madmozg Yeah i'm actually having a lot of weirdness with my second M2 Touch Bar Pro after a week of use that's actually making me reconsider a lot of things last minute
My second M2 is "so much more uniform from the first one, pixel perfect details are sharper, there is no weird color tint issue like the first one had…", and it also still doesn't flicker on dark gray on camera.
But…
I swear my second M2 TB has SO much more glare than my first M2 TB. There is definitely something off with my second one's screen or "harshness of backlight" despite it being "much better" in a "technical" way (uniformity, color accuracy, backlight bleed, sharpness)
It's giving me a really weird experience that i usually don't get from screens — even though I can see a lot of UI at once, stuff looks very stable, text is "readable" as i've been saying in previous posts…
It's also making me feel lightheaded and generally disoriented and tense while using it, which my first one definitely did not. This is strange because usually i've only had machines that both "are readable AND cause NO strain", or ones that "I can't focus on at all AND do cause strain".
But this second M2 Pro is really cursed, because it's totally readable and clear BUT is actually hurting my eyes. like, whenever I refocus on the screen, sometimes I feel this "sharp pain" in one of my eyes after I refocus the screen, (and in times when that doesn't happen, I sometimes suddenly feel a little bit dizzy).
I also feel like the screen is way too high contrast, black levels are too deep, it always feels like it's "too high brightness" no matter what i have the brightness level set at. And yet, it still doesn't flicker on dark gray on camera, unlike the M1 Air.
Two things have definitely improved this: turning down contrast in BetterDisplay (FYI, this does not introduce dithering because Stillcolor prevents dithering on color adjustments too), and especially adding a matte screen protector over the display.
But is my second M2 TB PRO truly worth keeping if it has way too much glare, and I feel pain while using it without a matte screen protector?
I don't know, and what I'm starting to really not like about my second M2 TB is that it reminds me of the super high amount of glare that I had on my 14" mini-LED which I also had to use with a matte screen protector. That's not a good thing to be reminded of at all.
On the other hand, my M1 Air is far from perfect and I can sometimes see it flicker, but it at least "does not feel like mini-LED at ALL". My M1 Air has a totally different, lower contrast, "so much less glare" appearance that I suspect I can get used to a lot more easily?
For example, black text on white does NOT "glow" on the M1 Air… but it kinda does on my second M2 TB!?
Usually on other "bad screens" pain coincides with ALSO not being able to process what's on the screen at all, but here, I can keep reading on it, it's still sharp — but also seem to be getting pain from using it.
This may be related to the "really rare" panel I got in my second M2 TB, given that it does not have the long strings of 00000000 that everyone else here (including my first M2 TB) has in their panel ID. I wonder if this "rare" panel has the type of flicker that @photon78s detected on one of their M2 TB panels but not the other?
Despite this panel being very good "technically", no color uniformity issues at all, i'm really debating whether to actually keep this second M2 TB, DESPITE it seeming "stable" and not flickering on camera. after a week of using it I've realized that it's not the same at all as my first one.
This experience shouldn't be used to debate whether to try an M2 TB or not, however — because I don't think my first one had these specific "painful to focus" issues at all. There is 100% a panel lottery.
Of course, my first M2 TB has been returned for a while due to its really severe color uniformity issues (which I couldn't deal with because it was noticeably messing with my design and image editing workflow)
I'm seriously debating whether I should keep the M1 Air at this point instead and just getting used to its PWM flicker issue, because I'm currently realizing I'm actually getting a lot more work done on my M1 Air, despite the fact I do notice the M1 Air flicker with my eyes at times.
Certain color schemes look weird on the M1 Air for sure, most likely due to its flicker issue — but pure black text on white backgrounds actually looks and feels a LOT better to me on my M1 Air compared to my current "way too much glare variant of the M2 TB Pro". It's really weird…
Both are on Ventura 13.6.6, both have Stillcolor, both with no Night Shift or True Tone.
(This is because I am very busy at the moment so I can't really afford the time to try yet another M2 TB)