ledstrain2024 That's a 180 on your original position. I'd be interested to know what made you change your mind?
Using it indoors more made me realize this — since it actually is pretty good outdoors even today, but when at my desk and in some other buildings (type of lighting doesn't matter) I used it in I was thinking something felt pretty off.
Nothing changed BTW, this is still the same M1 Air I've had since day one on the same macOS version. If you read back in the Stillcolor thread you can also see the flaws I had pointed out about the M1 Air display even immediately after receiving it. You might be remembering when I said that "it's the best you can get with an Apple Silicon Mac" but in the wider realm of laptops I don't think I've ever claimed it was perfect.
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As I mentioned, I was still getting a good amount of work done on the Air (unlike the M1 14") especially with a matte screen protector. I was even learning some new complex software, reading some long articles, sorting through lots of files, which was a good sign as that's the kind of stuff that would kill me on the 14"…
But one day I was feeling pretty tired and felt like I didn't want to work on the laptop. Since I actually wasn't sure if my tiredness was coming from the screen or other factors (the air quality that day was pretty bad), I booted up my 2012 Lenovo again and boom, it felt like my tiredness instantly stopped and I then proceeded to get 10x amount of work done in the second half of the day.
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What I've realized my issue is with whatever the M1 Air is doing is that the screen always feels "too close to me" at any distance (except for outdoors where this issue seems to not happen) which causes it to go totally double vision when trying to read it using the same exact eye motions I would use on a truly good display. I can put in effort to bring it back together of course but then that's when the strain starts.
Matte screen protector actually fixes many of the other issues, for example it eliminates the "glow", looks way flatter, reduces brightness, no more glare etc… again, on M1 Max 14" with the same type of screen protector this didn't work so the Air is better in many ways in a relative sense.
(but also running Asahi Linux significantly reduces the "glow" too without needing the protector, which makes me really confused what the screen/DCP firmware is even doing to cause this. It's not just regular temporal dithering because I can totally see temporal flicker in Linux too but the glow is much less. The double vision issue still remains.)
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However, the "double vision" issue remains (indoors) and that makes up the core of what's wrong with the Air for me.
BTW, if you're wondering if patching helps with this, it does and the screen is no longer able to go double! It also feels like I can process more on the screen at the same time.
This is another "win", as on the M1 Max 14" patching either did not improve productivity at all (would still get immediately tired) or sometimes made strain even worse.
But the fact the double vision issue indoors exists in the first place, when a truly good screen like my 2012 Lenovo "can be used without any patching at all and can present an extremelt information dense UI to me in a way that feels like I can see every single icon and button all at the same time", means the M1 Air ultimately doesn't live up to the criteria of a screen that is able to "cross the threshold".
My 2012 Lenovo Yoga 13 with Windows 8.1 and ditherig.exe remains one of the only few screens I know that can.
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I can put my 2012 Lenovo and the Air side by side, focus perfectly on some text on the Lenovo, then while maintaining that exact same focal point I shift over to the Air and that screen appears double to me instead. That's what confirmed I just can't focus on them in the same way, at least indoors.
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Also I never have really thought that the M1 Air is perfect, because if I recall my whole comparison of 2 M2 Touch Bar Pro models and the M1 Air…
I had to settle for M1 Air in the end because previously, the first Touch Bar Pro I tested with "000000" ID panel — despite feeling pretty comfortable (more than M1 Air TBH) and no detectable PWM — had really bad uniformity issues (even worse yellow tint than usual, and white backgrounds totally changed color on the right half of the screen, this would not work for me as I am a UI/UX designer).
I returned it excepting the second one to be the exact same but without the uniformity issue. At this point I had traveled somewhere else hours away meaning I had to regrettably return the first one before leaving. I had also already sold my terrible 14" Pro at this point. However, instead, my second M2 Touch Bar unit ended up with a totally different "FMX" ID panel that caused extreme strain and had way too intense oversaturation and contrast.
Since some deadlines were approaching I needed a modern and decently powerful macOS device for, I didn't want to take a gamble on another Touch Bar Pro since there was a high chance it would be another FMX panel.
I wanted to try an M1 Air instead especially as Apple estimated it would ship much faster. Immediately I noticed it had PWM unlike the Touch Bar Pros, but colors and contrast felt more relaxing than the weird "FMX" Touch Bar Pro unit and there wasn't any uniformity issues.
After a week of using it (mostly outdoors), it felt decent enough, way better than the "FMX" M2 TB which I couldn't use even outdoors. I knew with the addition of detectable PWM on camera filming the M1 Air, I wasn't getting something totally ideal, but it was definitely not "mini-LED bad".
Since in the end I always have my 2012 laptop remote desktop setup to fall back on that's why I (semi-begrudgingly) kept the Air.
Given that the M1 Air is usable enough oudoors and I can remote into it instead while I'm indoors, it's okay enough where I don't "hate looking at it for even just seconds to a few minutes" like I always felt with the M1 Max 14".
It serves its purpose as a stopgap as I ultimately find a way to migrate my entire workflow to Windows in the future where I at least have more options than a full lock-in to one brand and one display.
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Even though there's obviously still some bad flickery Windows laptop displays I've spotted especially in newer devices, I personally have never seen any IPS LCD Windows laptop (aside from a newer MS Surface) that's had that unique brand of "twitching vibrating pulsating false 3D depth stickiness attention grabbing total distortion of perspective nothing is ever locked into one solid position display effect" that even the better Apple products have. Meanwhile I sit next to someone with a new MacBook and notice all of those issues immediately even if I'm not the one using it.
To be clear this is only in regards to internal laptop displays. On the other hand, I've definitely seen these kinds of issues on many PC desktop monitors and TVs.
Even older and very usable Apple devices like the iPad mini 2 I've never had huge issues with still manage to carry this "effect" in some small way, which in that case isn't too noticeable at first until I put it next to an old Android and it becomes clear which one is really still.
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However you're correct in that I wouldn't reccomend the M1 Air to any screen-sensitive user at this point. It's also almost certainly the last Apple product I will ever buy for a long time.
This sucks as I love the keyboard and trackpad ergonomics of macOS, Logic Pro, the ecosystem, the development environment etc.
But at this point I've accumulated enough old Apple devices and enough methods of using them comfortably enough for those purposes. I've accepted that (due to the direction Apple is continually heading and dwindling support for old devices) Apple products are simply no longer suitable as my daily driver.
Each time I use someone else's Windows laptop, even when they still cause strain or I notice flicker, it's clear to me every single time that even the bad ones just do not have "that infamous Apple display feel".
And my personal "reference device" (my 2012 Lenovo laptop with LG IPS LGD0360 panel) has proven to me that bad screens and display drivers are the issue, not my vision. When I use that laptop it's almost as if I have a totally different set of eyes because of how consistently rewarding and productive it is to use. And I'm saying that even considering it still has some mild PWM. My endgame setup is quite literally if I can find another laptop that feels like that plus zero PWM.
Sorry for the extremely long post but I strive to document my experience in a way where others online in the future arriving here from a web search, etc. may find it useful 🙂