Booted up 13" M2 Pro TB with Ventura 13.6.6.
Both the refurbished Air and refurbished TB Pro are more comfortable than the base model Air.
However, text feels weirdly blurry on TB Pro in a unique way — I don't feel this on the refurb Air or even the bad base model Air. Not related to 13.6.6 as it was on 13.2 before an auto update happened and text also felt kinda blurry there too. Auto update is disabled on the Airs and now is disabled on the TB Pro too.
All at 1280 width resolution (native 2x scaling), all have True Tone off, all have Night Shift off, all are at max brightness. Touch Bar is disabled on M2 Pro TB.
All 3 Macs now have Stillcolor and dithering disabled.
Both refurb M2 Air and M2 TB Pro feel way better than the base model M2 Air which is immediately way more unstable, more fuzzy looking especially on light backgrounds, and more straining to look at compared to the other two.
There's also a really strange panel variation with TB Pro where whites start reddish on left and then become greenish on right… totally noticeable and can even be captured on camera. Not related to Wallpaper Tinting as it occurs with it off.
uniformity2D on (default) has blotches on both refurb and base M2 Airs when dithering is disabled, and can fix blotches on both by disabling uniformity2D.
However, even though uniformity2D can successfully be modified on the TB Pro, it actually doesn't even have blotches when dithering is disabled anyway. This confirms that Macs with rounded displays like the M2 Air use additional color calibrations by default, compared to rectangular screens like the TB Pro.
Due to this, I don't notice any changes enabling or disabling it on the TB Pro at first glance, but will have to test more thoroughly with Software Brightness etc.
I'll test the 10 bit banding test image on all of them to see if the "millions of colors" display (the TB Pro) has more bands than the others or if they all look the same if dithering is disabled.
Base model M2 Air is going back for sure. Will mostly be testing refurb M2 Air vs. refurb M2 TB Pro with some real work now, seems like that's what I'll need to do to understand which one causes more or less strain.
On a side note, aside from the screen, the ergonomics and weight of the TB Pro is essentially perfect for me (except for the Touch Bar…), and on the other hand, I love the visual aesthetics of the M2 Air although it is much less ergonomic to me and noticeably more "fragile feeling" than the TB Pro.
And of course, having real function keys on the M2 Air makes me really want the Air to be the one that works out for me. Going to have to test really in depth here.
