24 ms·

Low res screen and only 8GB of RAM, kind of a deal breaker for me.

by elcct 10y ago

refrigerator 10y ago
Curious about your 'low res screen' comment - 1080p on a 13.3" screen seems plenty to me!
- zapu 10y ago
  I agree. Not quite "retina" but almost too high DPI for unscaled Windows.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Windows scaling has gotten good enough where it'd be a deal-breaker for me to purchase a notebook without a "retina" screen. Especially when you're talking about a notebook pushing $1000.
    - izym 10y ago
      I think that depends very much on the suite of apps you use. There's plenty of apps where the scaling is rather broken and seriously takes away from the experience.
- elcct 10y ago
  It is passable for a phone, but if you do something more productive than browsing the web or watching youtube, 1080p is definitely not an economical use of the space. QHD+ is absolute minimum in terms of how much information you can display.
  - QuantumRoar 10y ago
    I owned one of the 2014 or 2015 Macbook Pro 13" thingies. Its effective resolution was 720p. That information density is so low that I couldn't use it. Using the full resolution, things were too small. Anything in between was unusable since the GPU couldn't render the OS animations smoothly. Is your eyesight just so good that you can use the non-scaled versions?
    - op00to 10y ago
      There's a wide range of scaled resolutions with the retina MBPs. I usually go somewhere in the middle to high resolution space. My brain can't handle the jaggies I see when I use my MacBook Air 13" now.
      - QuantumRoar 10y ago
        About two years ago or so, when I bought a 13" MBP, they had an intermediate resolution setting. But the OS started to lag und stutter when I switched between virtual desktops (I think it's called workspace). I believe this is because they render at double the effective resolution and then scale down. Therefore, the intermediate settings are the most taxing for the GPU. I couldn't find a way to disable the animations and since I use virtual desktops a lot and the usual effective 720p resolution is almost comically large, it all added up to be a dealbreaker for me and I returned it.
  - croon 10y ago
    1080p on a 13.3 inch supports as much text as I can reasonably read on that size. Any higher resolution would just draw more battery and result in me having to scale up to compensate. And I have "perfect" vision. If I'm doing something "more productive"/work I just connect more monitors. Resolution is only relevant up to a point, then screen size takes over. I'm honestly unsure if I can even spot the difference between 1080p and 1440p on a 5.5" phone in a blind test (ironic phrasing). Have you tried? I would love to have higher resolution on screens 24" and up without paying out the nose for 4k (1440p is reasonable in pricing), but the escalating resolutions in phones in recent years was just ridiculous, and fortunately it seems to have stopped now, and OP3 at least stopped at 1080p and focused on other hardware.
    - dexterdog 10y ago
      Spotting the difference between 1080 and 1440 on a phablet is one thing, but if you can't see a world of difference between 1080 and 1600 on a 13 at a typical laptop distance your vision is not perfect.
      - croon 10y ago
        I didn't say I can't see the difference, I said I can't use the difference.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        dexterdog 10y ago
        I used to think it wasn't that big of a deal until I started a new project where they require me to use their dell laptop with a 1080p 13" screen. When I went back to my 15" retina the difference is just astounding and my eyes are not what they once were. The font smoothing on a higher-density display really make it like reading a (backlit) book.
        croon 10y ago
  - apetrovic 10y ago
    QHD+ (3200x1800) is, IMHO, absolute overkill on 13" screen and have only one purpose - to show "mine is better than yours" numbers in the spec list. As a comparison, MacBook Pro, the laptop that invented "retina" laptop display, have 2560x1600 on 13". I dare you to spot the difference between 13" MacBook Pro and any current Windows laptop with crazy high resolutions when the fonts are the same size. BTW, 15" MacBook Pro have 2880x1800 (still below QHD+), and 12" Macbook have "strange" resolution of 2304x1400 - Apple cares about the battery life and packs reasonable number of pixels on the screen. Other manufacturers probably don't have so much weight and confidence in their products, and packs any available high-res display into laptops. But let's don't confuse bad logistic and sloppy manufacturing with economical use of display and battery.
    - elcct 10y ago
      I think it is down to ones ability to see. My travel-work laptop has QHD+ screen and I can easily see pixels from normal working distance. 1080p screen could definitely give me "90s experience"
      - yread 10y ago
        So you had a laptop in 90s with 1080p? Tell us more please!
        elcct 10y ago
        I think you take things too literally. But in the 90s I had a computer connected to analogue TV which was pretty blurry, that means you couldn't see pixels at all ;)
    - bluedino 10y ago
      >> As a comparison, MacBook Pro, the laptop that invented "retina" laptop display, have 2560x1600 on 13" It's an effective 1280x800 from the factory, and elements on screen are too big to be effective. Adjusting the slider over to an approximated 1440x900 is a must. 2880x1800 (what the 15" comes with) would be perfect for the 13" model, which would give a higher effective resolution with not artifacts.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
165 PPI is low resolution? That's almost the same as a 4K screen @ 27 inches. Would you call that low resolution? That's "retina" at a 21 inch (53 cm) viewing distance. Once you hit "retina", increasing the resolution provides rapidly decreasing benefits. http://isthisretina.com/ http://isthisretina.com/
- elcct 10y ago
  You can display more information using 4K @ 27 inch than 1080p @ 13.3, so not sure what is your point? I have 4k 27 inch monitor as well and can easily see pixels.
- criddell 10y ago
  Would you use a laser printer that prints at 165 PPI? Edit: Rather than vote the question down, what's a reasonable answer? I work with text all day and would love for my display to produce text as sharp as my laser printer does.
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    DPI & PPI aren't directly comparable. Displays have three display elements per pixel, and printers have a considerable amount of random variation.
    - criddell 10y ago
      They aren't directly comparable, but they are comparable. A 500 DPI printer is going to produce better text on an A4 page than a 1 PPI A4 sized display, right? Do you think text on your 165 PPI display is as sharp as even a low end laser printer?
      - bryanlarsen 10y ago
        My 175 PPI screen is sharper than a 300 DPI laser printer, and way sharper than 300 DPI ink jet printer.

Low res screen and only 8GB of RAM, kind of a deal breaker for me.

by elcct 10y ago

Low res screen and only 8GB of RAM, kind of a deal breaker for me.

refrigerator 10y ago

Curious about your 'low res screen' comment - 1080p on a 13.3" screen seems plenty to me!

zapu 10y ago
I agree. Not quite "retina" but almost too high DPI for unscaled Windows.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Windows scaling has gotten good enough where it'd be a deal-breaker for me to purchase a notebook without a "retina" screen. Especially when you're talking about a notebook pushing $1000.
  - izym 10y ago
    I think that depends very much on the suite of apps you use. There's plenty of apps where the scaling is rather broken and seriously takes away from the experience.
elcct 10y ago
It is passable for a phone, but if you do something more productive than browsing the web or watching youtube, 1080p is definitely not an economical use of the space. QHD+ is absolute minimum in terms of how much information you can display.
- QuantumRoar 10y ago
  I owned one of the 2014 or 2015 Macbook Pro 13" thingies. Its effective resolution was 720p. That information density is so low that I couldn't use it. Using the full resolution, things were too small. Anything in between was unusable since the GPU couldn't render the OS animations smoothly. Is your eyesight just so good that you can use the non-scaled versions?
  - op00to 10y ago
    There's a wide range of scaled resolutions with the retina MBPs. I usually go somewhere in the middle to high resolution space. My brain can't handle the jaggies I see when I use my MacBook Air 13" now.
    - QuantumRoar 10y ago
      About two years ago or so, when I bought a 13" MBP, they had an intermediate resolution setting. But the OS started to lag und stutter when I switched between virtual desktops (I think it's called workspace). I believe this is because they render at double the effective resolution and then scale down. Therefore, the intermediate settings are the most taxing for the GPU. I couldn't find a way to disable the animations and since I use virtual desktops a lot and the usual effective 720p resolution is almost comically large, it all added up to be a dealbreaker for me and I returned it.
- croon 10y ago
  1080p on a 13.3 inch supports as much text as I can reasonably read on that size. Any higher resolution would just draw more battery and result in me having to scale up to compensate. And I have "perfect" vision. If I'm doing something "more productive"/work I just connect more monitors. Resolution is only relevant up to a point, then screen size takes over. I'm honestly unsure if I can even spot the difference between 1080p and 1440p on a 5.5" phone in a blind test (ironic phrasing). Have you tried? I would love to have higher resolution on screens 24" and up without paying out the nose for 4k (1440p is reasonable in pricing), but the escalating resolutions in phones in recent years was just ridiculous, and fortunately it seems to have stopped now, and OP3 at least stopped at 1080p and focused on other hardware.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    Spotting the difference between 1080 and 1440 on a phablet is one thing, but if you can't see a world of difference between 1080 and 1600 on a 13 at a typical laptop distance your vision is not perfect.
    - croon 10y ago
      I didn't say I can't see the difference, I said I can't use the difference.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - dexterdog 10y ago
        I used to think it wasn't that big of a deal until I started a new project where they require me to use their dell laptop with a 1080p 13" screen. When I went back to my 15" retina the difference is just astounding and my eyes are not what they once were. The font smoothing on a higher-density display really make it like reading a (backlit) book.
        croon 10y ago
- apetrovic 10y ago
  QHD+ (3200x1800) is, IMHO, absolute overkill on 13" screen and have only one purpose - to show "mine is better than yours" numbers in the spec list. As a comparison, MacBook Pro, the laptop that invented "retina" laptop display, have 2560x1600 on 13". I dare you to spot the difference between 13" MacBook Pro and any current Windows laptop with crazy high resolutions when the fonts are the same size. BTW, 15" MacBook Pro have 2880x1800 (still below QHD+), and 12" Macbook have "strange" resolution of 2304x1400 - Apple cares about the battery life and packs reasonable number of pixels on the screen. Other manufacturers probably don't have so much weight and confidence in their products, and packs any available high-res display into laptops. But let's don't confuse bad logistic and sloppy manufacturing with economical use of display and battery.
  - elcct 10y ago
    I think it is down to ones ability to see. My travel-work laptop has QHD+ screen and I can easily see pixels from normal working distance. 1080p screen could definitely give me "90s experience"
    - yread 10y ago
      So you had a laptop in 90s with 1080p? Tell us more please!
      - elcct 10y ago
        I think you take things too literally. But in the 90s I had a computer connected to analogue TV which was pretty blurry, that means you couldn't see pixels at all ;)
  - bluedino 10y ago
    >> As a comparison, MacBook Pro, the laptop that invented "retina" laptop display, have 2560x1600 on 13" It's an effective 1280x800 from the factory, and elements on screen are too big to be effective. Adjusting the slider over to an approximated 1440x900 is a must. 2880x1800 (what the 15" comes with) would be perfect for the 13" model, which would give a higher effective resolution with not artifacts.

bryanlarsen 10y ago

165 PPI is low resolution? That's almost the same as a 4K screen @ 27 inches. Would you call that low resolution? That's "retina" at a 21 inch (53 cm) viewing distance. Once you hit "retina", increasing the resolution provides rapidly decreasing benefits. http://isthisretina.com/ http://isthisretina.com/

elcct 10y ago
You can display more information using 4K @ 27 inch than 1080p @ 13.3, so not sure what is your point? I have 4k 27 inch monitor as well and can easily see pixels.
criddell 10y ago
Would you use a laser printer that prints at 165 PPI? Edit: Rather than vote the question down, what's a reasonable answer? I work with text all day and would love for my display to produce text as sharp as my laser printer does.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  DPI & PPI aren't directly comparable. Displays have three display elements per pixel, and printers have a considerable amount of random variation.
  - criddell 10y ago
    They aren't directly comparable, but they are comparable. A 500 DPI printer is going to produce better text on an A4 page than a 1 PPI A4 sized display, right? Do you think text on your 165 PPI display is as sharp as even a low end laser printer?
    - bryanlarsen 10y ago
      My 175 PPI screen is sharper than a 300 DPI laser printer, and way sharper than 300 DPI ink jet printer.