New Macbook Neo - A new hope for eye strain community

AshX

Oh wow yeah that one looks yellow.

These colors are really cool but they’re definitely coated with something different than the regular Macs. I’ll have to mess around with them in store more! Such a silly thing to have an issue with, right? 😂

Donux

StephanULCJ Seth Godin once said - if you have brand, you have brand premium, i.e. amount of money paid just for the brand itself, not the features of a product. So when evaluating Apple products you have to deduct at least 100 usd from the product for the brand. Then about 100 usd for the operational margin. And what you have left is $385 to manufacturer the product. That is very cheap, and of course in China everything is cheap when considering component level, but still, this is super tight sqeeze.

StephanULCJ

Donux

Yes, that is true of course.

I'd be happy if one could choose the panel, offered by Apple, as it can be done with DELL Laptops for example. I'd order a native-8-bit MacBook Air tomorrow!

Also would it be of high value to offer P3, even with FRC for people doing photo editing or work that relies on color accuracy and offer a second lane approach, setting the system color depth to an 8-bit output for business and classroom usability, thus leading to reduced fatigue and strain for anyone that needs to stay in front of the screen for almost all day on spreadsheets and e-mail.

Imagine setting up a new MacBook and realising that one is asked if the device will be used for business-work or creative-work purposes. One offering reduced eye fatigue over long periods of times and the other, offering a high color accuracy.

Apple is great, but they could really be, what they try to present about themselves.

Donux

AshX Shocking, but expected. Its good they are posting this on youtube, as publicity is a great weapon of awareness. Once consumers become aware, this race to the bottom at the expense of user health, will be illuminated. And at least, consumers will have enough information to make decent purchasing decision. Right now, I do not know, maybe its Dell 14 Premium which cost 2000 usd a way to go, but I have been there before. Manufacturers put ridiculous margins, and then puting huge discounts, and still make money. Nobody knows if those components are in line with pricing.

Donux

This is a full review:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Neo-Review-Surprisingly-good-and-capable-laptop-for-599-with-one-big-flaw.1247679.0.html

I guess the question now remains - what dithering control flags this architecture provides. I doubt betterDisplay or stillColor will work with it. And maybe, this major drawback could be fully switched off, not like in other macs. At least this is my hope that GPU dithering major drawback could be turned into a gold.

PazT

deepflame Good to know ! It's been 3 days and I'm not so sure anymore about mine (512Gb Silver model). After about 5-10 minutes I can feel my eyes getting heavy and tired. Whenever I close it and do something else I can feel my eye/face muscles recovering. I uninstalled Betterdisplay and will be trying with Stillcolor enabled instead to see if it helps. Also planning to go see the demo units at my local Apple Store this week-end. Curious to see if I also notice a difference between the 256 vs 512gb models on display.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

lukeb Near instant migraine on the neo for me

AshX Best Mac I’ve used in a decade

Hey, so this is the reason why people here have had wildly different reactions to the new Mac: There are three screen suppliers now

BOE (only recently has started to be used on Macs!), LG, and Sharp

From my prior experience, the people with the worst reactions likely have MacBook Neos with Sharp LCDs. I had two Apple products with Sharp IPS LCD in the past (iPhone SE 2020 and MacBook Pro M1 Max) and they were the two worst screens I had ever used. I couldn't even read text on them at all

On the other hand, at least in Windows products, I've actually had an okayish experience with BOE IPS. Not the best but also not terrible either IMO

Likely the people having a good experience here have the BOE LCD

What's nice is that the screen lottery ratio has actually been published (for all Macs combined, but probably still works as a rough estimate for the Neo): https://omdia.tech.informa.com/pr/2025/jul/boe-poised-to-become-apples-top-macbook-display-panel-supplier-in-2025-says-omdia

BOE 51%, LG 35%, Sharp 14% as of 2025

AshX

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

I wouldn’t take Sharp being bad as gospel. @geargeeksp has mentioned how great Sharp displays were on the older iPad Pros.

Personally I’m not entirely sold on a lot of the panel lottery arguments. I tested 6 - yes 6 - 13” M2 MacBook Pro Touchbar laptops with all of the 3 panels: FMX, F0Y, and DCN. I used DCN for 3 months (recently sold it) and could never make it any more tolerable than the others…and I tried everything.

I do agree with @Donux in that most good displays shouldn’t require tons of tweaking or testing. It will either work, or it won’t.

It is good know their is a lottery. Very interesting Sharp is back in the mix after a nearly decade, is it? But I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss any manufacturer at this point. There’s just not enough data, unlike the iPhone panels where it seems to be universally accepted G9N is the best over dozens of user reports.

Also, everyone here who has shared their panels have the same panel. They’re the same manufacturer as the MacBook Air M4 panels and they were awful. So either that is the “good” panel or the terminal command isn’t really accurate at all. Is anyone familiar with how people accurately determine iPhone panel manufacturers?

Also that link doesn’t necessarily indicate the Neo is using all 3 of those - just that they are each making MacBook screens. So I’d be very curious to see if we get more data from users here…but I don’t know that there are enough of us to get a large sample size.

lukeb

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs On the other hand, at least in Windows products, I've actually had an okayish experience

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Every Surface Laptop 7 Snapdragon I've seen at stores (west coast US at least) has had Sharp IPS screen and I can't even look at the screens of them for more than 10 seconds

Do you have any windows laptop recommendations? I had the same experience with the surface laptop

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Donux Do not recommend this. Every Surface Laptop 7 Snapdragon I've seen at stores (west coast US at least) has had Sharp IPS screen and I can't even look at the screens of them for more than 10 seconds, their screens are just as bad as the worst MacBook Pros

Donux

AshX @DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs @geargeeksp I am wondering about that notebook check dithering test, would different panel mean no dither flicker? I assume probably not, it just slightly different implementation of that flicker. Perhaps different frequency, ditherent amplitude and overall algorithm in terms of how those tiny pixles flicker. And I have been in the store today again, went to the same machine, and almost instantly got a bad trigger in the eyes. Weirdly enough, a new guy in the store first time ever admited, that at the end of the day, his eyes also feel super heavy and tired 🙂 Usually they smile and say - nope, everything is fine, just use standard out of the box setting 🙂

AshX

Donux

The answer is that we don’t know. A lot of things are spoken as fact on this forum when in reality we have very little proof of anything.

I think what is more important on these display is the sRGB backlight and the much improved response times on this panel. It is immediately evident. It also lacks the purple hue from the antiglare polarizing layer on the screen which I found to be a big trigger for me personally. These look much more similar to the older MacBooks from 2010-2015 or the modern base iPads, with a more natural gray reflective coating.

Sunspark

Yes. I think many here expect a device to be like paper. That’s just not going to happen. But you can get close. If we can avoid neurological reactions (migraines, seizures, headaches) and also be able to properly focus on the display without severe muscle strain and binocular vision destabilization, that is about as good as you will get on a modern device.

The key here is everyone has to try the device at home for at least a week. I would encourage using night shift or f.lux because these displays are very blue without True Tone. Many in the community avoid using Night Shift because it allegedly dithers - yet I’ve never seen any actual proof of this. Just conjecture.

I can confirm Stillcolor does work on this device. Which also should bode well should anyone want to try to implement it on iOS.

So my suggestions for everyone here who ends up buying one, to please share the following:

Device configuration (256 GB or 512 GB)
Model color (citrus, indigo, blush, silver)
MacOS version
Panel serial number (terminal command below)

ioreg -lw0 | grep -i raw-panel-serial-number

We will need at least 10 results to be able to draw any sort of preliminary conclusions. This is an opportunity for the community but everyone needs to contribute.

I have spoken with different YouTubers who are interested in covering display comfort topics, but I can’t go to them with hunches. One in particular is interested in doing a video on usable Macs and peripherals for sensitive users. So I think it would benefit the community greatly if we can use this device to gather data. The Neo has such a low barrier to entry that I think most of us can pull this off.

Sunspark

This is the entry-level model. Apple is competing with the Chromebook and box store entry PC market here.

They aren't going to be using a true 8-bit panel or higher when they haven't in many years now. All of them are going to be FRC. You will either get used to it or not.

It just needs to be good enough, not perfect.

Donux

AshX Device is great, no doubt about it. I personally like these minimalist machines, especially because we are moving towards cloud computing for ages now, and claims that you need to have physical machine to do serious work is just absurd. You could run form that machine spaceship if you would want to. So the target audience is really quite broad. But yeah, obviously, we need sound conclusions. What works, what doesn't, what settings are the best, and then how it compares to the rest of machines. My initial impressions might be wrong, might be placebo, selective perception of trigger response and anything like that. What I learned is - need to test longer and most importantly get rid of any preconceived ideas or impressions about machine. Treat it like a hammer to do a job. Also, so far we are getting various responses, but I personally absolutely have no clue what ICC profile is selected, are there any stillColor or betterDisplay installed with disabled flags etc., is TrueTone on, is night shift on, and if yes, what is intensity setting. I believe all these settings change GPU dithering behavior, and there might be a combination of settings that actually reduce dithering to absolute minimum. All of this needs to be experimented on.

lukeb

AshX For what it’s worth, I noticed no color difference between the Color LCD and sRGB ICC profiles on the Neo at the Apple Store.

There is a major difference between Color LCD and Generic RGB on my Neo. Both unusable for me but very different.

AshX I can confirm Stillcolor does work on this device.

It definitely does not disable dithering on my 512gb Citrus Neo. And I have never had Stillcolor save an otherwise unusable Mac. Notebookcheck's microscope footage reflects the experience with my machine.

Sunspark

For what it's worth, the iPhone X that I have as a backup device truetone is one of the features I disabled. It's fine during the daytime. I also have other settings set. It's fine to use, it's just an older device now and some apps now refuse to run because it'll never be updated past iOS 16.

You can also set night shift in lieu of truetone. I have that come on automatically at sunset. Not sure what the scale will be on other devices, but on this one I have the slider circle centered under "re" in "More". Try that if it's too blue.

Any dithering is just the panel, not a second layer of it. Night shift itself would just be a kernel-level mixer since it's integrated not an overlay. Overlay is what you use when you don't have access to the lower level.

AshX

Donux

For what it’s worth, I noticed no color difference between the Color LCD and sRGB ICC profiles on the Neo at the Apple Store. So this is not pulling any weird P3 stuff. The side by side review comparisons on YouTube also show that this is for sure an sRGB panel.

So in this instance color space has nothing to do with how MacOS is applying dithering. My best guess is that they’re using dithering to improve banding and also to achieve HDR. Many of us have commented on Notebookcheck’s video asking for them to test under microscope with Stillcolor running. That being said Stillcolor does work on this Mac and I could tell immediately in-store.

The Neo is a unique opportunity because it’s within the MacOS ecosystem and also does the exact opposite things modern Macs do. I completely agree about it being sufficient for 99% of things. I see tons of users complaining it can’t handle heavy lifting. I made 5 albums using several base model Intel Macs with 8 GB of RAM using heavy software synths and orchestral libraries and I had very few problems. You just have to know how to work around these limitations. My last Mac was a 32 GB RAM Intel i5 iMac I upgraded myself. The Neo blows it out of the water by any metric. The only downside is no TB3. But I’d happily give that up and switch to a USB interface if it means being able to work again.

I like the economic nature of this device, too. The MacBook Pros and Mac Studios are insanely priced. I know they’re powerful but…$2500+ is a lot. And why do I need P3 color and MiniLED for audio? Very thankful for this device, but I fear if they continually refresh it with P3 and other features it will get worse. But hey, that’s a problem for another day!

Will update you guys later this week when I get my hands on one. Fingers crossed 🙏

Sunspark

PC manufacturers are freaking out because now they have to compete in a lower price bracket at a higher quality level. Will be interesting to see how things look 1 year from now.

Even if nobody here likes the Neo, it cannot be denied that this will be paradigm shifting in that students everywhere will get it as a cheap computer that doesn't suck. Apple has physical stores and warranty coverage.

Apple is no slouch when it comes to supply chains, unlike other executives who got fired because they failed to lock-in RAM supply. Even if the PC makers somehow manage to put something together they still have the problem of sourcing RAM and storage. This is part of why the Steam Machine from Valve is not out.. they are having problems finding RAM.

PS. On a more serious note, the fact that the Neo is cheap and repairable is not solely due to legislation wanting repairability and US-manufacture, it's also because economic conditions are bad. People aren't going to be dropping 2-3k on an expensive Starbucks machine unless they have that disposable income. Apple is launching this as a bad times product.

Itz

Can more people who use the Neo share their experience with it?
I’m sensitive to PWM and temporal dithering (TD), so I’m not sure whether the Neo will be comfortable for me, since many Apple devices cause issues for me.

I’m honestly getting a bit desperate trying to buy a new laptop. I don’t know whether the new Intel Core processors — for example Core Ultra Series 2 (like the 256V) or even the previous generation (like the 150U) — will work well for me either.

My good devices history is: Galaxy s10+, galaxy tab s6 10.5, hp convertible x360, Oneplus pad 2 (2024), Xioami 13T

Sunspark

My suggestion is when you receive it, if you are able to, open the box outdoors so you don't inhale that initial whiff of manufacturing fumes, and also wait till the daytime with lots of natural light in the room to turn it on.

AshX

lukeb There is a major difference between Color LCD and Generic RGB on my Neo. Both unusable for me but very different.

The Generic RGB profile isn’t the same as sRGB 2.1, so I’m not surprised. Color LCD and sRGB 2.1 looked identical when I toggled between them on the store model. Generic RGB always tends to show more contrast heavy colors when compared to Color LCD or sRGB.

lukeb It definitely does not disable dithering on my 512gb Citrus Neo. And I have never had Stillcolor save an otherwise unusable Mac. Notebookcheck's microscope footage reflects the experience with my machine.

Did you confirm it is disabled with terminal? Or verify with capture card? What about using it with an external display?

It’s highly likely these Macs are FRC capable in addition to utilizing GPU dithering. Can you share the panel serial of your display?

« Previous Page Next Page »