Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3) Review – Nearing Perfection but we Have Some Remarks

Display quality, Health impact (PWM), Sound

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (М3, Late 2023) has a new-gen Mini-LED panel called Liquid Retina XDR. The backlight comprises thousands of mini LEDs, separated into distinct zones and located behind the pixels of the TFT layer. This provides high maximum brightness and exceptional contrast for delivering true HDR content.

The unit comes with a 120Hz refresh rate. Its diagonal is 14.2″ (36.1 cm), and the resolution – 3024 х 1964. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:10, the pixel density – 254 ppi, and their pitch – 0.1 x 0.1 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 36 cm, which is excellent for a laptop (above this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are great. We offer images from different angles to evaluate the quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The peak maximum brightness of Apple MacBook Pro 14 (М3, Late 2023) is 1600 cd/m2 in HDR mode and 600 cd/m2 when viewing normal SDR content. The maximum measured brightness is 604 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 589 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 4% (Apple Display (P3-600 nits) ). The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6540K („True Tone“ – Off ).

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 52% Brightness (White level = 140 cd/m2, Black level = 0.11 cd/m2).

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is 4900:1 (ANSI).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Apple MacBook Pro 14 (М3, Late 2023)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 99% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 and 97% of Display-P3.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 37 ms. In this scenario, the strong backlight pulsations compensate for the long response time. There are gaming monitors that feature a deliberately pulsating backlight mode for a clear picture in dynamic scenes. In the current case, from a gaming perspective, things are great, but that’s not the best solution for your eyesight in the long run.

Health Impact: PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M3, Late 2023) features a backlight with pulsations. While the frequency of these pulsations is high, the filling coefficient is low. A high frequency generally means less strain on your eyes since it’s less noticeable. However, the low filling coefficient results in flickering due to super short bursts of extremely high brightness levels (above 4000 cd/m2). For comparison, on the right segment, you can see how a PWM-free display looks, which has no light bursts.

In conclusion, we’re not satisfied with the health aspects of the screen on the MacBook Pro 14. While we’ve seen worse, we think that when paying a premium price, there should be no compromises in this regard.

Health Impact: Gloss-level measurement

Glossy-coated displays are sometimes inconvenient in high ambient light conditions. We show the level of reflection on the screen for the respective laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is 60° (in this case, the result is 69.5 GU).

Sound

Apple MacBook Pro 14 (М3, Late 2023)’s speakers produce a sound of a very good quality. Moreover, its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.

Author: Nikolay Palaozov

Author: eng. Kroum NikolovHead of Engineering at LaptopMedia.com, inventor and innovator with 40+ years of experience in electronics and high technology.

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Parmar Gautam

2 years ago

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