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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#181

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mastax wrote: post #75
dr_pardee wrote: post #42

> I still don’t like macOS and would prefer to run Linux on this laptop. But Asahi Linux still needs some work before it’s usable for me (I need external display output, and M4 support). This doesn’t bother me too much, though, as I don’t use this computer for serious work. “I don’t use this computer for serious work.” Dropped $3K on MBP to play around with. Definitely should have gotten MBA

He lives in Switzerland. $3K barely pays for a lunch and an espresso.

Computers are actually cheap as far as Swiss taxes go (I bought my first MacBook Pro when intel came out at EPFL). I’m sure they got their computer for about the same price as you could get it in Hong Kong. But ya, food, rent, and services are pricey in Switzerland, even if you are just grabbing a croissant at coop.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#182

Post by ra »

coldtea wrote: post #96
asdff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have a 2006 macbook pro with the matte screen. It was glorious. None of these issues were present or really noticeable. Maybe you'd notice it in lab setting but not irl. Kind of like 120hz and 4k; just useless to most peoples eyes at the distances people actually use these devices. I've only owned matte external monitors as well and again, no issues there. The glossy era macbooks otoh have been a disaster i…

> I used to have a 2006 macbook pro with the matte screen. It was glorious. None of these issues were present or really noticeable. They were absolutely noticable. Contrast was crap. I immediately went with glossy with my next MBP around that same period.

It became more of an issue when retina came out, that's when they stopped non-reflective screen options.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#183

Post by tylerrobinson »

lapcat wrote: post #55
rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

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.

> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later. If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it. To be clear, I've been…

> “…featuring the Intel Core Duo processor and a gorgeous new 13-inch glossy widescreen display…”

> “…the MacBook provides incredibly crisp images with richer colors, deeper blacks and significantly greater contrast…”

This is positioning for glossy being superior.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/05/16Apple-Unveils-New-M...

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#184

Post by jasomill »

asdff wrote: post #71
LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 used to have a 2006 macbook pro with the matte screen. It was glorious. None of these issues were present or really noticeable. Maybe you'd notice it in lab setting but not irl. Kind of like 120hz and 4k; just useless to most peoples eyes at the distances people actually use these devices. I've only owned matte external monitors as well and again, no issues there. The glossy era macbooks otoh have been a disaster i…

I still have my 2011 17" MacBook Pro, built to order with pretty much every available option available at the time, including the matte screen.

While it serves a useful purpose by diffusing unavoidable point light sources in uncontrolled environments, it's honestly not much of an improvement over its glossy contemporaries in sunlight and other brightly-lit environments, as diffusing already diffuse reflections has little effect.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#185

Post by galagawinkle489 »

lobochrome wrote: post #154
LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

It is well written and that makes you think it was written by AI? AI doesn't write as well as that anyway.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#186

Post by musicale »

coldtea wrote: post #96
asdff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have a 2006 macbook pro with the matte screen. It was glorious. None of these issues were present or really noticeable. Maybe you'd notice it in lab setting but not irl. Kind of like 120hz and 4k; just useless to most peoples eyes at the distances people actually use these devices. I've only owned matte external monitors as well and again, no issues there. The glossy era macbooks otoh have been a disaster i…

> I used to have a 2006 macbook pro with the matte screen. It was glorious. None of these issues were present or really noticeable. They were absolutely noticable. Contrast was crap. I immediately went with glossy with my next MBP around that same period.

I can't go back to the low contrast and washed-out look of matte screens unfortunately. The nano texture isn't terrible but I'd only use it if I had to work with a bright window or other lighting source behind me. If you go to an Apple store you can A/B test glossy vs. nano-texture and glossy wins for me.

OLED glossy on the iPad Pro is even better.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#187

Post by koiueo »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #151
bitwize wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I highly doubt anyone notices 1ms latency. I might believe rare people can notice 10ms.

Anecdotically, 7ms vs 3ms latency is felt as weirdly heavy action when playing midi keyboard. It's not felt as latency, but it's felt. And I bet the difference could be reliably established in double-blind testing (3 samples, find an outlier).

1ms seems less believable, but I wouldn't be surprised, if some people could notice that too.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#188

Post by galagawinkle489 »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #183
lapcat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later. If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it. To be clear, I've been…

> “…featuring the Intel Core Duo processor and a gorgeous new 13-inch glossy widescreen display…” > “…the MacBook provides incredibly crisp images with richer colors, deeper blacks and significantly greater contrast…” This is positioning for glossy being superior. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/05/16Apple-Unveils-New-M...

In one quote they used glossy to describe it. How does that mean they said that glossiness made it better?

The other quote is just a list of ways in which the screen is better.

It is YOU that is conflating these and saying that this list of improvements is down to glossiness, not Apple.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#189

Post by Hnrobert42 »

542458 wrote: post #142
bitwize wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It depends on the frequency. At higher frequencies, the ear is capable of higher time precision. It's why a snare pops and a bass drum blooms.
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