Lab – MacBook Pro M1 Pro Mini-Led screen: a peak in brightness never before seen on a computer for … – Les Numériques

With their Mini-Led screen, the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro M1 are establishing themselves as a new benchmark in terms of display on laptops, and even more generally on the PC monitor market.

Apple MacBook Pro 16 2021 (M1 Pro 10/16)

How the price table works

The 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros feature Apple’s new Liquid Retina XDR Display. Behind this pompous name hides in fact a 14.2 and 16.2-inch IPS panel displaying an identical resolution of 254 ppi associated with a Mini-Led backlighting system already seen on the latest 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Apple announces a constant brightness of 1000 cd / m² (in HDR) with a peak of brightness that can reach 1600 cd / m² (still in HDR). This backlighting system actually uses 10,216 mini-LEDs spread over 2554 distinct zones (for the 16-inch model). This very high number of zones allows very fine management of the backlighting, especially on such a small screen (compared to the hundreds of zones on Ultra HD Mini-Led televisions like the Samsung QE65QN95A).

We measured the peak brightness in HDR on a 1%, 4%, 9%, 25% and 49% window as well as in full screen. Both models easily manage to exceed a peak brightness of 1000 cd / m², even in full screen. The 14-inch model reaches its maximum with a 25% test pattern in HDR. It then displays a brightness of 1257 cd / m², a record for a laptop and even for a PC monitor. The 16-inch MacBook Pro M1 Pro does even better since it reaches 1535 cd / m² on the HDR test pattern occupying 49% of the screen. In full screen, the brightness drops to 1221 cd / m² on both models, which remains very important.

On a PC, only the Dell UltraSHarp UP2718Q monitor – a 384-zone Ultra HD Full LED model – managed to exceed 1000 cd / m² (1131 cd / m²), but with a blooming very affected. To our knowledge, no laptop has ever reached such a high peak in brightness.

This strong luminosity is associated with a very deep black allowed by the mini-LEDs. The comparison with a 2020 MacBook Air is unflattering for the latter and allows to see the giant progress made on the screens. The MacBook Air 2020 – like the new MacBook Air M1 and MacBook Pro M1 – uses a 13.3-inch IPS display with 227 dpi resolution paired with a basic Edge-Led backlighting system consisting of a single bar of LEDs. The lighting behind the screen is therefore fixed over the entire panel, and this results in a shallow black which is very visible in the photo. On a 2020 MacBook Air, black is measured at 0.16 cd / m² while it simply drops to 0.00 cd / m² (absolute black) on the MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro.

On the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro, each cluster of mini-LEDs illuminates an area of 30 mm², or approximately 6 x 5 mm, it is narrow enough to reduce the blooming at least. If it remains visible around very small bright objects on a dark background, it is overall very well managed by Apple. It must be said that the Californian company has had time to refine the Mini-Led technology since the release of the monitor Pro Display XDR in 2019 and the release of12.9-inch iPad Pro M1 this spring.

The Mini-Led backlighting system in HDR consumes a lot of energy, but heats little. On this HDR window of 25% of the screen at maximum brightness, the MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro consumes 47 W. In full screen, consumption briefly drops to 62 W before stabilizing at around 58 W. C ‘ is as much as when the MacBook Pro is used to the maximum on the level of the processor and the graphics card, but with a screen calibrated to 200 cd / m². On the other hand, it does not heat up much since even after several tens of minutes on an HDR test pattern, the temperature of the screen does not exceed 32 ° C.

See you next week for the full test of the new 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros equipped with the new M1 Pro processor.

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