M1 Macbook Pro - External Monitor Blurry Text

I have the same problem. I have 2x £1200 Dell 32" monitors with 2560x1600. One has HDMI and displayport, the other only has displayport.

I have both connected to my old MP pro 2017 (at the same time), and both have razor sharp text and worth every penny.

I have tried them both (separately, as the M1 is crippled to a single external monitor) on my new M1 MP pro 2021, and neither is usable. The text is spidery, blurred, pixilated and malformed. Like using a Cheap VGA display from 1990. May be worse.

I have a very expensive HDMI cable which works perfectly with the monitor and my intel MP pro and also my windows laptop.

I have 4 ways to connect the monitors:

1. premium DP to USB-C,
2. premium HDMI to USB-C,
3. A very expensive dual DP to Thunderbolt 3
4. Anker 13 in 1 elite TB 3 doc with HDMI.

I have tried all combinations of cables and connectors, with and without the dock, and all are unusable on the M1, and all work perfectly on the MP Pro 2017 and PC. Some combinations (e.g. DP to Thunderbolt) work perfectly on intel mac, but only give only 2080p on M1. Other combinations give the correct resolution (With no scaling), but unusable text.

There is something seriously wrong with the M1. Its unusable with an external monitor.

Switching off true tone had no effect on text, only on the colour.

I had also tested it with a usb-c cable DisplayPort from the Thunderbolt port at the back of the mini to the DisplayPort 1.2 connector on the monitor. I get the same, fuzzy text. I also tested it with my 2018 MacBook Pro with same DP cable. Same fuzzy text. This is an OSX issue when rendering the desktop with external monitors.

The web is full of similar stories with people buying new cables and monitors to try to rectify this problem. Macs seem to be exceptionally fussy about what displays they will work with, which is not acceptable; that’s the reason we have industry standards to adhere to so that IT devices can interoperate (I also work as a Development engineer in IT btw). I switch back to the PC (and other windows machines) with the same cable and the display text is crystal clear.

Will try again with the certified cable ultra HDMI 48Gbps when I get it later but I am not hopeful. I’ll return the mini if it doesn’t work.

Not being negative here, I’m a real Apple fanboy with two macs (with their own , Apple display), iOS devices, Apple TV’s etc. I want to get this to work so I can do my software development on the mini. But with the text as it is this is impossible.

It probably is a software glitch. However a few important questions are:

1. Does your monitor support HDMI 2 or 2.1? If not then it's a problem.
2. Is your HDMI cable 2.1 or 2? If not we have a problem there as well.
3. Does your monitor input port can take and handle HDMI 2.1 or 2 to display 4k @ 60 or 30 Hz? if not then this is the issue.
4. Are you using USB C hub connected to your Macbook pro? That could be a problem as most hubs unfortunately do not support 4k resolution and those that do, do not support 60 Hz (though 60 Hz is not essential.
5. Does your monitor has Thunderbolt 3 input support? If yes: Try connecting through it.

If you check all the above and still it is not resolved then you can safely say that it might be a software glitch in the monitor and not in M1 2020 MBP 13.3.

In that case unplug and plug in the TB3 port from MBP and use a compatible HDMI dongle thingy with the TB3.

Also check the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVvYmrK0p5Q

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OifE32e8Tq8

In any case all these issues will be resolved hopefully with mac software updates as Apple id aware of these issues already as discussed in above videos.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Macs work great with most external displays, and the M1 Macs work especially well. There is no need to use an Apple brand display.

• Use DisplayPort if possible.

• Most issues are in adapters and use of HDMI for higher resolutions than standard HD 1920 by 1080p. Higher resolutions require CERTIFIED cables and may still not work with HDMI.

• [√] Mirror displays ... uses a compromise resolution that is likely to be sub-optimal:

note that the two Blue display icons are shown as overlapping when Mirrored.

Can the people experiencing this issue please confirm they are holding the option key while pressing “Scaled” in display options and attempting to force various resolutions?

This fixed my issue on my widescreen monitor. You want to set the font smoothing level to 0. Thanks Apple for removing this feature to turn it off in the settings.

Same on my MacBook Pro 13 / M1 / 16GB, I have a genuine Hub with HDMI port, seems like the signal from Macbook M1 HDMI is all time the same, and behave differently on different Monitors resolution. I spotted that when I go to displays and hold the `option` + click on the `scaled` radio button, then going through all resolutions, on some of them the text is less blurred, and on others is completely blurred. Some resolutions give me a totally black screen, crazy.. Waiting for some news related to this...

there is no sulution apart of buying approved screen i.e. LG or 5000GBP apple display. or move back to windows....

Hi Jusched,

We understand you're having issues with the image quality on an external monitor. We're happy to help.

If the image quality is not clear, here's some steps you can try to adjust it: Get help with video issues on external displays connected to your Mac

If you continue to have issues with the external monitor, you'd want to contact Apple Support directly for assistance: Get Support

We hope this helps. Take care!

Did you find a solution to this problem?

I'm having the same issue as well. I purchased a new M1 Macbook Air last a few days ago along with an ASUS VG27AQ external monitor. Even when set to 1440p resolution, the text is extremely blurry. I've fiddled around with the all of the settings on the monitor including sharpness and the improvements are very limited.

When connected to my windows laptop, the text looks fine.

I tried the steps in the link that jdo_apple posted to no avail.

Any other suggestions?

I have the same issue. Mac Mini 16G connected to a 4k monitor. In windows the text is crisp and clear. I move the monitor and cable over to the Mac Mini HDMI port and the text is fuzzy and gives me a lasting headache.

I have tried all suggested workarounds and solutions, including dropping the resolution (why should I though on an expensive Iiyama 4k monitor?!) and still the text is fuzzy.

I have Macbooks, iMacs, iPhones, Homepods, EarPods and 3 Apple TV's. I subscribe to Apple One. I so want to like this Mac Mini. However, this is the first purchase from Apple that I am disappointed in. Very disappointed. I am on the verge of returning it inside the 14 day window as unfit for purpose and, if fact, an health and safety hazard. I'm typing on it now and it is making my head spin.....

I could make mine just about usable by turning down the brightness a bit and fiddling with the contrast and colour settings on my monitor. On that basis I kept the M1 mini and hope that this issue does get addressed eventually.

Investing in a 8K certified HDMI cable, a well-meant suggestion earlier in this thread, made no difference at all. Nor does using DisplayPort.

I have same problem with MBA M1 and Dell U2414H 1920x1080, texts are so blurry and watching netflix on full screen mode was same too. Display was so good with previous PC so I guess something has to do with the Mac itself, not the cable nor the monitor.

When you swapped to manual what resolutions did you get? And when you reset the cable while on manual did the options change?

No its a Terminal command https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/disable-font-smoothing-in-macos-big-sur/.