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I'm probably just blind, but I have trouble seeing the difference in display quality based on resolution. And I don't think I'm alone. When I was at the Apple

I'm probably just blind, but I have trouble seeing the difference in display quality based on resolution. And I don't think I'm alone. When I was at the Apple Store after they launched the new iPad, there were several people who confused the iPad 2 for the new iPad. And even after being shown they were looking at the wrong one didn't go, "Oh... this one looks much better!", rather I heard from multiple people a line like, "Oh, what's the difference?" I've looked at the HTC Titan side by side with an HTC Rezound (one of the lowest PPI versus probably the highest PPI phones) and it's really hard to tell the difference unless you're really looking hard. I think in part because even the worst PPI on phones is actually quite good. I haven't seen the retina display on the Mac Book Retina Display, but I do hope that it lives up to the hype, as I was sorely disappointed by how incremental the iPad retina display was (versus the iPad 2). (Note, the iPhone jump to Retina Display was a visibly dramatic improvement.)

danbee 14y ago
Your eye sight must be terrible. The retina iPad is a vast improvement over the iPad 2 for me.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  Note that the whole point of the "retina" branding is that at a certain distance you will no longer see any improvement as you move further back. If those people were standing sufficiently far back (as you might when looking at a store display iPad) then the retina effect will kick in.
- MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
  The difference between the retina and non-retina products is shocking once you're accustomed to the retina version. If I pick up my wife's iPad 1 or my old iPod touch, it's like looking at a jumbotron. It's the first thing I see. "Ohh, a big clunky grid of pixels... I forgot!" For now I haven't switched my computer screen, but I worry after a few weeks on a retina monitor, I'll have the same reaction to other displays.
mturmon 14y ago
You are of course not truly alone, but you must be unusual. As an example, consider the upvote/downvote arrows on this site. They have very fuzzy boundaries on my laptop (128 ppi). It almost looks smudged. They are perfectly clear on my new iPad (264 ppi). This is not surprising, it's 2x the resolution in each direction.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  It surprises me. The upvotes and downvotes are gif images, so all you're seeing is a blown up gif. I'm just in the process of replacing similar triangular gifs with near identical looking Unicode characters precisely so that it will look better on mobile devices that make more use of zoom. And in my experience (on iphone, iPad and Android phones and tablets, though admittedly not the new retina MBP) the current gifs look pretty bad when blown up. I think you've fallen for a placebo and somehow prefer the blurry resized images to the "pixel-perfect" originals.
  - foxhill 14y ago
    you can include "hi-dpi" versions of images, which a retina-display device will search for, before searching for the original image, e.g upvote.gif will cause safari to check for upvote@2x.gif (or something like that - i can't remember the specifics) assuming HN follows this convention (and given the number of iOS/OS X users on here, i would be surprised if it didn't), then he will be receiving the high-resolution image, and hence it will look "pixel perfect".
    - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
      Once again, I find myself surprised by someone's lack of surprise. Do you really think Hacker News uses hi-dpi images? My mind would be blown if it turned out it did. The HTML here is very old-school. Note also, that the zooming that is done on mobile browsers, and (as I understand it on most modes for the retina MBP) doesn't simply multiply by 2 like native apps on the iPad/Phone so even if you provided a double resolution image then it would be unlikely for it to be displayed "pixel perfect", but the increased resolution (in image and screen) would help to hide any resizing artefacts better. That's why using Unicode characters is a better idea, when possible, as they are vector and scale nicely, particularly so on high-dpi devices.
silverlake 14y ago
I was just looking at the Retina display vs. regular display at the Apple store. I've also compared an iPad v3 next to a v1. An iPhone 4 next to a 3G. My eyesight is better than 20/20 (yay laser surgery!). I honestly can't see an appreciable difference. Pictures do look better, sure. My current screen has a 140DPI. Text and windows for reading and development are fine, and I often use tiny fonts. I don't see the hype.
- bluthru 14y ago
  >Text and windows for reading and development are fine, and I often use tiny fonts. I don't see the hype. That's because you're looking at elements hinted for and designed for a blocky pixel grid. Try rendering a typeface designed for print, and the difference is night and day. There is no hype. Until displays can go toe-to-toe with print, we have a long way to go. Hold a magazine or a book up next to a standard-resolution display (with the same body font!) to illustrate how inept standard-resolution displays are.
mgcross 14y ago
You can't see the difference in text, particularly small text? Nytimes.com for example, is much harder for me to read on my wife's iPad 1 vs my new iPad or nexus 7. Comparing photos, I don't notice the resolution so much as the increased color gamut.

danbee 14y ago

Your eye sight must be terrible. The retina iPad is a vast improvement over the iPad 2 for me.

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
Note that the whole point of the "retina" branding is that at a certain distance you will no longer see any improvement as you move further back. If those people were standing sufficiently far back (as you might when looking at a store display iPad) then the retina effect will kick in.
MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
The difference between the retina and non-retina products is shocking once you're accustomed to the retina version. If I pick up my wife's iPad 1 or my old iPod touch, it's like looking at a jumbotron. It's the first thing I see. "Ohh, a big clunky grid of pixels... I forgot!" For now I haven't switched my computer screen, but I worry after a few weeks on a retina monitor, I'll have the same reaction to other displays.

mturmon 14y ago

You are of course not truly alone, but you must be unusual. As an example, consider the upvote/downvote arrows on this site. They have very fuzzy boundaries on my laptop (128 ppi). It almost looks smudged. They are perfectly clear on my new iPad (264 ppi). This is not surprising, it's 2x the resolution in each direction.

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
It surprises me. The upvotes and downvotes are gif images, so all you're seeing is a blown up gif. I'm just in the process of replacing similar triangular gifs with near identical looking Unicode characters precisely so that it will look better on mobile devices that make more use of zoom. And in my experience (on iphone, iPad and Android phones and tablets, though admittedly not the new retina MBP) the current gifs look pretty bad when blown up. I think you've fallen for a placebo and somehow prefer the blurry resized images to the "pixel-perfect" originals.
- foxhill 14y ago
  you can include "hi-dpi" versions of images, which a retina-display device will search for, before searching for the original image, e.g upvote.gif will cause safari to check for upvote@2x.gif (or something like that - i can't remember the specifics) assuming HN follows this convention (and given the number of iOS/OS X users on here, i would be surprised if it didn't), then he will be receiving the high-resolution image, and hence it will look "pixel perfect".
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    Once again, I find myself surprised by someone's lack of surprise. Do you really think Hacker News uses hi-dpi images? My mind would be blown if it turned out it did. The HTML here is very old-school. Note also, that the zooming that is done on mobile browsers, and (as I understand it on most modes for the retina MBP) doesn't simply multiply by 2 like native apps on the iPad/Phone so even if you provided a double resolution image then it would be unlikely for it to be displayed "pixel perfect", but the increased resolution (in image and screen) would help to hide any resizing artefacts better. That's why using Unicode characters is a better idea, when possible, as they are vector and scale nicely, particularly so on high-dpi devices.

silverlake 14y ago

I was just looking at the Retina display vs. regular display at the Apple store. I've also compared an iPad v3 next to a v1. An iPhone 4 next to a 3G. My eyesight is better than 20/20 (yay laser surgery!). I honestly can't see an appreciable difference. Pictures do look better, sure. My current screen has a 140DPI. Text and windows for reading and development are fine, and I often use tiny fonts. I don't see the hype.

bluthru 14y ago
>Text and windows for reading and development are fine, and I often use tiny fonts. I don't see the hype. That's because you're looking at elements hinted for and designed for a blocky pixel grid. Try rendering a typeface designed for print, and the difference is night and day. There is no hype. Until displays can go toe-to-toe with print, we have a long way to go. Hold a magazine or a book up next to a standard-resolution display (with the same body font!) to illustrate how inept standard-resolution displays are.

mgcross 14y ago

You can't see the difference in text, particularly small text? Nytimes.com for example, is much harder for me to read on my wife's iPad 1 vs my new iPad or nexus 7. Comparing photos, I don't notice the resolution so much as the increased color gamut.