4 ms·

The new Macbook has significantly better than a 1920x1080 screen, though.

by jfb 12y ago

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Does it, really? I think it depends, for me personally I'm not so sure it does. So first they're 16:10 displays, meaning 1920x1200 not 1080, I should have said WUXGA instead of Full HD, sorry. My rMBP is my main driver, I love it. And its PPI is 227, nice and sharp. Similar to the new Macbook (226). While a 1920x1200 MBA display would be 170 PPI. Big difference? So the generally considered quite beautiful iMac sits at 109 PPI. Even the 5k iMac is only 218. It's true, it's not quite a 12" Retina at 226 PPI. But if you asked me if I'd rather have a 13.3" screen with 170 PPI, or a 12" screen with 200+ PPI, I'd go with the former. For me, anything above 100 is good enough for computing, anything above 150 is starting to get really nice, and 200+ is an unnecessary bonus that I can still discern, but not get really excited about. 170 PPI would have been plenty for me. So I agree it's better, but significantly better? While researching for a new buy I took 3 friends to the Apple store while we were in the neighbourhood, and none of them could easily discern the iMac from the riMac at first glance. After I told them and let them do side by sides, they sorta saw. Which really surprised me, I could definitely notice, but for me too both displays were awesome. There are some real diminishing returns to ever increasing sharpness. You remember the Dell Ultrasharp U3011, a 30" monitor a few years old. It had 84 PPI, and this is still a nice display. Double that and you get 168 PPI, ought to be plenty, right? Double the pixel density of a few years old 'ultrasharp' by Dell. Still, it's less than the proposed 170 PPI on a Macbook Air. One may wonder if a PPI of 1 million would be 'significantly better', because at laptop distances of say 18" or so, eyes start to stop being able to discern pixels at 165 PPI or so, all the way up to the 260ish PPI range where virtually all eyes even with perfect vision lose the ability to discern pixels at laptop ranges. At the end of the day, few people are going to be doing high-res photoshopping or video editing on their 12" Macbook with Intel M Core, where 200+ PPI is useful. At 170 PPI, I think it's generally sharp enough for text & video. At the end of the day it's subjective, 226 vs 170 PPI may well be a significant difference for you. Not for me. And if I could have more performance, more battery, 1.3" more screen, more ports etc, I'd prefer the latter.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It takes a lot of work in software and design to make 100PPI look good. Ya, we can do it, hinted fonts, manually red lined and aligned pixel output from illustrator, etc... 200PPI+ is just so much easier to develop for...the vectors render with much fewer artifacts. I have a 150 PPI 4K desktop display and I'm pretty disappointed compared to my retina class laptop. But this disappointment comes from the extra work needed to make my software look good. I really can't wait for the day when all screens are 200+, it will be much easier for us.

The new Macbook has significantly better than a 1920x1080 screen, though.

by jfb 12y ago

The new Macbook has significantly better than a 1920x1080 screen, though.

Does it, really? I think it depends, for me personally I'm not so sure it does. So first they're 16:10 displays, meaning 1920x1200 not 1080, I should have said WUXGA instead of Full HD, sorry. My rMBP is my main driver, I love it. And its PPI is 227, nice and sharp. Similar to the new Macbook (226). While a 1920x1200 MBA display would be 170 PPI. Big difference? So the generally considered quite beautiful iMac sits at 109 PPI. Even the 5k iMac is only 218. It's true, it's not quite a 12" Retina at 226 PPI. But if you asked me if I'd rather have a 13.3" screen with 170 PPI, or a 12" screen with 200+ PPI, I'd go with the former. For me, anything above 100 is good enough for computing, anything above 150 is starting to get really nice, and 200+ is an unnecessary bonus that I can still discern, but not get really excited about. 170 PPI would have been plenty for me. So I agree it's better, but significantly better? While researching for a new buy I took 3 friends to the Apple store while we were in the neighbourhood, and none of them could easily discern the iMac from the riMac at first glance. After I told them and let them do side by sides, they sorta saw. Which really surprised me, I could definitely notice, but for me too both displays were awesome. There are some real diminishing returns to ever increasing sharpness. You remember the Dell Ultrasharp U3011, a 30" monitor a few years old. It had 84 PPI, and this is still a nice display. Double that and you get 168 PPI, ought to be plenty, right? Double the pixel density of a few years old 'ultrasharp' by Dell. Still, it's less than the proposed 170 PPI on a Macbook Air. One may wonder if a PPI of 1 million would be 'significantly better', because at laptop distances of say 18" or so, eyes start to stop being able to discern pixels at 165 PPI or so, all the way up to the 260ish PPI range where virtually all eyes even with perfect vision lose the ability to discern pixels at laptop ranges. At the end of the day, few people are going to be doing high-res photoshopping or video editing on their 12" Macbook with Intel M Core, where 200+ PPI is useful. At 170 PPI, I think it's generally sharp enough for text & video. At the end of the day it's subjective, 226 vs 170 PPI may well be a significant difference for you. Not for me. And if I could have more performance, more battery, 1.3" more screen, more ports etc, I'd prefer the latter.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
It takes a lot of work in software and design to make 100PPI look good. Ya, we can do it, hinted fonts, manually red lined and aligned pixel output from illustrator, etc... 200PPI+ is just so much easier to develop for...the vectors render with much fewer artifacts. I have a 150 PPI 4K desktop display and I'm pretty disappointed compared to my retina class laptop. But this disappointment comes from the extra work needed to make my software look good. I really can't wait for the day when all screens are 200+, it will be much easier for us.