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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

michael.stapelberg.ch

161–170 of 417 posts

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#161
post #142
post #43

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Musicians can feel latencies as low as 1ms. Apple is designing pro gear for its target audience.

Do you have a source for that? I saw a study a short while ago showing the “just noticeable difference” for audio latency was best case around 26ms. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3678299.3678331

I definitely notice the difference between 10 ms and 26 ms. 26 ms already feel sluggish when playing drums, guitars or keyboard instruments. But there is no way anyone can feel a difference of 1 ms.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those things that some people notice, some people don't. I'm definitely in the camp where I feel differences between 120hz and 60hz, but I don't feel 60hz as choppy, and beyond 120hz I can't notice any difference, but others seemingly can. Maybe it's our biology?

I would bet most people would fail a blind test.

Basically everyone who has played videogames on pc will notice the difference. I easily notice a drop from 360Hz to 240Hz.

I also use 60Hz screens just fine, saying that getting used to 120Hz ruins slower displays is being dramatic. You can readjust to 60Hz again within 5 minutes. But I can still instantly tell which is higher refresh rate, at least up to 360Hz.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#163

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

I have a feeling that you've never actually seen a matte screen.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#164
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet most people would fail a blind test.

Basically everyone who has played videogames on pc will notice the difference. I easily notice a drop from 360Hz to 240Hz. I also use 60Hz screens just fine, saying that getting used to 120Hz ruins slower displays is being dramatic. You can readjust to 60Hz again within 5 minutes. But I can still instantly tell which is higher refresh rate, at least up to 360Hz.

Videogames also do the input every loop so there's a big difference there. It must be evaluated with a video only.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#166

We used to sell conversion kits to shoehorn a pixel qi display into the thinkpad x230. Since apple has put in 1,000nit displays on the pros, we don't bother anymore. The nano texture sold me and it performs wonderfully outdoors. I hate giving apple money but here I am.

Honestly I hate giving money to Lenovo, they're one of the worst companies I've had to deal with at least when it comes to support.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#167

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

If anything, Apple was right back then. Glossy has so many benefits for the places where you’d use a computer, it’s not even close. Having the option to pay premium for those few that work in environments where matte helps them makes sense. I’d pay money for my display to not be matte.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glossy vs matte has started to matter less as the peak brightness goes up. When your screen can do 1,600 nits, daylight isn't as much of a problem

I'd rather not blow my battery budget on fighting the sun for visibility.

I tend to do outdoor things outdoors, so occasionally cranking up brightness is not an issue.

I'd much rather do that than to have a granier screen with worse viewing angles all the time I'm not in direct sunlight, so next time around I'll be back on glossy.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#169
post #164
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically everyone who has played videogames on pc will notice the difference. I easily notice a drop from 360Hz to 240Hz. I also use 60Hz screens just fine, saying that getting used to 120Hz ruins slower displays is being dramatic. You can readjust to 60Hz again within 5 minutes. But I can still instantly tell which is higher refresh rate, at least up to 360Hz.

Videogames also do the input every loop so there's a big difference there. It must be evaluated with a video only.

We're talking about monitors here, which usually have a mouse cursor on it for input. Of course it would be hard to tell between 60 vs 120Hz screens if you used both to play a 30FPS video.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#170
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upgraded from M4 to M5 MBP because I broke my M4's screen and so my company ordered a replacement M5 while the M4 is being repaired. I can't really notice a difference at all. It's an absolute work horse, but so was the M4. I _did_ spring for the nano texture display this time around, and that is definitely nice (but nothing to do with the M5)

Do you think you’ll have any regrets about the nano texture display? I was torn between nano and regular glass, but opted for the regular glass.

I got the nanotexture on my current work M4 MBP—it doesn't completely eliminate reflected light, but it diffuses it a lot. If I were in a dark room with a light source positioned perfectly to reflect off my screen in my face, I would probably still have trouble with it, but in general I don't need to reposition the screen to avoid glare nearly as much.

I would say it's worth the extra, what, $200 or so? on the price of the M4 MBP. If it were much more expensive, I would be less sure.

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