Very grainy 2018 macbook air facetime camera

I have some demonstrable differences between my 2013 and my 2020 MacBook Air - It's the same specification of camera I agree, but something is different in either the hardware or Driver. This is evident by two photos I just took, with significant additional digital noise in the brand-new laptop. I could live with it being 'as-crap' as the 2013 device, but not get significantly worse! Maybe things changed from 2014 onwards...either way, its significantly worse and utterly terrible in low light situations

Macbook 2013

Macbook Air 2020

Hi Celton,

I have this problem as well with my new MacBook Air 2018. The quality is dramatic, compared to even 2013 MacBook Air this seems like a software issue but why would it have to do with a user problem i_rina?

Same problem here, so it is clearly design not setting.

We need clarity asap on whether it is software (which they can fix) or hardware (which means I need to return this 2018 MacBook Air while I still can). I suggest starting a thread titled "Many 2018 MacBook Airs being returned due to poor camera quality?" That may get Apple's attention quicker to resolve whether it is hardware or software. Such a shame to have a great machine in many ways with such an Achilles heel for those who use lots of video conferencing.

i was having the same problem as well. i bought my macbook two days ago and i enjoy it until i open up the face time apps and just realise how bad is the camera is . I compare the camera with my sister macbook air 2015, my one macbookair 2018 is even worst. I am really upset cause i spent so many money on this machine, i hope apple will come out with a solution to fix the problem.

No reply from Apple after three , so its getting returned under the holiday return program.

The current MacBook Pro does not have the problem so it must be hardware.

Plus dictation doesn't work on the MacBook Air (with 16GB of RAM).

AsB

Same problem. I had a 2011 (yes mid 2011) that was great. I recently purchased a brand new (December 2018) 12" MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017) and the FaceTime camera is awful. It can not be an isolated issue, all these people have the same problem. They had a better camera in 2011...... Very loyal Apple consumer here... but I am questioning Apples quality for the first time in my life.

Sad to hear it is not just me... I cannot believe how bad/grainy the camera quality of my MacBook Pro is, I recently bought it for Christmas after saving my money and this happens. I really hope that Apple will resolve this.

Welcome to the club and you are not alone.Any 2018 Mac series suffer with the same issue so far.We have people all around the world reporting the same. In the meantime make sure you log in a ticket with Apple and send comments.Here is one critic review just posted.See below link;

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/03/2018-macbook-air-facetime-camera/

I have the same situation. 1000's of others have it as well. Contacted Apple support; chat, phone as well as spoke personally with the Apple "genius" in the store (all nice people). It boils down to: it is what it is: which is a 480p in the 12" and probably a 720p in the larger models. Either way, all these new laptops have a Retina (better resolution) display which makes me appear to "look" worse. When basically I look the same way I always have... I just have a better display to view see myself on. So, I can either return the computer and get the Pro which is at least $700 more or I can keep what I have. I have decided to keep what I have.

In addition to accepting and appreciating what a great little computer this 12" is ... I am also now aware that Apple has the ability to let me down. Which was much more difficult to come to terms with than the stupid little camera. For many years I have blindly trusted that if I buy the newest Apple product everything in it will be better than the old one. As a matter of perception I had believed.... and it had been my experience that Apple would anticipate what I needed and wanted before I even knew I wanted or needed it... and they would put that magical thing that I did not even know I wanted or needed into the newer product model. My blind elegance to Apple is no longer. My trust in Apple has been broken over a $5 camera in a $1200 computer. That is a little pathetic, but it is the truth. Now Apple has joined the rest of the "buyer beware" IT companies.

Exact same camera issue- very grainy and must be fixed ASAP- with the cost of the laptop being as high as it is, we should not have to settle or compromise on camera quality. Gave it in for fixing but computer came back with no change- picture still looks terrible and grainy!

Compared to my 2009 MacBook Pro, my BRAND NEW 2018 MacBook Air FaceTime camera is terrible - unacceptable. Obviously i am not the only one with this problem. What can we do about this? How do I get someone from Apple to respond??

i am SO disappointed. i have been waiting since for quite some time for the new refresh of the MacBook air only to find such a disappointment with the camera. its worse than I ever recall any iPhone to be. Is there any plan or message from Apple stating that they are working to fix this problem? is it for sure a software issue? at first i thought my camera was dirty however it is a brand new computer and wiped it and still blurry and grainy. just horrible!! sad to see this kind of quality from Apple for a $1,000+ computer.

After many calls and complaints with apple I got different versions of the problem:

-First they said it was software issue and that they would fix it in an update

-Then they said it was actually a hardware issue and that they on purpose designed the computer with that crappy camera

-Last time they told me that the camera is exactly the same as previous models, but that the screen is now soooo good, that we notice the pixels of the camera (this is BS because also a person in the other end of the camera also sees the crappy quality)

The issue here is that they messed up "designing" the computer with a bad camera and no one in apple is giving solutions on how to compensate for the problem. I'm already looking in international customer protection to see what we can do about it.

Giving this one an up because Apple thought it would be a good idea to delete the old, more popular topic. It's bad marketing Apple, we know, but this IS a problem and you should do something about it. You cannot sell a Facetime camera saying it's HD when clearly it's not.