5 ms·

I’ve noticed that no other devices can beat the quality of Apple device monitors, no matter how high-definition they are. The display on Apple devices are just

by wbsun 3y ago

I’ve noticed that no other devices can beat the quality of Apple device monitors, no matter how high-definition they are. The display on Apple devices are just smoothing, natural, easy on my heavily myopic eyes. Any expert on display panel? I am just wondering why Apple’s display quality is always better than even the display manufacturers’ own devices (Samsung, LG).

soulbadguy 3y ago
i would love to understand that as well. I am mainly a pc user (both desktop and laptop), but at any given generation macbooks have just better display "experience".Even when compared to the other top of the line devices (MSFT surfaces or dell XPS 13). My guess is simply that other PC companies just don't care much about the display quality beyond head grabbing specs. That and i suspect MACOS is just better at text rendering and color repreduction on the desktop
- xpe 3y ago
  Your brain telling your eyes that the extra money should be worth it? I wrote this in a joking manner, but I do wonder if a double blind study has been conducted. Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That could explain a lot of it. Not to mention the factors you reference, aka antialiasing, smoothing, font rendering, and probably lots more.
  - soulbadguy 3y ago
    That's a fair point, it might be only a placebo effect. However, the machines i am comparing it with are mainly the dell xps 13 and MSFT surface which are generally in the same price range. Plus i have yet to have bough a macbook for myself, usually those are company issued devices. > Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That's correct. But here i am not comparing the quality ofthe UI element. I am don't particularly like MACOS design language and prefer windows 11 and ubuntu gnome visual esthetics.
- xpe 3y ago
  While macOS might get the visual combination better than competitors, I’d be somewhat surprised if it has any secret sauce left. Oh, yeah, custom silicon… :)
kapperchino 3y ago
I think it’s because they’re glossy while most monitors have a matte coating
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  I doubt that's it. That may help with "whow, shiny colors!" impressions, but I think that pcs just source lower quality panels. I have a 2012 unibody MBP with a matte screen (the last model before the retina line). That thing looks so much better than my 2021 HP EliteBook it's not even funny. Sure, the HP has higher resolution (1920x1080 vs 1680x1050), but the viewing angles are poor (it's a 14" panel, but there is no single position from which you can see it completely OK, the colors always change when you move the slightest). The blacks are a darkish grey. The reds are actually orange. This wasn't a cheap pc, either. It also has the 8 bit panel. Some SKUs only have dim, 6 bit ones. It cost almost as much as a 14" M1 when my company bought it (it's a work laptop, I would never have bought this crap with my own cash). The only other metric except from resolution by which it beats that 11 yo macbook is that it's very bright, to the point of being actually usable outside if the sun doesn't shine directly on it. There are many PCs with glossy coating. We also have a different model of elitebooks at work that have those (x360 line). That's an atrocious shitshow. Except for a completely dark room, you'll always see some random reflection instead of the actual screen content. My 2013 retina MBP does better outside than these poor excuses for a panel do inside. There are PCs that somehow do manage to look decent. A friend's Dell XPS comes to mind, though it doesn't look as good as an MBP. But these seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
  - kapperchino 3y ago
    Yeah pcs definitely do ship with worse panels, you have to look for laptops with good displays. But matte definitely dulls out the colors compared to a glossy display.
BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
No other monitor I’ve owned has developed massive scratches during normal operation like my macbook m1 screen has. In my experience Apple stuff looks great and fails spectacularly.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  About the "massive scratches": This is the first time I have ever heard about it. Why don't we see more comments about it here (and online)?
  - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
    I don't understand why you wouldn't at least search before asking this. I got back 3,000,000 results. Here are some of them. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-16-m1-screen-sensitive-to-micro-scratches.2321565/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-16-m1-scree... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/please-help-scratched-screen-mbp.2237191/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/please-help-scratched-s... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-m1-13-inch-retina-scratches-after-2-days.2289451/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-m1-13-inch-... https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/s4i03g/macbook_air_m1_late_2020_screen_is_so_scratch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/s4i03g/macbook_... https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/sns4j4/i_scratched_my_new_macbook_pro_2020_m1i_bought_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/sns4j4/i_scratc... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253884202 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253884202 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253029188 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253029188
izacus 3y ago
Why did you have to run an Apple advertisement in a topic dedicated to a laptop that very much isn't for Apple audience? There's plenty of laptops with better and different screens, including several OLED ones that run at smoother refresh and produce much more vibrant and less eye painful colors. The fact that you haven't seen them isn't a testament of Apple skill, it's just a reflection of you not walking into anything that's not an Apple store.
npunt 3y ago
Probably several reasons both hardware and software. 1. LCD panel grade - panels are graded when they’re manufactured and Apple buys the ‘A’ quality panels while others including manufacturers tend to use a mix of different graded panels or buy the cheaper ‘B’ and ‘C’ grade panels which have uniformity issues and other perceptible defects. Back in the day Dell ultrasharps were famous for the ‘panel lottery’ where you weren’t sure what quality you’d get. 2. Other aspects of panels - There’s a lot of little things that go into making them that can affect quality including polarizers, backlight guides, anti glare, how they’re bonded, etc. Apple does a lot of investment in display tech (they did the first bonded lcds afaik which meant the pixels seemed like they were on top of the glass vs behind) and they doesn't skimp on quality parts. 3. Text rendering - At the software layer I believe Apple renders text a bit differently than Windows, and as of a few years ago killed text antialiasing, tho I’m not up to date on whether that results in qualitative difference vs Windows. 4. Target PPI - All Apple devices are made at target ppis - Mac around 227, iPad 264, iPhone 326 (lcd) - 480 (oled) - all of which correspond to a near equivalent size to our eyes when factoring in target distance from eyes for different form factors (e.g. phones closer, tablet middle, computer farther). Windows & Android devices are all over the place on this, offering tons of different scale factors that may affect. 5. Color correction - supporting ~100% P3 gamut colors on all modern displays along with the software to support it 6. Whole stack software optimization - when you control hw & sw, you can eke out a bit more qualitative improvement. For instance, knowing the panels are of a certain PPI and quality of color repro means you can pick UI colors (various greys etc) with much higher confidence, can create your own custom fonts that look great on them, etc, versus a sort of 'web safe colors' lowest common denominator equivalent you're stuck with on platforms like Win/Android with a lot of variance in device quality. Basically: you get the best visuals when you control the whole stack and invest in premium everything.

by wbsun 3y ago

soulbadguy 3y ago

i would love to understand that as well. I am mainly a pc user (both desktop and laptop), but at any given generation macbooks have just better display "experience".Even when compared to the other top of the line devices (MSFT surfaces or dell XPS 13). My guess is simply that other PC companies just don't care much about the display quality beyond head grabbing specs. That and i suspect MACOS is just better at text rendering and color repreduction on the desktop

xpe 3y ago
Your brain telling your eyes that the extra money should be worth it? I wrote this in a joking manner, but I do wonder if a double blind study has been conducted. Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That could explain a lot of it. Not to mention the factors you reference, aka antialiasing, smoothing, font rendering, and probably lots more.
- soulbadguy 3y ago
  That's a fair point, it might be only a placebo effect. However, the machines i am comparing it with are mainly the dell xps 13 and MSFT surface which are generally in the same price range. Plus i have yet to have bough a macbook for myself, usually those are company issued devices. > Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That's correct. But here i am not comparing the quality ofthe UI element. I am don't particularly like MACOS design language and prefer windows 11 and ubuntu gnome visual esthetics.
xpe 3y ago
While macOS might get the visual combination better than competitors, I’d be somewhat surprised if it has any secret sauce left. Oh, yeah, custom silicon… :)

kapperchino 3y ago

I think it’s because they’re glossy while most monitors have a matte coating

vladvasiliu 3y ago
I doubt that's it. That may help with "whow, shiny colors!" impressions, but I think that pcs just source lower quality panels. I have a 2012 unibody MBP with a matte screen (the last model before the retina line). That thing looks so much better than my 2021 HP EliteBook it's not even funny. Sure, the HP has higher resolution (1920x1080 vs 1680x1050), but the viewing angles are poor (it's a 14" panel, but there is no single position from which you can see it completely OK, the colors always change when you move the slightest). The blacks are a darkish grey. The reds are actually orange. This wasn't a cheap pc, either. It also has the 8 bit panel. Some SKUs only have dim, 6 bit ones. It cost almost as much as a 14" M1 when my company bought it (it's a work laptop, I would never have bought this crap with my own cash). The only other metric except from resolution by which it beats that 11 yo macbook is that it's very bright, to the point of being actually usable outside if the sun doesn't shine directly on it. There are many PCs with glossy coating. We also have a different model of elitebooks at work that have those (x360 line). That's an atrocious shitshow. Except for a completely dark room, you'll always see some random reflection instead of the actual screen content. My 2013 retina MBP does better outside than these poor excuses for a panel do inside. There are PCs that somehow do manage to look decent. A friend's Dell XPS comes to mind, though it doesn't look as good as an MBP. But these seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
- kapperchino 3y ago
  Yeah pcs definitely do ship with worse panels, you have to look for laptops with good displays. But matte definitely dulls out the colors compared to a glossy display.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago

No other monitor I’ve owned has developed massive scratches during normal operation like my macbook m1 screen has. In my experience Apple stuff looks great and fails spectacularly.

throwaway2037 3y ago
About the "massive scratches": This is the first time I have ever heard about it. Why don't we see more comments about it here (and online)?
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  I don't understand why you wouldn't at least search before asking this. I got back 3,000,000 results. Here are some of them. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-16-m1-screen-sensitive-to-micro-scratches.2321565/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-16-m1-scree... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/please-help-scratched-screen-mbp.2237191/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/please-help-scratched-s... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-m1-13-inch-retina-scratches-after-2-days.2289451/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-m1-13-inch-... https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/s4i03g/macbook_air_m1_late_2020_screen_is_so_scratch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/s4i03g/macbook_... https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/sns4j4/i_scratched_my_new_macbook_pro_2020_m1i_bought_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/sns4j4/i_scratc... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253884202 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253884202 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253029188 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253029188

izacus 3y ago

Why did you have to run an Apple advertisement in a topic dedicated to a laptop that very much isn't for Apple audience? There's plenty of laptops with better and different screens, including several OLED ones that run at smoother refresh and produce much more vibrant and less eye painful colors. The fact that you haven't seen them isn't a testament of Apple skill, it's just a reflection of you not walking into anything that's not an Apple store.

npunt 3y ago

Probably several reasons both hardware and software. 1. LCD panel grade - panels are graded when they’re manufactured and Apple buys the ‘A’ quality panels while others including manufacturers tend to use a mix of different graded panels or buy the cheaper ‘B’ and ‘C’ grade panels which have uniformity issues and other perceptible defects. Back in the day Dell ultrasharps were famous for the ‘panel lottery’ where you weren’t sure what quality you’d get. 2. Other aspects of panels - There’s a lot of little things that go into making them that can affect quality including polarizers, backlight guides, anti glare, how they’re bonded, etc. Apple does a lot of investment in display tech (they did the first bonded lcds afaik which meant the pixels seemed like they were on top of the glass vs behind) and they doesn't skimp on quality parts. 3. Text rendering - At the software layer I believe Apple renders text a bit differently than Windows, and as of a few years ago killed text antialiasing, tho I’m not up to date on whether that results in qualitative difference vs Windows. 4. Target PPI - All Apple devices are made at target ppis - Mac around 227, iPad 264, iPhone 326 (lcd) - 480 (oled) - all of which correspond to a near equivalent size to our eyes when factoring in target distance from eyes for different form factors (e.g. phones closer, tablet middle, computer farther). Windows & Android devices are all over the place on this, offering tons of different scale factors that may affect. 5. Color correction - supporting ~100% P3 gamut colors on all modern displays along with the software to support it 6. Whole stack software optimization - when you control hw & sw, you can eke out a bit more qualitative improvement. For instance, knowing the panels are of a certain PPI and quality of color repro means you can pick UI colors (various greys etc) with much higher confidence, can create your own custom fonts that look great on them, etc, versus a sort of 'web safe colors' lowest common denominator equivalent you're stuck with on platforms like Win/Android with a lot of variance in device quality. Basically: you get the best visuals when you control the whole stack and invest in premium everything.