7 ms·

1366x768 in 2014?

by bitL 13y ago

1366x768 in 2014?

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
I imagine Apple are optimising for battery life and cost here, rather than for sheer resolution. Edit: Also, that's the 11", I doubt they can squeeze many more pixels in there before it becomes unreadable. The 13" is 1440x900, which is more reasonable (I'm using it as we speak, actually!)
- bitL 13y ago
  This argument won't stand. New phone displays have significantly lower battery consumption than the old ones and substantially higher resolutions. And you can always employ tricks like reducing refresh rate to lower the consumption even more.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
    Why not? If they push the resolution of the 11" much more, it'll become harder to read the screen. If they double the resolution to make it "retina", the battery will take a hit, as will the cost.
  - anextio 13y ago
    New phones are also not tied to the x86 platform, and generally run software that has been optimized from the start for performance. There are other considerations too. Phone usage patterns are way different to computer usage patterns. The vast majority of phone usage occurs in small blips of activity during which execution can be optimized for the CPU to race to sleep state as soon as possible. Computers don't have the same usage patterns at all, and have a legacy of first and third party software (on all major platforms) that have not yet been optimized for performance.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    There isn't a retina notebook yet with the kind of battery life the Air has.
- Kurtz79 13y ago
  I'm still quite happy with my late 2010 13' Air, as a second/travel/coffee shop laptop. About your edit: remember that how Apple does it in the "Retina" models is increasing the definition, without affecting the actual size of the UI elements. I would buy a "Retina Air" in an heartbeat.
- taude 13y ago
  Explain high density 10" iPads, then.
pedrofelipe 13y ago
12 hours of battery life in 2014? puff
- zimpenfish 13y ago
  How many other laptops of similar spec can beat it though?
  - chrisBob 13y ago
    I think it was a joke. Jokes don't always come out well on the internet.
    - zimpenfish 13y ago
      Ah, possibly. I guess I'm too used to the rampant comment-scorn about everything to spot jokes reliably.
jmnicolas 13y ago
This is for the 11" model. The 13" has a more appropriate 1440x900. Retina would be nice though.
- hackerboos 13y ago
  If Apple made a retina Macbook Air then nobody would buy the Macbook Pro.
  - bitL 13y ago
    Could be. 13" rMBP won't be much different from a 13" rMBA then.
  - dagw 13y ago
    They could differentiate by making the MBP a lot more powerful than the MBA with things like a high end quad core CPU, up to 32 GB of RAM and a fast Nvidia GPU. Admittedly the market for high end powerful 13" laptops might not be that big.
    - hackerboos 13y ago
      You couldn't fit all of that in a 13" MBP.
      - dagw 13y ago
        Look what they did with the Mac Pro. Squeezing lots of power into small containers is one the things Apple is quite good at. Lenovo can fit most of that it in their 14" T440. I'm sure if Apple set a team of top engineers on the problem they could find a way to make it work.
  - jmnicolas 13y ago
    I believe that it would be more profitable for a company to offer their best instead of artificially segmenting the market.
chrisBob 13y ago
This is their cheapest option and has an 11" display. If you want pixels then you should pay a little more and not complain when it is a little heavier: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/ http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/
- bitL 13y ago
  I have a 15" rMBP. This is about MBA. iPad doesn't have a problem having retina display, just MBA.
rm445 13y ago
People are defending the 11" Macbook Air with that resolution, but you make a fair point. I have the 2012 model, and it is an absolutely superb machine, but the lack of vertical pixels is its weakest feature. Reading documents is far from ideal: it is distracting to read a wide-columned pdf with a relatively small number of lines on the screen, and the screen isn't quite good enough to allow much zooming out. There is a noticeable difference in the usability of the machine when my eyes are tired. A higher-resolution screen would presumably help on both counts. Because the software is generally well-put-together and the touchpad is excellent, the resolution is not so much a problem for actively using software, creating documents and so forth. But scrolling around and zooming in and out has an overhead, which again, more pixels would reduce the need for.

1366x768 in 2014?

by bitL 13y ago

1366x768 in 2014?

I imagine Apple are optimising for battery life and cost here, rather than for sheer resolution. Edit: Also, that's the 11", I doubt they can squeeze many more pixels in there before it becomes unreadable. The 13" is 1440x900, which is more reasonable (I'm using it as we speak, actually!)

bitL 13y ago
This argument won't stand. New phone displays have significantly lower battery consumption than the old ones and substantially higher resolutions. And you can always employ tricks like reducing refresh rate to lower the consumption even more.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Why not? If they push the resolution of the 11" much more, it'll become harder to read the screen. If they double the resolution to make it "retina", the battery will take a hit, as will the cost.
- anextio 13y ago
  New phones are also not tied to the x86 platform, and generally run software that has been optimized from the start for performance. There are other considerations too. Phone usage patterns are way different to computer usage patterns. The vast majority of phone usage occurs in small blips of activity during which execution can be optimized for the CPU to race to sleep state as soon as possible. Computers don't have the same usage patterns at all, and have a legacy of first and third party software (on all major platforms) that have not yet been optimized for performance.
- rayiner 13y ago
  There isn't a retina notebook yet with the kind of battery life the Air has.
Kurtz79 13y ago
I'm still quite happy with my late 2010 13' Air, as a second/travel/coffee shop laptop. About your edit: remember that how Apple does it in the "Retina" models is increasing the definition, without affecting the actual size of the UI elements. I would buy a "Retina Air" in an heartbeat.
taude 13y ago
Explain high density 10" iPads, then.

pedrofelipe 13y ago

12 hours of battery life in 2014? puff

zimpenfish 13y ago
How many other laptops of similar spec can beat it though?
- chrisBob 13y ago
  I think it was a joke. Jokes don't always come out well on the internet.
  - zimpenfish 13y ago
    Ah, possibly. I guess I'm too used to the rampant comment-scorn about everything to spot jokes reliably.

jmnicolas 13y ago

This is for the 11" model. The 13" has a more appropriate 1440x900. Retina would be nice though.

hackerboos 13y ago
If Apple made a retina Macbook Air then nobody would buy the Macbook Pro.
- bitL 13y ago
  Could be. 13" rMBP won't be much different from a 13" rMBA then.
- dagw 13y ago
  They could differentiate by making the MBP a lot more powerful than the MBA with things like a high end quad core CPU, up to 32 GB of RAM and a fast Nvidia GPU. Admittedly the market for high end powerful 13" laptops might not be that big.
  - hackerboos 13y ago
    You couldn't fit all of that in a 13" MBP.
    - dagw 13y ago
      Look what they did with the Mac Pro. Squeezing lots of power into small containers is one the things Apple is quite good at. Lenovo can fit most of that it in their 14" T440. I'm sure if Apple set a team of top engineers on the problem they could find a way to make it work.
- jmnicolas 13y ago
  I believe that it would be more profitable for a company to offer their best instead of artificially segmenting the market.

chrisBob 13y ago

This is their cheapest option and has an 11" display. If you want pixels then you should pay a little more and not complain when it is a little heavier: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/ http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

bitL 13y ago
I have a 15" rMBP. This is about MBA. iPad doesn't have a problem having retina display, just MBA.

rm445 13y ago

People are defending the 11" Macbook Air with that resolution, but you make a fair point. I have the 2012 model, and it is an absolutely superb machine, but the lack of vertical pixels is its weakest feature. Reading documents is far from ideal: it is distracting to read a wide-columned pdf with a relatively small number of lines on the screen, and the screen isn't quite good enough to allow much zooming out. There is a noticeable difference in the usability of the machine when my eyes are tired. A higher-resolution screen would presumably help on both counts. Because the software is generally well-put-together and the touchpad is excellent, the resolution is not so much a problem for actively using software, creating documents and so forth. But scrolling around and zooming in and out has an overhead, which again, more pixels would reduce the need for.