Retina Display MacBook Pro eye problem and strain

http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Glare-Apple-iPad-Generation-CrazyOnDigital/dp/B004RRU 1B0

I have had the Retina Macbook Pro for about three months and my eyes now have majore problems all the time. I have used a sony vaio solidly for about 4.5 years, prior to that a Dell, and HP, etc. Never, never have had any eye problems until getting the Macbook Pro Retina. I have been to the doctor and they diagnosed me with peosterior vitreous detachment...one month ago, it was only in my right eye. Now it is in the left too. Could lead to blindness if it doesn't get better. Again, I have never had any problems until getting this computer.

All I can say is that it is not worth it and the MBP Retina is not a thing I would recommend to anyone who has to spend more than aobut an hour a day on a computer. Don't go blind like I am doiing because of this computer.

Like the others, it started with eye strain and rapidly progressed to much worse. My vision is almost constantly blurred.

Telll your family and friends to avoid this problem by avoidning this computer.

"Like the others, it started with eye strain and rapidly progressed to much worse. My vision is almost constantly blurred."

Likewise, my vision too, not contantly blurred, but it has gone down quite a bit, (after the initial eye strain).

test

There are several reasons for eyestrain with an LCD display, but one of the less obvious ones is too high of a screen resolution! Your eyes focus on tiny, sharply defined edges in the center of their view. An older display (e.g., iPad 2) has big pixels that are defined by a black boarder around each pixel, and that has a sharp edge that you can focus on. With high resolution displays (Retina and others) your eye cannot see the pixel edge and so has nothing it can focus on. The pixel itself is too big and has soft and glowey edges and does not help you focus,

As an aside, if you look at an iPhone, the distance from the edge of the display (which you can focus on) to the center of the display is a very short distance and your eye will naturally see (or glance at) the edge of the display often enough to keep itself in focus even when looking at the center of the screen. With an iPad the screen is so big that you aren't normally aware of the edge and so your eye relies on the center of the screen for focus clues and there aren't any,

Fixes have been proposed:

Lower the brightness - this kind of works for lower resolution displays because it lowers the glowey (halation) and allows your eyes to see the pixel edge better, but it doesn't make much difference on the high res displays (unless the brightness is way out of adjustment).

Install a screen protector or security screen - These plastic screens have imperfections or actual visible features that your eye can focus on, so your eye stops trying to focus on the pixel and focuses on the imperfections in the plastic and uses that as a proxy for the focus point of the actual pixel. The more perfect the screen protector, the less effective it is in allowing you to focus on the screen.

This effect is not Apple-centric, it can be seen on the Nexus 7 and other high res displays and aside from the suggestions above, it is baked into high res screens. The effect may be reduced by the use of a mat display because you can see the texture of the mat surface and may be able to focus on it, but I have not done that experiment (i.e., sanding the front face of a glossy display)

The stobing of an LED backlight (which see the MacBook Pro) can create issues, but I think the above will be found to be the source of the many problems as we transistion to higher res displays.

Reducing the display resolution has worked for me. I do not have any noticeable/immediate signs of eye strain after switching to lower res.

Currently my display is set at the resolution setting between "Larger Text" and "Best (Retina)", reachable from System Preferences > displays > (Scaled).

I have a new (one month old) MacBookPro w/retina display. Bought with most speed, memory, etc. Top of the line. Previously had a MacBook Pro (2008).

In the last month I have started experiencing eye problems. Styes, dryness, flashes, floaters. Yesterday I had a torn retina repaired. A tear can become a detached retina which can lead to blindness. Blindness. I have never worn glasses - very good eye health before now. Thinking it through the only change in my life in the last month has been this computer. With Retina Display.

Is it too much for our retinas?

Yes, the display/images are gorgeous. But at the risk of blindness?

What to do? Cannot buy another Mac.

Dear Ben, and all the others that have noticed, like I did, eye problems after starting using retina display.

I was thrilled by the idea of using a screen that was so sharp to make me forget about pixels.

Unfortunately I was used to a high resolution Mac. My previous mac was a 15' with high res screen of 1680x1200.

This is why I coudn't fit all the things I needed in the "best for retina" resolution of 1440x900 (times 2).

Things looked nice and crisp, but too big for the way I am used to work.

This is why I started using a non native resolution of 1620x1200.

It actually means that the graphic card uses a space of 3840x2400 and squeezes it into the resolution of 2880x1800 of the physical display. This makes everything unsharp, like using non native resolution on normal screens, wich I always hated because it looks horrible.

In the retina display the pixels are so small that the unsharpness is almost unnoaticeable.

In the long run I realized that watching unsharp images made my eyes very tired.

I never had eye problems. I am 43, but never wore glasses. After 3/4 months of retina display with "wrong" settings, I was almost sure I was getting old, and that my sight was about to get bad, for good.

Few weeks ago I switched to native resolution "best for retina" and solved the problem!!!

I am not suffering from tyred eyes any more. My sight is perfect as before.

I decided that I will use an extra monitor at the office to get the space I need, and I love the sharpness of everything on retina display.

I am not sure whether other people in this forum have the same story. I hope this may help some.

I think Apple should find a different way of changing the size of things on screen in a different way than just squeesing more pixels in a smaller physical monitor. Giving possibility to control the size of all graphic things.

Best regards

Matteo

I find the Retina display to cause less eye strain personally. Working on a MBP, I turn off automatic brightness adjustment and set the level pretty low (in the lowest 25% of the brightness settings usually).

I strongly recommend f.lux also (it's free). It adjusts the colour of your monitor for night/evening use (matching it to the lighting in your house). If you try f.lux, and then turn it off at night, you'll see the difference. Using the computer at night without f.lux is very harsh on your eyes!

I am new to Mac, and find the screen a little too glossy as well and reflective, it would be helpful to have the choice when buying matt or gloss.

Obviously I am not the best user as only one day old on the mac, though to me it seems that some of the infomation is all very in the middle of the screen (despite zooming which looses sharpness) especially when viewing email normally via the browswer.

When using email via the browser, I do not like this hover over the email and another slides open, the screen is so big why not just display normally like windows? surely then eye would have to move across the page more often, as to staying focused in one position.

Perhaps there is way to alter the settings, new on mac so likely I don't know the in and outs.

To me it makes sense to keep you eye moving, and as to focusing close I understand one is meant to look away frequently to something further away.

I would imagine a similar issue is like when using a mouse and not moving the hand - arm much, can cause some problems.

My old DELL screen although not as crisp in definition as this mac screen, I think it may have been easier to just look at, after all do all the objects look this glossy when looking around a room, and some are sharp some are not depends of what surface of the item is like.

I wonder if do some people react differently to the gloss or matt screens, if they already where glasses are they more likely to have problems, a small side lamp on.

I am pleased to read other peoples comments on this, though I have to say it seems like an ongoing problems for some time.

Apple are probably successful due to many of these people being users of mac etc for years.

I hope they hear some sense, as really I am not finding this encouraging.

I will attend my first lesson this week at the apple shop and and see what the say about this, and see what I can learn.

I will say I bought my apple at John Lewis and currenlty they offer a Guarantee for 2 years on a lot of computers and on Apple 3 years, it would be nice is apple matched that.

Maybe a research project need to undertaken if not done so already in regards to matt or gloss screens and before and after eye examinations.

I've just bought a MacBook Pro Retina 15" and my eyes have hurt since I started using it. I didn't have this problem with my iMac. I am extremely glare sensitive, in general, since having my eyes lasered a couple of years ago. Thanks to someone else's suggestion I have installed f.lux and that made an immediate difference. However, my eyes still feel like they're straining to focus. What a bummer, since the reason I got this machine was to enjoy beautiful graphics, and now I feel like I'm going blind. Yes, I've been to an optometrist – my vision is fine. I don't think I'd recommend this product to a friend.

Does this problem still occur if you increase the font size in apps you use? I find the best for me is quite large font sizes (using things like NoSquint for Firefox, increased font sizes in Mail, etc), and making sure the brightness on the screen is not out of touch with the environment around me. I think you should be able to look from the monitor to the environment around and not really notice much lighting difference. Best way to do this is by turning off automatic brightness so you can adjust manually.

Hey there. Thanks for your suggestion. I'd tried turning down the brightness manually and increasing the size of the display but still had aching eyes. For today, my eyes feel a lot better after downloading f.lux. I'm hoping that has solved the problem.

No problem, be aware that you can change the night time lighting for f.lux. I like it down low on "tungsten" for the evening, but "candle" seems to be even better when using the computer in the dark.

Here's my story. I got an iPad mini retina display for Christmas several weeks ago. I was SOOO excited. After just a few days my eyes began to feel funny, like they were bouncing around in my head. I couldn't focus on anything well and had this dull headache going on pretty much all the time. I chalked it up to getting used to a new screen technology, but it didn't go away. It kept getting worse to the point where after using the mini for even a short period of time it would be hours before my eyes would straighten back up. The only way I could hasten it was to lie down and close them for an hour or so.

So then, for the next several weeks I experimented with various approaches including less time, lower or higher brightness, wearing amber glasses, etc. Nothing elevated the discomfort. It just kept getting worse. Finally in desperation I consulted with my Mac IT guy husband. I loved my mini but was really getting concerned that I was doing some permanent damage to my eyes. That's when we found this and other forums discussing the very same issues.

At this point, barely a month after having it, we have decided that for whatever reason, I simply cannot use the retina display. None of my other screens, my MacBook Pro, old iPad, or Kindle, all non-retina display, give me any issues. I don't know...wish someone could explain it sufficiently, but the explanation suggesting the pixilation makes the most sense right now to what is going on.

We will attempt to return the retina display and go back to the regular screen, but honestly, whether we can return or not, I simply can't use it.