously verified that this is not a camera grain-induced issue by placing the M2 Touch Bar Pro next to two M2 Airs and filming them all side by side at 240hz slow motion showing the same dark gray Stone solid color wallpaper. Two M2 Airs flicker (and we now know the M1 Air flickers too) — but the Touch Bar Pro didn't flicker at all.

In summary…

Even with Stillcolor:

(By "PWM-like" I mean flicker can be captured on my phone camera at 240hz, vs. temporal dithering which usually can't be picked up on camera at all.)

M1 Max Pro 14" mini-LED flickers — PWM & very likely TCON-level dithering

Two M2 Airs (each with unique panel) flickers — PWM-like

M1 Air flickers — PWM-like, just like M2 Air (EDIT: but more comfortable for some reason?)

M2 Touch Bar Pro does not flicker on camera at all, as long as the Touch Bar is turned off and Stillcolor is active.

madmozg A little bit of a misunderstanding — the Touch Bar does not affect the flicker of the main screen.

However, the Touch Bar itself is an OLED display that uses super intense PWM — easily seen on any slow motion camera — which means you'll always feel like it's flickering in the bottom edge of your vision unless it's turned off (by setting it to a pure black screen).

The Touch Bar does not affect anything about the actual main 13-inch panel though.

It's just that the Touch Bar is also a display in itself with its own flicker problem (because it's OLED).

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs You are correct. January 2021. 12/2020 manufactured.

Donux i was testing the Air with both charger plugged in and without, both flickered just as much on camera

DannyD2 Just ordered a second M2 Touch Bar Pro (returned the first TB Pro as it had a strong yellow tint to the right of the screen. Thankfully the new one does not!)

EDIT: Second one ended up being WAY worse in strain. It had an entirely different panel that was much less comfortable despite looking sharper and more uniform at first. Panel lottery is VERY real here.

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The second M2 Touch Bar Pro also does not flicker on camera!!

BTW, a close to maxed out M2 Touch Bar Pro with 24GB ram and 1TB SSD can be bought for only $1609 USD on the official refurbished store. Base model is $999. As mine looks essentially brand new out of the box — by "Apple Store standards" $1609 is honestly a pretty good price for this condition and specs! Looks like 1TB just went out of stock however

In conclusion:

M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor is my one and only recommended true flicker-free Apple Silicon MacBook.

EDIT: ONLY THE ONES THAT HAVE "00000000" IN PANEL ID

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M1 Air flickered displaying dark gray on my iPhone 14 Pro camera. Two M2 Airs also flickered. Others report M3 Airs have flickered. My 14" mini-LED MacBook Pro flickered. Both M2 Touch Bar Pro 13" LCD I have tried do not flicker. Just make sure to turn off the OLED Touch Bar!

It's insane how the "weird" M2 touch bar MacBook that reviewers said "why would anyone buy this?" ends up being the one and only Apple Silicon MacBook that doesn't flicker on camera. It feels like discovering a secret I wasn't supposed to know

EDIT: It is true that both M2 TB Pros did not flicker on camera, but only ONE was comfortable.

Interesting: Even my 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro, which many say is PWM-free (despite having really bad temporal dithering that is currently impossible to disable, even after applying known AMD and Intel dither disable methods)… also has a flickering screen on dark gray backgrounds when capturing it through my iPhone 14 Pro camera.

I also have a 2015 12" butterfly keyboard MacBook that I was able to successfully, noticeably disable dithering on, and find pretty decently usable (compared to the 15" which I have a lot of trouble using), and it also flickers on camera when showing dark gray! It's a little bit milder though.

This means the M2 Touch Bar Pro remains my only MacBook to appears entirely flicker-free to my iPhone 14 Pro in slow motion, even compared to two Intel Macs!

Is my 14 Pro camera advanced in some way that it can detect PWM that is difficult for other cameras to see?

It's not flickering induced by the camera itself, because I've tested many shades of gray in slow motion on the M2 Touch Bar Pro — and on that laptop, nothing ever flickers to the camera at all. Instead, all I see when filming the M2 TB Pro is the same subtle graininess and very small banding shifts that I also get when filming a solid real life object in natural sunlight.

My M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor is literally more comfortable than many Intel Macs I've tried:

• 2015 15" rMBP (looks crisp but pretty uncomfortable to use, both in Intel and AMD modes)
• 2015 12" MacBook (most comfortable Intel Mac by far! actually very close, but flickers on camera and some backgrounds look hazy/"tiring" to me so the M2 TB Pro wins!)
• 2016 13" MBP Touch Bar (old laptop I used to own. was decently usable, decently crisp, but was uncomfortable enough when working on long documents that I would "subconcoously" end up switching back to an old PC many times for heavy work)
• 2018 13" rMBA (very bad on macOS, decent-ish on Windows)
• 2020 13" Intel MBP (very bad, just like 2018 Air)
• 2021 14" M1 Max MBP ( LOL)
• 2020 13" M1 Air (dried out left eye, long text sometimes looks flickery even with Stillcolor)
• 2022 13" M2 Air (pain in left eye, long text looked flickery even with Stillcolor)

M2 TB Pro is more comfortable than all of these.

I think we have a winner!

DannyD2

Here are the raw-panel-serial-number values.

EDIT: WARNING, the "Uniform Panel" (FMX) actually causes SIGNIFICANTLY MORE STRAIN! Despite possible uniformity issues, the "Tinted Panel" is actually MUCH more comfortable for sensitive users.

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"Uniform Panel" M2 TB Pro: (uniform colors! slightly more greenish on left but I have to REALLY squint to see it)

EDIT: This "Uniform Panel" caused bad strain and nasuea for both me and others here. AVOID!

FMX229114YDNTJHAM+GE1S2405893931+PROD+B214121852196+11228722228722228722228710+K12120392K12220403+645052209KW80A00TTCYYGAHN62628520+S252891HR1S252891HR1S252891HR1S252891H

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"Tinted Panel" M2 TB Pro: (comfortable, but had the infamous "Yellow Tint" and a VERY obvious shift in whites from reddish on the left to greenish on right half in a very noticeable way.

EDIT: The "Tinted Panel" seems to NOT cause strain. No nausea! I actually recommend the Tinted Panel (00000000 in panel ID), especially if you can find one that doesn't have the noticeable uniformity defect that mine had! So far, others have had luck in finding much more uniform Tinted Panels!

F0Y235201ADNTJGAW+000000000P11C5+PROD+Y000000000000+00000000000000000000000000+PY19N0709PA07N0717+6755DKF4P9002214TTTYYW1EA80526916+S6896893Z8S6896893Z8S68968932US6896893

(yes it actually had that many zeroes)

BTW: My M1 Air's panel for comparison…

FP1223202CVP3WVBD+5AQK240320A9JA+PROD+Y218621852194+2122321L22322122322B223220+K10720181K11620413+5425A2205KT30T00TTUYYJY5A41424483+S23D688Z79S23D688Z79S23D688Z79S23D688Z

Both of the M2 TB Pro panels I've tested have REALLY deep black levels. These are very unique panels from any other Mac. I do not remember any Intel MacBook Pros — even the very final early 2020 Intel model — having black levels anywhere close to what these can do.

Somehow, this does not make things look "too high contrast" as these panels are able to somehow have amazing black levels AND have the lowest eye strain of any Apple Silicon MacBook! Since I used to associate deeper blacks with strain in the past, this is actually very surprising and satisfying to me. (In comparison, the M1 Air has much more "typical" LCD black levels with a bluish IPS glow.)

EDIT: this is only true on "00000000" Tinted Panels. On "FMX" Uniform Panels, it actually DOES look "too high contrast" and causes strain.

By the way, are you running Stillcolor already? If you aren't yet, definitely install it as it is still needed for the laptop to become truly flicker-free.

madmozg I can easily see with my peripheral eyesight how darker objects are flickering on MBA M2.

With MBA M2 I'm also having dry eyes and very slight symptoms because of that small pwm, I wish I can turn that sht off

Yup exactly. I was able to notice the same thing with the M2 Air flickering in the corner of my vision with my own eyes too! Especially while reading long blocks of text like the software update terms and conditions popup. It didn't matter whether Stillcolor was activated, I could still notice flicker.

Also get dry eyes when looking at the M2 Air (especially my left eye).

However, surprisingly, it's not purely because of "basic IPS" that strain is lower on the M2 TB Pro — because the M1 Air also has "basic IPS" with no notch, but actually flickers on camera in the same way the M2 Air does!

EDIT: Even though both M1 Air and M2 Air flicker with a "slight brightness dip after each frame" in a 240hz recording — I actually find the M1 Air MUCH more comfortable than the M2 Air!

So this specific type of flicker may not actually be the "core" problem, at least for me.

It's something else about the M2 Air that makes it "worse" than both the M1 Air (which ALSO flickers on camera) and TB Pros (which DON'T flicker on camera).

As we know, the M2 TB Pro doesn't flicker on camera, so the M1 Air and M2 TB Pro panels are entirely different beasts despite appearing nearly the same in Apple's official spec comparison.

I highly suspect the M2 Pro has a true 8-bit display.

In comparison, my M1 Air unit had a noticeable "scanline-like alternating pattern" (which the TB Pro doesn't) when I looked really close up at the pixels.

EDIT: After using the M1 Air for much longer, I do not think this is FRC.

The M1 Air certainly has a "every other scanline alternates between brighter and darker in a striped pattern" quality to its LCD that the M2 TB Pro doesn't, but it doesn't bother me.

The M2 Touch Bar Pro seems to have no TCON-level temporal dithering at all. All temporal dithering on the TB Pro seems to happen exclusively on the GPU and can be entirely disabled. Static elements like a non-blinking text cursor become entirely still to me after activating Stillcolor on the M2 TB Pro.

EDIT: only true on Touch Bar Pros with "00000000" in panel ID. TB Pros with "FMX" panels still feel like they're "moving" even with Stillcolor.

This is very unique from both the M1 and M2 Air, where even with Stillcolor it feels like something is still ever so slightly moving around the text cursor.

madmozg MBP 13 TB is good, but the display is so small and outdated in compare with 15-16 inches..

Honestly, I see the outdated screen form factor with large bezels to be actually helpful in reducing eye strain!

I've always had problems with all screens with slim bezels, since in order to look at the corner of the screen my eyes need to figure out whether to focus at close distance… but then start drifting away and suddenly attempt to a huge focus shift to whatever is behind the screen, since the bezel is so close to where the screen ends and the rest of the real world starts. My eyes get really confused whether they should be looking at the edge of the screen or whatever is behind the screen and keep alternating back and forth.

I love screens with large bezels and I will defend chunky bezels until the end of time, as it gives my eyes "breathing room" to much more to easily focus and lock onto the very corners of the screen.

I agree that it's very unfortunate there isn't any Apple Silicon laptop like the M2 Touch Bar Pro with a larger than 13" screen. I can't speak much on this though, as I generally prefer 13" or smaller screens because they help me move around more — I can easily use my laptop in a bunch of different places and postures throughout the day. 15" displays are cool, they look awesome on a desk, but IMO they end up not being versatile enough for my workflow.

In the end, I'll take a fully usable laptop with still very much modern internals (the M2 TB Pros, EDIT: specifically the ones with comfortable panels) over an unusable laptop with more fashionable aesthetics (the M2/M3 Air) any day.

In addition, outside of the ugly Touch Bar, I still think everything else about the M2 TB Pro looks very beautiful!

I am SO satisfied that I have found a Mac laptop from the current decade — one that still has more powerful hardware than any other laptop I own — that finally works for me. That is something to cherish.

EDIT:

This laptop ended up being the M1 Air for me instead because I was tired of playing the M2 TB Pro panel lottery LOL

On the other hand, I got a good panel M1 Air with "no glare" first try!

Even though there is an additional "PWM-like flickering issue" seen on all M1/M2/M3 Airs — it does not seem to affect me on specifically the [M1] Air!

This was surprising, because I can't use the [M2] Air. That means this "brightness dips" flicker is probably NOT the culprit though, because I can use [M1] Air fine despite it flickering on camera too.

However, I still recommend M2 TB Pros with comfortable panels ("00000000" in ID), because they are the ONLY Apple Silicon MacBooks that have no "camera-detectable PWM" if that matters to you!

However, I do NOT recommend M2 TB Pros with "FMX" in the panel ID.

By the way, I just sold my previous 14" mini-LED MacBook Pro. I am never looking at it again in my entire life.