On the laptop it doesn't cut into the normal screen ratio. So it's basically free pixels minus the notch.

But stuff did get hidden behind the notch sometimes. Not sure if that is still the case.

I'm still keeping my iPhone 8 Plus and MacBook Air M1 for the exact same reason. I'm not buying any more Apple products until the notch goes away.

You can change the screen resolution and make the notch go away (along with all of the other pixels to the left and right of the notch).

Wait, how do you see the notch? It seems that only the menu bar can go there and fullscreen and windowed apps and video can't. Why circumstances do you see it?

Maybe it's because I use dark mode? I can only tell it's there if I move my mouse under it.

When menu items no longer show up because they're where the notch is. Happens every time I'm on just my laptop and not on an external monitor.

I have my display scaled a bit smaller than default, which is probably why I never see that. That's....so stupid.

Here's a "workaround" that might help [1]. It entirely excludes the notch area from use.

[1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/460903/601283

you can “remove” the notch on the Macbook by setting the resolution to one of the 16x10 aspect ratio resolutions.

Go to Settings > Displays. In the list of resolutions you need to enable “Show all resolutions” then you can select one that will hide the notch

On my laptop, I edit the wallpapers to include a black bar at the top, so I rarely notice the notch. Eg: https://celsoazevedo.com/files/2025/macos-bar.png

Got the idea from the Top Notch app, which no longer seems to work: https://topnotch.app/