7 ms·

Retina MacBook Pro Review: The Age of the High-Resolution PC

24 points by basil 14y ago

daurnimator 14y ago
The intro/overview are a complete load of codswallop... Touting increases in DPI as game changing couldn't be farther from the truth. Nevermind the painting of apple as innovators.
- uptown 14y ago
  "Touting increases in DPI as game changing couldn't be farther from the truth." I think that remains to be seen. If the existence of this laptop in the market drives consumers to seek out laptops with this resolution display, and other laptop makers are required to offer laptops of similar resolution, and web developers convert their graphics to work well with "Retina" resolutions ... then you could make the case that it's game-changing. But it will be awhile before that's known.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  One of my first thoughts after hearing the original iPhone announcement was "what a low resolution screen". After all, the Nokia 770, released a couple of years before the iPhone, had an 800x480 screen. Most full websites back then were usable on an 800 pixel screen. Because it had a low-res screen, the iPhone required mobile versions, which I thought would doom it due to the chicken and egg problem. Remember, back then the iPhone didn't allow third party apps, the "blessed" way of adding capability to your iPhone was through web sites. Who would buy an iPhone if it didn't have any apps or mobile web sites? Who would mobile web sites if nobody bought an iPhone? Apparently, I was wrong.
vetler 14y ago
I kind of want Retina display, but I made a promise to myself that my next laptop would be a Linux laptop. Perhaps I could run Linux on a Macbook Pro, but it would look like this: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-ubuntu-look-like-on-a-retina-display-bad http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-ubuntu-look-lik... How long until other desktop environments catch up?
afsina 14y ago
In my old 16 inch notebook I cannot notice pixels at all. And font rendering is just fine. Ok I have an eye problem but still I fail to see the point of having very high resolution on a small screen. What is the catch?
- lucian1900 14y ago
  I clearly notice the pixels on anything lower than 200dpi and can only completely ignore them past 250dpi. It's the point where antialising becomes unnecessary, basically.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
nodata 14y ago
Saw a Retina display yesterday, I can't see what the fuss is about.
stusmith1977 14y ago
Does anyone else think it weird that the first mainstream hi-res displays weren't pushed by Microsoft? Let me explain... Back when WPF was still called Avalon, Microsoft were pushing the technology as a solution for the soon-to-be-arriving high-dpi displays (which, we were assured, were right around the corner). As an example, see a contemporary blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213.... Given that Microsoft were (are?) deseperately trying to hold back the tide of web-based applications, wouldn't displays like this, combined with tchnology such as WPF, have been a killer feature of a desktop OS? And hence, shouldn't they have been a high-priority for Microsoft? So why did Apple get there first? Why didn't Microsoft research/fund/introduce these high-dpi displays? Edit: More links from a Coding Horror post from the same year: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmapped-world.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmap...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- taotetek 14y ago
  The "first" main stream hi-res display? I have some Sony Trinitron CRTs in my basement that would like to talk to you.
  - stusmith1977 14y ago
    Sorry, didn't really clarify what I meant by mainstream: easily available to purchase, by non-techie consumers, from a high-street shop.
    - taotetek 14y ago
      Sony multiscan trinitrons weren't exotic - you could purchase them in any reasonable electronics store. I have several that go up to 2048x1536 @ 75hz. Viewsonic had monitors that did the same. While I look forward to higher resolution LCDs becoming a standard option, LCD's set us back resolution wise for quite a long time. LCD does have other advantages over CRT of course.
MetaCosm 14y ago
As someone who has used a retina display in daylight, it is unusable (bring up a black terminal, it is a goddamn mirror). It only compares favorably with the notoriously horrible apple glossy displays... well know for having some of the worst imaginable glare problems (unusable in many office overhead lighting situations). How the author found this better than the matte screen is beyond me. That all said, I am happy about Apple pushing forward on a decoupling of resolution from perceived size... it is long overdue. That combined with apples supply chain clout, I can't wait to see more ultra-high resolution screens everywhere.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  Can this kind of decoupling be accomplished on Windows and or Linux? I just ask because I have a 1920x1080 (native) resolution LCD which looks wonderful in Movies and Games, but makes text and other OS artefacts unusable small. Windows will let you set the text size (Medium, Large) but all this seems to accomplish is to break all non-native applications (e.g. force text off of the right hand side of the drawable area). It would be wonderful if I purchased for example a 2048x1536 display which Windows could run in 1024x768 "mode" but with four times the pixels per every dot of content on the screen.
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    Don't know about windows, but it certainly can be on Linux. The only problem is the marketing: people buy "HD" screens now. Apple sells "retina" screens, and people buy them. Our world is quite sad.
  - MetaCosm 14y ago
    It can't even really be accomplished well on OS-X yet. But I am delighted Apple is going for it, because the application will catch up. Right now it works really well with Apple's font render engine, and not much else. But application developers will catch up -- as will Microsoft and Linux (some Linux mailing lists are already blowing up with how to handle it). X can handle it no problems, it is the libraries that can't.
jesstra 14y ago
Retina displays are suddenly the buzzword. Is it a new concept? No. Do we really need it? Debatable. Do we want it? Undeniable. Credit where its due once again to the Apple marketing machine...
- rsynnott 14y ago
  It's not so much marketing as that _they are actually making these things_. There has been a small but rather fanatical demand for high-DPI screens for a good while, particularly since the demise of CRTs. Note how excited people got about the resolution independence features introduced (and subsequently scrapped; 10.7 does it very differently) in MacOS 10.4.
netpenthe 14y ago
is it just me or is the font in this article ironically horrible?
- welcomebrand 14y ago
  It's not just you. Could barely read it.
  - _Mark 14y ago
    In Chrome I cannot read it, but the text appears fine in Firefox.
- gbeeson 14y ago
  It is indeed within Chrome as reported.
goombastic 14y ago
As someone who has been waiting for a higher resolution laptop screen for years, what apple has done is a godsend. At least now other laptop manufacturers will take high res demands seriously.
Mordor 14y ago
Actually, it's the end of the high-resolution PC, since there's no point in adding more detail if your eyes are physically unable to detect the difference. Also, we're already able to buy 3D displays, so that's another 'old' technology too. Smart 3D TV's - old. I imagine someone's going to be selling 3D contact lenses soon, so all surfaces will be 3D video devices. The next step is to make them intelligent...
dbecker 14y ago
I'm always surprised when I see internet reviews where people talk about no longer being able to see individual pixels. I can't see individual pixels even if I look closely at my screen... and everyone I've talked to in person has said the same thing.
midnight_coder 14y ago
As someone who has pretty good eyesight (for the time being at least), I am pretty excited about the prospects of coding in the terminal with a super HD screen (I hate having to buy into Apple's marketing speak). Right now I struggle to have three 80 coloumn wide text files open in VIM on my Lenovo X201, and most other people have a real hard time reading the small font on my screen, while I have just gotten used to it. A super HD screen would mean vertical and horizontal lines of code for me without sacrificing the readability issues of going down in font size, assuming I can adapt to the smaller text.
JackpotDen 14y ago
It's not an mp3 player. It's an ipod. It's not a PDA. It's an iphone. It's not a tablet laptop. It's an ipad. It's not a high resolution display unit. It's a retina macbook.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  This is very smart marketing for Apple. They have the assets (reputation, substantially different UX) that let them position their releases as new products rather than improved versions of existing products. That said, most companies would fail completely if they tried this. The average startup wants their customers to quickly and easily recognize their product. YMMV.

24 points by basil 14y ago

The intro/overview are a complete load of codswallop... Touting increases in DPI as game changing couldn't be farther from the truth. Nevermind the painting of apple as innovators.

uptown 14y ago
"Touting increases in DPI as game changing couldn't be farther from the truth." I think that remains to be seen. If the existence of this laptop in the market drives consumers to seek out laptops with this resolution display, and other laptop makers are required to offer laptops of similar resolution, and web developers convert their graphics to work well with "Retina" resolutions ... then you could make the case that it's game-changing. But it will be awhile before that's known.
bryanlarsen 14y ago
One of my first thoughts after hearing the original iPhone announcement was "what a low resolution screen". After all, the Nokia 770, released a couple of years before the iPhone, had an 800x480 screen. Most full websites back then were usable on an 800 pixel screen. Because it had a low-res screen, the iPhone required mobile versions, which I thought would doom it due to the chicken and egg problem. Remember, back then the iPhone didn't allow third party apps, the "blessed" way of adding capability to your iPhone was through web sites. Who would buy an iPhone if it didn't have any apps or mobile web sites? Who would mobile web sites if nobody bought an iPhone? Apparently, I was wrong.

vetler 14y ago

I kind of want Retina display, but I made a promise to myself that my next laptop would be a Linux laptop. Perhaps I could run Linux on a Macbook Pro, but it would look like this: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-ubuntu-look-like-on-a-retina-display-bad http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-ubuntu-look-lik... How long until other desktop environments catch up?

afsina 14y ago

In my old 16 inch notebook I cannot notice pixels at all. And font rendering is just fine. Ok I have an eye problem but still I fail to see the point of having very high resolution on a small screen. What is the catch?

lucian1900 14y ago
I clearly notice the pixels on anything lower than 200dpi and can only completely ignore them past 250dpi. It's the point where antialising becomes unnecessary, basically.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

nodata 14y ago

Saw a Retina display yesterday, I can't see what the fuss is about.

stusmith1977 14y ago

Does anyone else think it weird that the first mainstream hi-res displays weren't pushed by Microsoft? Let me explain... Back when WPF was still called Avalon, Microsoft were pushing the technology as a solution for the soon-to-be-arriving high-dpi displays (which, we were assured, were right around the corner). As an example, see a contemporary blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213.... Given that Microsoft were (are?) deseperately trying to hold back the tide of web-based applications, wouldn't displays like this, combined with tchnology such as WPF, have been a killer feature of a desktop OS? And hence, shouldn't they have been a high-priority for Microsoft? So why did Apple get there first? Why didn't Microsoft research/fund/introduce these high-dpi displays? Edit: More links from a Coding Horror post from the same year: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmapped-world.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmap...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
taotetek 14y ago
The "first" main stream hi-res display? I have some Sony Trinitron CRTs in my basement that would like to talk to you.
- stusmith1977 14y ago
  Sorry, didn't really clarify what I meant by mainstream: easily available to purchase, by non-techie consumers, from a high-street shop.
  - taotetek 14y ago
    Sony multiscan trinitrons weren't exotic - you could purchase them in any reasonable electronics store. I have several that go up to 2048x1536 @ 75hz. Viewsonic had monitors that did the same. While I look forward to higher resolution LCDs becoming a standard option, LCD's set us back resolution wise for quite a long time. LCD does have other advantages over CRT of course.

MetaCosm 14y ago

As someone who has used a retina display in daylight, it is unusable (bring up a black terminal, it is a goddamn mirror). It only compares favorably with the notoriously horrible apple glossy displays... well know for having some of the worst imaginable glare problems (unusable in many office overhead lighting situations). How the author found this better than the matte screen is beyond me. That all said, I am happy about Apple pushing forward on a decoupling of resolution from perceived size... it is long overdue. That combined with apples supply chain clout, I can't wait to see more ultra-high resolution screens everywhere.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
Can this kind of decoupling be accomplished on Windows and or Linux? I just ask because I have a 1920x1080 (native) resolution LCD which looks wonderful in Movies and Games, but makes text and other OS artefacts unusable small. Windows will let you set the text size (Medium, Large) but all this seems to accomplish is to break all non-native applications (e.g. force text off of the right hand side of the drawable area). It would be wonderful if I purchased for example a 2048x1536 display which Windows could run in 1024x768 "mode" but with four times the pixels per every dot of content on the screen.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  Don't know about windows, but it certainly can be on Linux. The only problem is the marketing: people buy "HD" screens now. Apple sells "retina" screens, and people buy them. Our world is quite sad.
- MetaCosm 14y ago
  It can't even really be accomplished well on OS-X yet. But I am delighted Apple is going for it, because the application will catch up. Right now it works really well with Apple's font render engine, and not much else. But application developers will catch up -- as will Microsoft and Linux (some Linux mailing lists are already blowing up with how to handle it). X can handle it no problems, it is the libraries that can't.

jesstra 14y ago

Retina displays are suddenly the buzzword. Is it a new concept? No. Do we really need it? Debatable. Do we want it? Undeniable. Credit where its due once again to the Apple marketing machine...

rsynnott 14y ago
It's not so much marketing as that _they are actually making these things_. There has been a small but rather fanatical demand for high-DPI screens for a good while, particularly since the demise of CRTs. Note how excited people got about the resolution independence features introduced (and subsequently scrapped; 10.7 does it very differently) in MacOS 10.4.

netpenthe 14y ago

is it just me or is the font in this article ironically horrible?

welcomebrand 14y ago
It's not just you. Could barely read it.
- _Mark 14y ago
  In Chrome I cannot read it, but the text appears fine in Firefox.
gbeeson 14y ago
It is indeed within Chrome as reported.

goombastic 14y ago

As someone who has been waiting for a higher resolution laptop screen for years, what apple has done is a godsend. At least now other laptop manufacturers will take high res demands seriously.

Mordor 14y ago

Actually, it's the end of the high-resolution PC, since there's no point in adding more detail if your eyes are physically unable to detect the difference. Also, we're already able to buy 3D displays, so that's another 'old' technology too. Smart 3D TV's - old. I imagine someone's going to be selling 3D contact lenses soon, so all surfaces will be 3D video devices. The next step is to make them intelligent...

dbecker 14y ago

I'm always surprised when I see internet reviews where people talk about no longer being able to see individual pixels. I can't see individual pixels even if I look closely at my screen... and everyone I've talked to in person has said the same thing.

midnight_coder 14y ago

As someone who has pretty good eyesight (for the time being at least), I am pretty excited about the prospects of coding in the terminal with a super HD screen (I hate having to buy into Apple's marketing speak). Right now I struggle to have three 80 coloumn wide text files open in VIM on my Lenovo X201, and most other people have a real hard time reading the small font on my screen, while I have just gotten used to it. A super HD screen would mean vertical and horizontal lines of code for me without sacrificing the readability issues of going down in font size, assuming I can adapt to the smaller text.

JackpotDen 14y ago

It's not an mp3 player. It's an ipod. It's not a PDA. It's an iphone. It's not a tablet laptop. It's an ipad. It's not a high resolution display unit. It's a retina macbook.

SatvikBeri 14y ago
This is very smart marketing for Apple. They have the assets (reputation, substantially different UX) that let them position their releases as new products rather than improved versions of existing products. That said, most companies would fail completely if they tried this. The average startup wants their customers to quickly and easily recognize their product. YMMV.