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

karut It's recorded at 720p 240fps with iPhone 7

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 🙂).

insta42014 i am not understanding this if you check notebookbookcheck review they said there is no PWM and no Temporal Dithering

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.

If you have an external monitor, do you see the same shimmering? What about changing to sRGB color profile ?

try to boot in safe mode and record it again

ryans Yes you can post it on MacRumors if you want I tried sRGB color profile, color calibration, safe mode and the flickering is the same Here's a slow-mo recording in recovery mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0mVlkf61KE I just returned it today so I I couldn't do more tests

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

Videos of MacBook Air M2 flickering

Alfort

insta42014 was there an improvement on your MacBook Air M2? I got one delivered yesterday and the screen felt uncomfortable to me. When I was on the shop I had a first bad reaction to the screen and the one on a MacBook Pro 14 inch M2 looked much better, but I thought to get the Air at home and have a proper look. I also made yesterday a 240 fps video for both the Air and a MacBook Pro 15'' 2015 and both showed artefacts blinking but much more noticeable on the Air.

Also anyone that has been able to compare the screen on the MacBook Air M2 and the MacBook Pro 14'' M1/M2? I'm thinking on getting the latter but it has PWM

madmozg

Alfort I tried MBP 14 m2, its still bad unfort 🙁 well its better than MBP 16 m1, but still giving me brain fog which is not acceptable to use on a daily basis. There is a guy on youtube who is using some interesting device to measure PWM, here is a video for MBA m2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urB2xtr3h3c It doesn't look that bad as iphone or especially as samsung s23, so I assume we getting problems with eyes because of FRC, i think current macbooks are using 8bit + FRC display, but i might be wrong.

markdotpeters5

madmozg this is abou as good as any display gets, it's very very low. Lower than the iPhone 11 which is frequently the 'go to' device for people suffering with PWM sensitivity (like me).

It seems this Air might have been faulty to me, as many many other people have commented it has no PWM/temporal dithering and is fine to use.

AGI

I can't believe that a device that costs that much isn't checked against flickering. What a shame.

Apple-Meta-USA

Any Solution ?

Apple-Meta-USA

I‘ve the same on my MBA M2, by iPhone 240fps recording (slow-mo)!

It's not caused by temporal dithering since i disabled dithering by using StillColor!

Apple-Meta-USA

So WTF is that ?

Same as the video shows, which provided by the Owner of this thread on the top.

Blooey

Does the flicker only show up only for certain patterns? Is it certain colors, or is it all colors? Does it only affect darker shades? Is there a known website or image with the effect that I could test under slow-motion?

The answers to those questions could help narrow down the source of the problem.

TemporalDithering

Is that the backlight of the panel flickering?

I can’t believe a screen flickering like that is allowed to be sold on the market. The level of modulation seems to be very high. Do we know what frequency it is?

JTL

TemporalDithering I can’t believe a screen flickering like that is allowed to be sold on the market.

As I understand it, there aren't really any regulations for product safety in this department. And attempts at certification (i.e TUV) seemingly have glaring holes that make the certification not worth the paper they're printed on.

The level of modulation seems to be very high. Do we know what frequency it is?

I don't have the device at issue on hand, but at some point I might investigate how to measure flicker/modulation percentage and other aspects with waveform capture using an oscilloscope, but that's yet another project I potentially need to work on. I wouldn't exactly trust the Lupin and other portable flicker meters for accuracy.

Donux

Maybe getting LG Gram laptop will surely at least make sure that panel is from LG. From notebook check it seams like their panels are of higher quality than the rest of Chinese factories. Regarding certification, I have come to conclusion its obsolete. Generally certification does not work, there needs to be actual QA stamp with flicker free test results in the similar fashion as colour grading is done. This will make sure every single unit is tested, rather then product line itself with one or two units actually tested.

Note however, problem probably is not PWM anymore. I picked up my old PWM laptop and it is easier on the eyes than modern laptops. The problem is - there is a big stack of various signal modulation techniques including temporal dithering, and to be honest there is such a mess that nobody knows anymore what is causing these problems. Need to undo the onion slice by slice in order to get to the bottom of it. Or at least find GPU that is transparent in providing full control of firmware controls to the user. Intel, AMD, apple silicon, they all copy from each other, generally the same boat full of crapware.

Apple-Meta-USA

The Panel is always flickering no matter you open still color or not.

Guess the panel is trash level.

Donux

Apple-Meta-USA Well, there is a positive note here. You can easily get a good panel batch (if there is one).

DannyD2

There's probably something wrong at the hardware level with your backlight. I took some 240Hz video of my MBA M2 15-inch this morning and could not reproduce this.

Edit: I gave it another try and managed to reproduce the backlight flicker on my 15 inch MBA M2. The key is to raise the screen brightness to 100% before taking the video, which I hadn't done previously. It's more subtle on my machine than the other posted videos but definitely there. I guess this is an issue with all M2 Airs.

Apple-Meta-USA

DannyD2 Bro, you know what?

After i found the flicker on M2 Air, i returned it in 14days windows.

More devastating is I reproduce it even on M3 Macbook air 13inch and 15inch.

Yes, I've bought both this week. But sure i'll give them returned.

Apple sucks.

madmozg

Apple-Meta-USA How did you find it ?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Has anyone captured this same type of backlight flicker on camera with an M1 Air?

I know they have PWM under 75% but I doubt that they have the same "strong flicker that can easily be captured on camera on dark gray backgrounds" like a really large amount of M2 and M3 Airs seem to have, since their panel is more of the classic edge-lit backlight style a la the Touch Bar Pros.

However, if anyone has used an M1 Air and have captured the same effect, please let me know.

The one thing I know is that the M2 LCD Touch Bar Pro is entirely immune to this issue, despite extremely fast PWM at lower brightness, nothing ever shows up on camera at all no matter if it's at low brightness or high.

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

For M1 Air, Notebookcheck says PWM exists under 50% brightness. Rtings says no PWM at all.

Who knows how they test these things?

For mine, I can't tell. Mine does have significant dithering, solved with Stillcolor.

Still not as comfortable as screens from 10-15 years ago.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Rikl To test on your M1 Air (because this is one way to cause flickering on the M2 Airs): set the "Stone" dark gray solid color wallpaper option in wallpaper settings.

Then, turn brightness to max. Record the screen in 240fps slow motion on your phone camera. Let me know if flickering is visible in the slow motion recording or if it just looks normal playing back.

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

I knew I would find flickering. But I could not see any at the 240fps slow motion.

Maybe some background noise at full brightness? I was trying to be super critical.

I recorded the video in a morning light room.

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

After recording I realized that there were no room lighting LEDs on in the room.

Maybe that's a factor when people find flickering.

I was surprised that I could use the screen in full brightness without nausea.

But not for everyday.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Rikl I knew I would find flickering. But I could not see any at the 240fps slow motion.

Maybe some background noise at full brightness? I was trying to be super critical.

This is a good sign! Only noticing what seems like your camera's own noise on your M1 Air lines up with what I'd call the flicker-free display I saw on the M2 Touch Bar Pro — instead of the 2 flickering M2 Airs I tested which were really obvious in comparison (in those cases, there was actually flashing from darker gray to lighter gray visible in the slow motion recording)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Rikl After recording I realized that there were no room lighting LEDs on in the room.

Maybe that's a factor when people find flickering.

For the M2 Air, that's not the case — I tested the M2 Touch Bar Pro and two M2 Airs all next to each other with no lights on, and the M2 Airs were flickering but the other was not.

So far, it looks like the M1 Air does not have the same easily captured flickering issues that M2 and M3 Airs seem to frequently have, which is reassuring to know.

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