4 ms·

1680 by 1050, which is the best you could get on a 15" Mac previously, isn't exactly "terrible resolution" (by historical standards anyway). But otherwise agree

by Osmium 14y ago

1680 by 1050, which is the best you could get on a 15" Mac previously, isn't exactly "terrible resolution" (by historical standards anyway). But otherwise agreed. My main machine is a 15" Retina, and I don't think I could ever go back to a lower-PPI laptop.

evoxed 14y ago
I bought the first generation MacBook Pro, a 17", for that reason. Other resolutions were just too small for what I was doing, and 1680 seemed like just enough. Eventually when they started offering the resolution upgrades on 15" models I upgraded to my current machine. The way I see it, there's no way I can be disappointed by the resolution of my next machine. No more pains over spending $100-300 for just a small bump to make things usable. Of course, the downside is that I can't let myself even try out the retina MacBook in store for fear that I won't look back– I'll wait until I can afford it.
- peteri 14y ago
  Last time I went shopping for a machine 1680x1050 was my target resolution for a 17" screen with dual hard drives, I'm still using it four years later (it has had HD upgrade to 2x500gb 7200RPM drives) It happens to have a couple of GeForce 8600M GPUs in there so its just about usable for gaming too. After I dropped it (laptop bag strap broke) and smashed the corner I looked around for a replacement (The mac book pro was tempting but oh the $$$) and couldn't find one for sensible money. So I bought some new plastics, redid the thermal paste on the CPU (it had started thermal throttling during long compiles) bought a second hand screen (and a new 4 port USB pcb that got damaged during the fall) off ebay to replace the broken clips that hold it together when its closed. So I also have a spare screen now. I'm dreading replacing it but I reckon I'm probably still good for a year or two yet.
moheeb 14y ago
I would consider the fact that they have only been able to increase the vertical resolution by ~300 pixels in 20 years to be pretty terrible. Meanwhile the images we view on those same screens have increased in size by nearly 20 times!
- brigade 14y ago
  20 years ago notebooks had 640x400 or 640x480 screens... If you include the 15" retina MBP then that's 17x more pixels in 20 years. And that includes greyscale to 8bit color to 16 bit color to 24/32 bit color, passive-matrix to active-matrix, and dozens of other panel technology improvements not directly related to resolution.
  - moheeb 14y ago
    The XGA (1024x768) was intro'd in the early 90s. Maybe you missed the earlier discussion but we've all been lamenting the crappy default resolutions since then. We were not discussing bit depth or black and white vs. color.
    - brigade 14y ago
      Not in laptops. Which is what everyone is talking about, if you missed it.

by Osmium 14y ago

evoxed 14y ago

I bought the first generation MacBook Pro, a 17", for that reason. Other resolutions were just too small for what I was doing, and 1680 seemed like just enough. Eventually when they started offering the resolution upgrades on 15" models I upgraded to my current machine. The way I see it, there's no way I can be disappointed by the resolution of my next machine. No more pains over spending $100-300 for just a small bump to make things usable. Of course, the downside is that I can't let myself even try out the retina MacBook in store for fear that I won't look back– I'll wait until I can afford it.

peteri 14y ago
Last time I went shopping for a machine 1680x1050 was my target resolution for a 17" screen with dual hard drives, I'm still using it four years later (it has had HD upgrade to 2x500gb 7200RPM drives) It happens to have a couple of GeForce 8600M GPUs in there so its just about usable for gaming too. After I dropped it (laptop bag strap broke) and smashed the corner I looked around for a replacement (The mac book pro was tempting but oh the $$$) and couldn't find one for sensible money. So I bought some new plastics, redid the thermal paste on the CPU (it had started thermal throttling during long compiles) bought a second hand screen (and a new 4 port USB pcb that got damaged during the fall) off ebay to replace the broken clips that hold it together when its closed. So I also have a spare screen now. I'm dreading replacing it but I reckon I'm probably still good for a year or two yet.

moheeb 14y ago

I would consider the fact that they have only been able to increase the vertical resolution by ~300 pixels in 20 years to be pretty terrible. Meanwhile the images we view on those same screens have increased in size by nearly 20 times!

brigade 14y ago
20 years ago notebooks had 640x400 or 640x480 screens... If you include the 15" retina MBP then that's 17x more pixels in 20 years. And that includes greyscale to 8bit color to 16 bit color to 24/32 bit color, passive-matrix to active-matrix, and dozens of other panel technology improvements not directly related to resolution.
- moheeb 14y ago
  The XGA (1024x768) was intro'd in the early 90s. Maybe you missed the earlier discussion but we've all been lamenting the crappy default resolutions since then. We were not discussing bit depth or black and white vs. color.
  - brigade 14y ago
    Not in laptops. Which is what everyone is talking about, if you missed it.