Rikl interesting part is that on the M2 Airs, yep I definitely had two totally different panels between them, panel lottery is real:
- one was sharp, had reddish tint, good anti glare coating, it felt "like it's own distinct panel"
- one was blurry, had heavy greenish tint, really bad glare, it felt like "they took the same type of panel from the 14" and shoved it in the Air but without the mini-LEDs"
Unfortunately, despite the panel variation, both flickered just as much on camera when displaying the same colors.
⚠️EDIT: IGNORE BELOW: THE M1 AIR FLICKERS
Only the M2 Touch Bar Pro is truly flicker free!!⚠️
However, I'm more confident about the M1 Air and Touch Bar Pros being flicker-free in general, because color accuracy wise I actually got a "defective" panel on my M2 Touch Bar Pro test device — heavy color tint, really weird gradient effect where it looks reddish on left and greenish on right, it also starts to feel blurry on the right.
But despite ending up with a worse quality panel, the Touch Bar Pro is actually flicker-free on camera, Stillcolor works perfectly (nothing looks like it's moving at all), and actually does not cause the kinds of eye strain that I experienced with the M2 Airs!
This makes it very likely that all M1 Airs are also flicker-free on camera (despite still having the general issue of panel variation), given the very similar "old type of screen" as the Touch Bar Pros — they both don't have the Liquid Retina branding, and both would not need the backlight tweaks needed for a notch or rounded corners. Edit: NOPE the M1 Air flickers just like the M2 Air on camera
I've actually decided to pick up an M1 Air to test soon, so I will test for flicker on whichever panel I get and am likely to report my findings later this week!