M4 MBP Quantum Dot

madmozg You are like a bright light around here haha. Yeah I've been using the laptop for a few hours and I feel that kinda weird eyestrainy tiredness but not really any headaches which is a first. I notice if I watch a video or play a game and NOT have to focus on text, that feeling kinda just disappears. What's pretty cool is that if I look away from the screen, I quickly feel "normal" again, whereas with other screens, I have horrible headaches for hours or feel nauseous and off even into the next day. So I'm going to keep trying to use this thing for multiple hours every day to see if my eyes can finally adapt and relax, which sounds like is possible?

whystrainwhy sounds like you are on a correct path! Good luck

madmozg One last question: when you were adjusting, did you find you straining a bit more to read text versus viewing images/watching videos and did that resolve in that 3-4 day period?

whystrainwhy I remember this behavior when I was testing macbook airs, and maybe on a day 1 with this new macbook, but after that I didn't notice a difference between reading text or watching a video.

madmozg Thankyou so much again for your response, it really gives me a lot of hope to keep going Our brains and eyes are strange and wonderful things aren't they? haha

GBowler thats exciting news

If you guys are planning to test MBP 16 at apple store dont forget to download stillcolor app and disable dithering.

madmozg Yeah I've just been back to the store and it's hard to believe, but this seems to be comfortable for me..

I'll be proceeding with caution, I still feel like I'm a little spun out after looking at it.. but maybe that's the promotion. I'll likely get hold of one soon for a big test run.

Unbelievable if the end of this drama is in sight!

madmozg So good news so far. After some tinkering, I finally got the screen to stop feeling like it was "moving" by using StillColor AND BetterDisplay. This is the first time I've felt like my eyes are extremely relaxed when looking at the screen, however I do find a bit of pressure build up in parts of my head like the top and parts of the back but not any kind of headache like I've historically gotten. Not tons, but after a few minutes, it starts feeling that way. I haven't tried using it for multiple consecutive hours just yet, but I will keep trying and see if I adapt. So far, I'm very pleased. I looked at your Reddit post again, and you also had some head pressure within that first week as you were adjusting?

For anyone else wanting to try out the M4 Macbook Pro, Here are the settings I am using right now:

StillColor:

In the application, I have "Disable Dithering" and "Disable Uniformity2D" both selected.

I ensured that the dithering was turned off via StillColor and not so much with BetterDisplay by running this command and receiving three results that all say "No" for the "enableDither" flag.

➜  ~ ioreg -lw0 | grep -i enableDither
    | |   |   |   "enableDither" = No
    | |   |   |   "enableDither" = No
    | |   |   |   "enableDither" = No
➜  ~

Then of course, here are my display settings:

TrueTone is disabled

Automatically Adjust Brightness is turned off

Display Profile Preset: "BetterDisplay XDR" - (I found BetterDisplayXDR to be better than the others) so I will continue to tinker with the different options.

I'm currently trying out both ProMotion and 60hz. 60 Hz feels a bit more comfortable on my eyes.

To be honest, I don't know how this will go over the coming days, but I feel more hopeful for this laptop than I have for the 10-15+ laptops I've tried in the last 2 years (all of which were unusable for me including M1-M3 Macbook Airs and Macbook Pros). Anyway, I hope this config helps others

@whystrainwhy nice progress! thanks for sharing your experience

Donux well no-one is trying to convince you to buy anything here.

madmozg Yeah of course I'll admit, I used the laptop for 2-2.5 hours today and I felt "cooked" a bit from the pressure in the head, but that's why I was curious with your journey. You said you went for 2 hours the first day. Was that because you couldn't "take it" much longer and needed a break? Or was it just circumstances of the day got in the way? I'm hoping to incrementally increase the amount of time I use the screen, but right now I'm typing this message on my 100% comfortable 2014 macbook pro because I think I needed a break from the screen from the M4 lol. Does this sound familiar?

whystrainwhy Everyone has in some way similar, but in another way different eye strain experience. To me - "feeling cooked" does not sound right. With a decent machine, I could push full day no problem, even if there would be a strain. 2 hours does not sound right at least to me. But I am wondering how it would feel with external monitor, and also with a laptop panel, how it would feel if you switch to sRGB (Web & Internet). I am assuming you are running Color LCD, which I treat as "show off mode" for the retail store front, definitely not suitable for work on this hardware.

Donux @madmozg As I've alluded to before, the best chance for a native solution is to find someone involved with engineering at Apple who is either really bored or experiences the issue themselves and having the technical evidence in hand and is amiable to discussions potential solutions. Of course getting exact empirical evidence is a challenge in itself.

Hey, have anyone tried a 14 inch M4? Does it also use quantum dot now?