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osxcool22 The 13 2016 whit Intel Iris gives me strain
Been using my original 2016 13" for a few days now and very little strain. Less strain "on average" than even my M1 Air which is actually pretty crazy since the M1 Air has an actual proven dither disable method with Stillcolor, and the 2016 13" does not as it still seems to still have "smooth" color adjustments even after dither=0
implying "at least" spatial dithering is used…
This means it's likely not "perfect" and may still have some flicker, but I don't really care since it is VERY usable. It feels nothing at all like the typical "Apple LCD strain" that I get from most of their other 2015 and later devices (except for the 2015 12" MacBook which is also pretty usable).
If it ever does cause problems for certain tasks, I have other usable "backup" devices like my 2012 Win8.1 laptop.
Compared to M1 Air the screen on this has less yellow tint and much less glare which is probably why I'm liking it better for "general use". M1 Air actually has very little glare by "modern Apple laptop standards" so it's very surprising that I can very noticeably tell that the 2016 13" screen has even less glare.
I feel like my M1 Air has the potential to be better at certain tasks, I've actually been enjoying my M1 Air (with Stillcolor) for long sessions of complex work like 3D modeling in Blender or editing Logic Pro projects… it's WAY more usable than other Apple Silicon Macs for sure — but there's something about my original 2016 13" that I still love today for general web browsing, note taking, and graphic design work.
(For comparison, the 1 year older Intel 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro AMD on Monterey has TONS of glare, extremely noticeable temporal dithering that doesn't entirely go away even after multiple dither disable methods or switching between iGPU/dGPU, and I find it unusable.)
There's something really different about this laptop that feels like coming home for the first time in years. It really drives in the fact that my eyes never changed, the screens did. Colors and details on this screen looks and feels today EXACTLY how I remember it looking back in 2018/2019 (AKA pre-covid era) on macOS Mojave.
Let me repeat, I look at it TODAY and it literally looks exactly as crisp and comfortable as it did in 2019. The same advantages and same flaws. This basically proves my physical eyesight didn't even get worse at all.
I'm on Monterey 12.6.3. This current install of macOS started on Catalina and was upgraded by the person I gave it to. As I stated before I didn't wipe the OS and simply removed their user account and Find My instead to prevent any screen settings from getting reset. Updates are now disabled.
Back when I originally owned this laptop the first time around, it started on macOS Sierra and was upgraded yearly up to macOS Catalina.
Due to our very different experiences I suspect there was a significant panel lottery on 2016 13" MacBook Pros. Remember that my current panel was a replacement panel (official Apple Store repair) replaced in late 2017 and that replacement LCD is still the same panel in my 2016 MBP today. In addition, it's totally possible that the LCD that was installed at that point may have some significant differences from the "actual" factory original panels.
Due to the above, I agree that I'm not sure any other 2016 13" is quite the same as mine so I can't necessarily "recommend" this laptop. The Apple replacement LCD in mine though was great and is still great today.