Straight forward question, Q: Macbook air m4 15 incher, any better then previous iterations?
Macbook air m4 15 incher, any better then previous iterations
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I'm curious too, though in my heart I already know the answer lol.
The likelihood of it changing from a minor yearly refresh is slim. Same screen.
Still, I'm gonna go check it out at some point to be sure.
Tuck I was wondering maybe M4 Pro Nano coating did a trick for some users, because other forums do not have much engagement on M4 Pro model feedback. Overall, M4 Pro does have PWM and cause eye strain, it just it is hard to tell if those are from models with nano coating or not. But if there is no any benefit from M4 Pro, then Air at least on notebook check is marked as flicker free, so still a better buy. Well at least this is my thinking.
This would make sense if the issue for some people is polarization (which the nano texture may help with) and glare compared to PWM. So for some the Pro with nano texture may be more comfortable compared to the Air without. At least that’s my theory. I’m going to check them out today myself to see.
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I spent some time with the M4 airs yesterday and they seemed similar to the previous M2/M3 models to me. Better than the MacBooks Pro with mini LED but not as good as previous 13 inch intel/m1/m2 pros. I didn’t spend much time changing settings or trying to use stillcolor to see if it helped improve the comfort as I was only there for a few minutes.
I also tried the new iPads. The 11th gen felt fine to me. The Air was slightly irritating, but not that bad. The 11th gen uses an sRGB display, and in my experience Apple devices with sRGB displays tend to be the most comfortable to me. Previous low end iPads used them and so did the iPhone 6s and older MacBooks.
Weirdly the m4 iPad Pro with “Tandem Oled” is somewhat tolerable to me. The phones all give me eye strain and brain fog. The iPad didn’t give me brain fog. So weird…. Idk.
I was wondering if someone had started a conversation about this specific 15" MacBook M4 Air haha. So I purchased one and have it booted up as I type this. Funny enough, I have a 4K Asus monitor plugged in and because of other factors of the day, it's hard to say how it's impacting me. I did want to say that I can 100% tell a difference on http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php in terms of the banding showing up when StillColor or BetterDisplay has dithering turned off. However, that doesn't seem to 100% solve the problem. Also I can confirm when I run the following command:
ioreg -lw0 | grep -i enableDither
It shows:
| | | | "enableDither" = No
| | | | "enableDither" = No
| | | | "enableDither" = NoI can set my external monitor to 8-Bit display Color Mode, but in the Display Mode options, it says 10-bit. Which one could it be?
Same with the internal display. Within BetterDisplay, In "Color Mode", there is only one option "Internal (8-bit) with SDR, RGB, Full Range. However in Display Mode, it'll say whatever resolution I have it set to but then next to it say "60Hz" "10bit" - Does this mean what I'm seeing on the actual laptop internal display is 8 bit color on a 10 bit display?
External displays seem to feel a bit better than the internal display. I will continue testing this over the following days.
In the meantime, does anyone else have any other ideas in terms of things I can disable in order to improve the feel of the screen? I also have "Generic RGB Profile" set as the color profile.
I tried all the new Mac laptops in the Apple store and a few at Best Buy today. My experience was odd.
At the Apple store one MBA 13” was tolerable but the other one next to it (same specs and model) was not. None of the MBPs were tolerable. Strangely Mac Studio M3 Ultra connected to a Studio Display was the most tolerable in the store, but the Mac Mini connected to another Studio Display was horrible.
At Best Buy the 2 MBA 13”s were bad but the MBA 15” was tolerable. The Studio Display hooked up to a Mac Mini was bad.
Seems to me with the MBA’s it’s down to the panel lottery. The Studio Display with the Mac Studio I theorize is comfortable because it’s the only computer capable of maintaining the high refresh rate without flickering down to a lower one. In other words the other computers can’t properly push 10-bit at 5K.
What a 
show.
I wonder if it’s worth trying to get a MBP M1 refurbished instead. This company is an absolute joke.
Interesting yeah I wonder how many panel suppliers there are and if we can figure out the “better” ones. I too felt at one point the base m2 Mac mini with the studio display felt more or less ok to me. I was in the same apple store after the m4 mini was released and felt it didn’t feel so good with the studio display (perhaps the same studio display even).
AshX Yeah Best Buy has an awesome policy to try out devices for 60 days and return them if you get the membership so I definitely am utilizing it with trying to find stuff that works 
Even with dithering turned off via stillcolor, there’s still something making the screens uncomfortable, including 5 different external monitors. I’ve had this issue with every single Mac laptop or Mac mini/studio I’ve tried going back as far as the 2019 model and all m1-m4. I really love the Mac machines but until this can be sorted, I’m not sure if can use one.
I did order two sets of Theraspec glasses with the blue and blended lenses to see if maybe that will make these screens a bit more tolerable 
Yeah I installed Stillcolor on the Best Buy (Apple disables the install) and the improvement was very, very minor if you weren’t looking for it.
I also noticed some flicker on slo-mo camera recordings, but I think it was the store lights at both Apple and Best Buy. Definitely more uncomfortable at higher brightness.
I think the debate on getting these M4 Air devices comes down to whether the hardware + processor combo is more tolerable than M2/M3, and if not, whether older OS’s are more comfortable and thus it’s worth trying to pick up an older machine.
whystrainwhy I guess its not a very good news, especially if you have to go to such a long lenghts of tinkering to get it confortable. I did on my macbook air m2 also found best setup on dithering disabled and generic RGB. I assume also you have tried standard settings, since sometimes we jump into tinkering before even testing the standard setup. Sometimes actual workarounds can cause problems too. But probably this is not your case.
AshX Interesting. For me its a bit opposite, all Pro models I test in store seam to be better. Maybe because of pro motion, maybe because of placebo, I do not know. But properly test in store is almost imposible for me, because in my area, they have big white wide surface lights behind it, which do flicker. But store people are happy to give me a machine to work full day in order to properly test it. I know I need to buy that flicker test device, but not the cheapest one. And then just measure every single unit, and if there is a lottery, well, maybe I can just ask if I can buy display unit.