Videos of MacBook Air M2 flickering

Rikl

FWIW. On Blooey's gradient image. my M1 Air loses separation at 7 bits. With Stillcolor.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Rikl Which app are you viewing the image in? FYI, macOS Preview and Quick Look will always apply their own spatial dithering (which is non-moving, unless the app redraws e.g. while scrolling) regardless of any other settings, meaning that it's not really a good app for evaluating the true bit depth of the screen.

Also, by losing separation, do you mean that the bands always stay only as thick as 6-bit even above 6-bit?

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs The macOS framebuffer is never deeper than 10 bit, so some degree of spatial dither is expected when trying to display a 16 bit image like Blooey’s test image.

It’s not that unexpected that the M1 Airs have a six bit panel; they’d be the deal of the century if they had a true 8-bit panel.

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

It's in Preview. I mean that the halfing of the bands stops at 7 bit and after that the transition is smooth to the right.

These are horizontal bands that are all the same height. Should I be looking at the image differently?

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Same when set as wallpaper.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DannyD2 Actually really interesting if the M1 Air is 6bit, as the M2 Touch Bar Pro still seems to be 8bit with Stillcolor enabled.

6bit panel but with a 10bit OS frame buffer is a really odd combination, haven't really seen that in many other devices. It's also hard to find any of this info documented anywhere

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Rikl Really strange, just picked up an M1 Air myself and for me the halfing stops at 9 bit (like it did on the M2 Touch Bar Pro) even if Stillcolor has disabled dithering

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I've tried so many solutions before Stillcolor to make the M1 Air "usable", I may still have something set that I forgot about.

The M1 Air is an early 2020. Is it possible I have a left over Intel panel?

Good luck with the new M1.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

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?

Rikl

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

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

EDIT: This post is outdated!

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.

(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…)

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?)

ℹ️M2 Touch Bar Pro does not flicker on camera at all, as long as the Touch Bar is turned off and Stillcolor is active.

madmozg

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs how did you figure out that touch bar is affecting the screen flickering? 🙂

Donux

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I would still argue this is not panel only issue, but GPU or both, as It is still very strainy on external monitor. Clearly apple want to save costs, but also, with flicker, they could achieve amazing battery performance, and I think this is why they did it. But so does microsoft too, their own brand laptops are all using PWM to my knowledge.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

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).

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Just out of curiosity, do you know if anyone has estimated what PWM frequency the OLED Touch Bar itself uses?

BTW, thanks for sharing all your experiences with these machines. You've convinced me to give the M2 TB Pro a try 🙂

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

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. ⚠️ ⬆️

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 ⬆️

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. ⬆️

Donux

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

Donux

I am not sure If I missed something that has been already said, but this flicker test must be performed with charger plugged in as it might be a power conservation strategy of some sort.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

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

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I got my M2 Touch Bar Pro for testing! My preliminary observations are consistent with yours in terms of lack of backlight flicker when recorded at 240Hz (on the main display, anyway; the touch bar is different but that's to be expected).

I was wondering if you could share the output from "ioreg -lw0 | grep -e "panel-serial-number" -e coverglass" on your "good screen" TB Pro machine (and, if you still have it, the "bad screen" TB Pro machine). I think mine is pretty uniform overall, but your eyes are better than mine and I'm curious which type of screen I have.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

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!

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