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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

(michael.stapelberg.ch)
245 points secure | 1 comments | 31 Oct 25 10:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.239s | source
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quitit ◴[31 Oct 25 22:37 UTC] No.45777466[source]▶
An frequently overlooked point is the display brightness. The pro models offer 1600 nits peak brightness, which makes these good units for looking at HDR content, especially if you like to take photos or edit videos. Meanwhile the Air maxes out at 500 nits, so the effect and contrast is drastically reduced for those models.
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ricardobeat ◴[31 Oct 25 22:44 UTC] No.45777526[source]▶
Normal content is still limited to 500 nits, and these being mini-LED displays, contrast is already infinite.

Unless you’re making Instagram content, very few photographers use HDR. Everything else will look the same on both screens.

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1. quitit ◴[01 Nov 25 18:43 UTC] No.45784189[source]▶
Normal content is 1000 nits, peak is 1600 nits.

Contrast is significantly poorer on the Air display, and HDR is already in your own photos if you have a modern smartphone, so the idea that it’s niche or irrelevant is a naive take.

The perceptual difference between sdr and hdr isn’t a minor bump, it is conspicuous and driver of realism.

If one cares about the refresh rate of their screen, then they’d trivially notice the improvement that high nit displays provide.