bpo19 So which between the two would you recommend I try first? M2 TB Pro or M1 Air?
M2 TB Pro, since it does not have the backlight flicker and if it successfully works for you, it's the most powerful option with the newest possible hardware. However, if the screen feels like it's straining you because it has too much glare, or the contrast of black colors is too high, then try M1 Air.
Make sure to install and run Stillcolor on everything you test!
(For M2 TB Pro, also make sure to turn off the OLED Touch Bar, by setting the default Touch Bar view to Quick Actions and disable the control strip in System Settings -> Keyboard -> Touch Bar Settings. Change Fn key view to Expanded Control Strip so you can still show brightness/volume keys temporarily by holding Fn.)
M1 Air is definitely "easier on the eyes" in a purely "contrast and colors" sense, even though it does have the issue of detectable PWM on camera at all brightness levels. So depending on how sensitive you are to PWM, it could either be way better, or worse.
The M1 Air's flickering issue only has a mild flicker depth, though — so even though I really don't like the PWM on my OLED iPhone 14 Pro and feel dizzy when trying to do any serious work on my iPhone's display when I'm not outdoors… in the M1 Air's case, I actually don't seem to mind the PWM that much.
I do notice it, but it feels like it's actually within the threshold where I can get used to it and start to filter it out. For example, it's actually causing less strain for me using the Air at really low brightness, even though running at lower brightness "technically increases the amount of PWM even further". I guess the additional low-brightness PWM is fast enough of a frequency to not affect me.
(However, I can definitely tell that the main "detectable flicker at all brightness levels on dark grays" issue is making dark mode apps more straining to read than light mode apps on M1 Air — in comparison, this doesn't happen for me on the M2 TB Pro.)
You can also buy two of the same e.g. M2 TB Pros with same specs and return one in order to compare which one ended up with a better panel, or buy both the M2 TB Pro and the M1 Air to directly compare them side by side and return one, etc.
In my case I pretty much did all of those at once to try to figure out which single laptop I'm going to keep. I just kept all of them indoors and wiped them before I returned, and was able to return multiple laptops at once (that I originally bought from the official online refurbished store) at my local Apple Store without issue.
If neither of them work really the only option is to buy and return again to see if you end up with another type of panel. If even after that neither the M2 TB Pro or the M1 Air is working for you, you're basically out of options for usable modern Macs unfortunately.
bpo19 what condition apple's refurbished products mean? Is it in like brand new condition
Yep, all the refurbished Macs I bought are in basically brand new condition, no scratches, fresh battery. Honestly can't tell them apart from an "actual" brand new product. Only issue I've had was one MBP had an obvious display panel color tint defect, but all the others have been indistinguishable from new condition so far. They also still have the same 14-day return policy.
bpo19 Which windows laptops are useable for you?
I haven't bought a new Windows laptop in forever, but this ancient 2012 Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13" with Windows 8.1 I've owned for 11 years (that somehow still works) works great for me as a simple laptop for web browsing and as a remote desktop client to comfortably use a Mac through its screen.
https://ledstrain.org/d/2677-working-using-macos-strain-free-with-old-pc-and-remote-desktop
Disclaimer: it actually has the same type of "PWM flickering on dark grays detectable on camera at all brightness levels issue" too, but it pretty much doesn't affect me at all on this laptop, it's fully usable for me and I can be extremely productive working through its screen into my remote desktop setup. I always use it at 100% brightness.
Temporal dithering on it can be entirely disabled with ditherig.exe to the point where it drops all the way down to a pure six-bit image with tons of banding.
I was actually planning to finally switch away from Mac entirely and start evaluating new Windows laptops instead this year, but then Stillcolor released out of nowhere… so plans changed and now I'm trying a MacBook one final time.
Definitely going to look into a new Windows/Linux laptop sometime in the future, but don't need one yet though.
