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The downgrade from 1440x900 UI/chrome resolution to 1280x800 is what kills it for me. This is the first review that I see addressing this issue; I was beginning

The downgrade from 1440x900 UI/chrome resolution to 1280x800 is what kills it for me. This is the first review that I see addressing this issue; I was beginning to think I was the only one noticing this glaring issue. (The 15" MBP retina display suffers from the same issue.)

X-Istence 14y ago
I was under the impression that the 15" Retina MBP had a native resolution of 1440 by 900.
- johansch 14y ago
  It has a "UI resolution" of 1440x900, yes. But the way the chrome in OS X is designed, 1440x900 is suitable for a 13" screen, not a 15" screen. The previous high res option of MBP 15" had a resolution of 1680x1050. This (doubled) would have been a good resolution for the new 15" MBP retina display.
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    I have been using 1440 by 900 for years on my 2007 MacBook Pro, and I have no complaints regarding it. I have seen the high res version of the 15" and it felt too small to be comfortable to read.
    - johansch 14y ago
      Congratulations, the retina MBPs are designed for you :).
    - stock_toaster 14y ago
      Very much agree.
kylec 14y ago
If you need more screen real estate, you can change to a different scaled resolution in the System Preferences. If you need it, you can go with an effective 1440x900 or even 1680x1050 resolution. It's not an integer mapping between virtual pixels to real pixels like it is with 1280x800, but it looks almost as good - and better than a native 1440x900 or 1680x1050 display.
- johansch 14y ago
  Font rendering looks quite crappy in anything but exact 2x resolution doubling mode. I haven't looked into it, but suspect that subpixel rendering is disabled.
  - 4ad 14y ago
    Actually, for HiDPI applications, font rendering is perfect at every resolution. Only bitmaps get scaled.
  - baddox 14y ago
    Do you have screenshots of this, or a link to screenshots?
    - kylec 14y ago
      This is what it looks like at the 1680x1050 scale factor: http://cl.ly/KhRt http://cl.ly/KhRt
      - Osmium 14y ago
        Note that screenshots are not going to be representative of what you'd see in reality if you're viewing these screenshots on a "non-retina" display. So whilst technically interesting, in that these screenshots can show us how font rendering works when scaled, it's not representative of what you'd actually see if you had a retina display.
        kylec 14y ago
polshaw 14y ago
Absolutely this. I see very little point in paying a hefty premium for such a great screen to then be limited to such a tiny area of real-estate; or to have to sacrifice (much of) the beauty of the screen if you set it up for a reasonable real estate. Even before considering the struggles of the iGPU on such a high end machine. The 15" is much more usable (with 1440x900 X2), but i really can't see that the simple 'pixel doubling' of the rMBPs is really a proper solution for a laptop-- IMO a retina PPI with display elements equivalent to a normal screen somewhere in the 16xx-19xx (px wide) range would be ideal-- and i cant see apple (or anyone else) putting a 4K screen in a laptop in the foreseeable future. Is anyone aware of any movement towards resolution independence in linux (or anywhere?)
- petercooper 14y ago
  I'm a bit of a "fussy arse" and I have the 15" Retina and have no such problems. Indeed, I'm surprised just how often I change resolution. High for media work, low for browsing the web.. it's a breath of fresh air. There are some very minor aberrations (banding on certain hues, mostly) at 1920x1080 but you have to really be looking for them. And the text still looks razor sharp. So it's even better than I was expecting before I bought it.
natesm 14y ago
I use the retina MBP at "1920x1200", which wasn't available on any 15" MacBook previously. I do wish this was the "native" resolution though. "1440x900" is comically large.
johansch 14y ago
I don't understand why Apple went this way. They seem to prioritize chrome quality over content, in the non-2x modes. This is really strange since text with subpixel rendering in the content area is a clear benefit, while I have yet to see an app that provides subpixel rendering of its chrome elements.
hammock 14y ago
I did the napkin math because I was curious...the downgrade in resolution is equivalent to cutting the 13.3 inch screen down by 1.5 inch to 11.8 inches. (a 27% decrease in screen real estate)
- randomdrake 14y ago
  1440 * 900 = 1296000 1280 * 800 = 1024000 1296000 - 1024000 = 272000 272000 / 1296000 = 0.209876543 ~ 21% or 0.21 13.3 * 0.21 = 2.79 13.3 - 2.79 = 10.51 That's a 10.51" diagonal. It looks like you got 0.27 from taking the difference between the two over the 1280x800 resolution screen. Wouldn't you want to see the difference between the two over the larger one if you're seeing how much it shrunk?
  - carlob 14y ago
    21% in number of pixels. You have to take the sqrt of that before scaling the diagonal
  - hammock 14y ago
    Here's what I did, did I fcuk up? Per Pythagoras, the diagonal of 1440x900 is 1698; the diagonal of 1280x800 is 1509. 1509 / 1698 = .89 .89 * 13.3 inches = 11.8 inches Alternatively, sqrt(1-21%) = .89 And yeah typo. 21% reduction in pixels
    - randomdrake 14y ago
      Ahh okay. I was wondering where the 27 came from. Wasn't thinking about the sqrt. Fair enough.
cageface 14y ago
This new crop of machines is pretty tempting but I think it makes sense to wait until Haswell lands in the next generation. By that time a lot more applications will be updated to deal with the retina displays too. Like a lot of Apple products that push some new hardware concept this first generation seems to have some rough edges.

X-Istence 14y ago

I was under the impression that the 15" Retina MBP had a native resolution of 1440 by 900.

johansch 14y ago
It has a "UI resolution" of 1440x900, yes. But the way the chrome in OS X is designed, 1440x900 is suitable for a 13" screen, not a 15" screen. The previous high res option of MBP 15" had a resolution of 1680x1050. This (doubled) would have been a good resolution for the new 15" MBP retina display.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  I have been using 1440 by 900 for years on my 2007 MacBook Pro, and I have no complaints regarding it. I have seen the high res version of the 15" and it felt too small to be comfortable to read.
  - johansch 14y ago
    Congratulations, the retina MBPs are designed for you :).
  - stock_toaster 14y ago
    Very much agree.

kylec 14y ago

If you need more screen real estate, you can change to a different scaled resolution in the System Preferences. If you need it, you can go with an effective 1440x900 or even 1680x1050 resolution. It's not an integer mapping between virtual pixels to real pixels like it is with 1280x800, but it looks almost as good - and better than a native 1440x900 or 1680x1050 display.

johansch 14y ago
Font rendering looks quite crappy in anything but exact 2x resolution doubling mode. I haven't looked into it, but suspect that subpixel rendering is disabled.
- 4ad 14y ago
  Actually, for HiDPI applications, font rendering is perfect at every resolution. Only bitmaps get scaled.
- baddox 14y ago
  Do you have screenshots of this, or a link to screenshots?
  - kylec 14y ago
    This is what it looks like at the 1680x1050 scale factor: http://cl.ly/KhRt http://cl.ly/KhRt
    - Osmium 14y ago
      Note that screenshots are not going to be representative of what you'd see in reality if you're viewing these screenshots on a "non-retina" display. So whilst technically interesting, in that these screenshots can show us how font rendering works when scaled, it's not representative of what you'd actually see if you had a retina display.
      - kylec 14y ago

polshaw 14y ago

Absolutely this. I see very little point in paying a hefty premium for such a great screen to then be limited to such a tiny area of real-estate; or to have to sacrifice (much of) the beauty of the screen if you set it up for a reasonable real estate. Even before considering the struggles of the iGPU on such a high end machine. The 15" is much more usable (with 1440x900 X2), but i really can't see that the simple 'pixel doubling' of the rMBPs is really a proper solution for a laptop-- IMO a retina PPI with display elements equivalent to a normal screen somewhere in the 16xx-19xx (px wide) range would be ideal-- and i cant see apple (or anyone else) putting a 4K screen in a laptop in the foreseeable future. Is anyone aware of any movement towards resolution independence in linux (or anywhere?)

petercooper 14y ago
I'm a bit of a "fussy arse" and I have the 15" Retina and have no such problems. Indeed, I'm surprised just how often I change resolution. High for media work, low for browsing the web.. it's a breath of fresh air. There are some very minor aberrations (banding on certain hues, mostly) at 1920x1080 but you have to really be looking for them. And the text still looks razor sharp. So it's even better than I was expecting before I bought it.

natesm 14y ago

I use the retina MBP at "1920x1200", which wasn't available on any 15" MacBook previously. I do wish this was the "native" resolution though. "1440x900" is comically large.

johansch 14y ago

I don't understand why Apple went this way. They seem to prioritize chrome quality over content, in the non-2x modes. This is really strange since text with subpixel rendering in the content area is a clear benefit, while I have yet to see an app that provides subpixel rendering of its chrome elements.

hammock 14y ago

I did the napkin math because I was curious...the downgrade in resolution is equivalent to cutting the 13.3 inch screen down by 1.5 inch to 11.8 inches. (a 27% decrease in screen real estate)

randomdrake 14y ago
1440 * 900 = 1296000 1280 * 800 = 1024000 1296000 - 1024000 = 272000 272000 / 1296000 = 0.209876543 ~ 21% or 0.21 13.3 * 0.21 = 2.79 13.3 - 2.79 = 10.51 That's a 10.51" diagonal. It looks like you got 0.27 from taking the difference between the two over the 1280x800 resolution screen. Wouldn't you want to see the difference between the two over the larger one if you're seeing how much it shrunk?
- carlob 14y ago
  21% in number of pixels. You have to take the sqrt of that before scaling the diagonal
- hammock 14y ago
  Here's what I did, did I fcuk up? Per Pythagoras, the diagonal of 1440x900 is 1698; the diagonal of 1280x800 is 1509. 1509 / 1698 = .89 .89 * 13.3 inches = 11.8 inches Alternatively, sqrt(1-21%) = .89 And yeah typo. 21% reduction in pixels
  - randomdrake 14y ago
    Ahh okay. I was wondering where the 27 came from. Wasn't thinking about the sqrt. Fair enough.

cageface 14y ago

This new crop of machines is pretty tempting but I think it makes sense to wait until Haswell lands in the next generation. By that time a lot more applications will be updated to deal with the retina displays too. Like a lot of Apple products that push some new hardware concept this first generation seems to have some rough edges.