I just received a MacBook Air M2 few days ago and I noticed that the display flickers even more than old MacBook Pro, and especially with gray colors (worse temporal dithering?) My config is: 8 core GPU / 16GB / 512 SSD

Here's a slow-mo comparison video with my MacBook Pro 13 2018 (both at max brightness, filmed at 720p 240fps) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuuoJR-4BU

Another slow-mo video on Safari : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwLl_lbq0Zs

    This is pretty atrocious.. you should take these videos and post them in the MacRumors forum.

    @insta42014 Thanks for joining the forum and thanks for this video. Given you see it at the highest brightness I think calling this PWM can be ruled out.

    +1 to posting on MacRumors (or giving me permission to post your videos on there 🙂).

      ryans I remembered where I have seen this sort of shimmer before.. several years back, one of the Microsoft Surface tablets had that problem. I wanted to show the video of it here but I never found the link again. It was doing the same shimmering, MS had to push out a new Intel graphics driver to fix it, I don't think it was a hardware fault.

      @insta42014 If you feel up to it after reading about it, can you run the Asahi Linux install script? The purpose of doing so is because not having a GPU driver, it's all software drawing. If the shimmering stops, then we know it is a software issue.. but if it doesn't, then the problem is deeper. Installing it won't remove MacOS, it just makes another partition and you can dual-boot between them.

        try to boot in safe mode and record it again

        Sunspark I am determined to try Ashai Linux but I was thinking of using a Mac Mini since HDMI ports are working on that but not Mac Air yet

        8 days later

        Some M1 Air also had that flickering. How do you solve it? It is better to return it to the store.

        11 days later

        insta42014 Do you remember which charger you were using with it and if you had it plugged in while you recorded these?

        the123blackjack I just asked them with a comment about why they didn’t see a flickering even though insta42014 was able to record some.

        If you guys could also comment under the newest Macbook Air M2 review at notebookcheck or ask the author of it on twitter we could potentially get some insight!

        2 months later

        Are the M2 air and 2018 MBP running the same version of Mac OS?

          One possible explanation might be the use of display panels from different vendors. I first noticed eye strain /pain from a Macbook Air in 2012. It had an LG display. I ordered another and got one with a display made by Samsung. That one was okay. No eye strain or pain. At one point I remember getting one with a display made by AUOptronics, which also gave me eye strain / pain.

          There used to be a command that would show which display panel a macbook had. It seems apple has disabled command that in Monterey.

            asus389 Yes

            caboy My MacBook Pro 13 2018 has a LG panel and I had severe eyestrain before using Iris to avoid PWM and disabling dithering, now it's okay. I think that disabling the touch bar which has PWM also helps (I use the Hide My Bar app). I also calibrate my display to 6000K using i1 Display Pro colorimeter and it makes the display nicer to look at and less agressive

              insta42014 interesting thanks. I can use my 2017 on default settings except I turn off the keyboard backlight which I think flickers. Mine doesn’t have a Touch Bar. If I upgrade the OS past Catalina I start getting eye strain they are doing something different with graphics in the newer OS versions I think.

                insta42014

                What is Iris? Would be interested in checking that out.

                asus389

                My work macbook is a 2019 mbp. It was good until Big Sur. Upgrading to Monterey hurt immediately. I think you are correct. It seems like in the new OS versions this is the default.

                  dev