MBP is 2560x1600.
There's no rule that a "retina" screen has to have twice as many pixels as an outgoing screen. Retina is a DPI target.
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Warming-up for the all-new redesigned retina 2014 (2015?) MacBook Air
- Thread starter skaertus
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MBP is 2560x1600.
There's no rule that a "retina" screen has to have twice as many pixels as an outgoing screen. Retina is a DPI target.
until now..all apple products with retina it means 2x the pixels (even the imac)
except the new iphones who doesn't have the 3.5" screen anymore
MacBook different models should be designed around each family of intel processors.
They don't use 45W (Haswell) in the rMBP13, it would probably need more thickness for a better cooling system and to accommodate a larger battery.
They don't use 35W (Haswell) in the 15" for an even more thin design because they already use it in the 13" and with the volume gained allowing more battery they can afford fitting in higher TDP chips with higher performance.
Etc.
Growing in size with chip's TDP allow to design a balanced line of laptop: equivalent design, similar battery life, gradual performance. But the Air was the exception using at any size same TDP chips with compromises to keep small sizes. With Broadwell then SkyLake, and future 10 nm lines, previous performances and improved ones will be accessible on lower TDP chips. The direction taken is to consume less power, not to only offer more performances; new lines of intel chips will probably offer lower TDP without concession on performances, with something like 3 families (sub-15W>10W, sub-30W>20W, sub-40W>30W) + Core M sub-5W.
Convergence of the two Apple laptop lines is for me the most logical future, offering more consistency from the bottom to the top, and an overall simplification of the offer, with a decision for consumer essentially on size; performances logically follows.
In that perspective, the unique/converged line of Apple ultrabooks would of course have retina screens, and for consistency the pixel density wouldn't vary much between models (contrary to the current situation of the Air having a quite higher pixel density since the introduction of the 11.6" model that had to offer enough screen estate i.e. had to have a large enough resolution for actual capability on a desktop OS; the new 11.6" replacing directly the previous and first 13" MBA model, the maintained 13" new model had to gain a larger resolution too, for differentiation and consistency inside the Air line, but de facto offered the same resolution as the MBP15).
This would give something like:
. 12.2" built around sub-15W chips at 2x 1366x768 (~255 ppi)
. 13.3" built around sub-30W chips at 2x 1440x900 (~255 ppi)
. 15.4" built around sub-40W chips at 2x 1680x1050 (~255 ppi)
All offering a thinner profile than current rMBP, approaching MBA lightness and design, without performance loss.
Adressing the low-end (price-wise) will be with iOS, wether they introduce new form factors like an iOS touch laptop or with larger tablets.
They don't use 45W (Haswell) in the rMBP13, it would probably need more thickness for a better cooling system and to accommodate a larger battery.
They don't use 35W (Haswell) in the 15" for an even more thin design because they already use it in the 13" and with the volume gained allowing more battery they can afford fitting in higher TDP chips with higher performance.
Etc.
Growing in size with chip's TDP allow to design a balanced line of laptop: equivalent design, similar battery life, gradual performance. But the Air was the exception using at any size same TDP chips with compromises to keep small sizes. With Broadwell then SkyLake, and future 10 nm lines, previous performances and improved ones will be accessible on lower TDP chips. The direction taken is to consume less power, not to only offer more performances; new lines of intel chips will probably offer lower TDP without concession on performances, with something like 3 families (sub-15W>10W, sub-30W>20W, sub-40W>30W) + Core M sub-5W.
Convergence of the two Apple laptop lines is for me the most logical future, offering more consistency from the bottom to the top, and an overall simplification of the offer, with a decision for consumer essentially on size; performances logically follows.
In that perspective, the unique/converged line of Apple ultrabooks would of course have retina screens, and for consistency the pixel density wouldn't vary much between models (contrary to the current situation of the Air having a quite higher pixel density since the introduction of the 11.6" model that had to offer enough screen estate i.e. had to have a large enough resolution for actual capability on a desktop OS; the new 11.6" replacing directly the previous and first 13" MBA model, the maintained 13" new model had to gain a larger resolution too, for differentiation and consistency inside the Air line, but de facto offered the same resolution as the MBP15).
This would give something like:
. 12.2" built around sub-15W chips at 2x 1366x768 (~255 ppi)
. 13.3" built around sub-30W chips at 2x 1440x900 (~255 ppi)
. 15.4" built around sub-40W chips at 2x 1680x1050 (~255 ppi)
All offering a thinner profile than current rMBP, approaching MBA lightness and design, without performance loss.
Adressing the low-end (price-wise) will be with iOS, wether they introduce new form factors like an iOS touch laptop or with larger tablets.
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That seems very logical. And I think it would be really nice To see these laptops. I would prefer If the smaller one had a 16:10 aspect ratio as well. That would allow the whole line To keep consistent. In addition, 16:9 does not work well with smaller screens.
I am not convinced Apple would do that, though, as it would mean less powerful laptops.
Why that?
Look at the Ivy Bridge to Haswell transition. It allowed to switch the rMBP13 to 28W from 35W dual core (sorry, i messed up in chips TDP in my previous post for the rMBP13, and the rMBP15 stood still from 45W to 47W).
Who knows what intel will do? As I was writing in my post, if not for Broadwell, it's an easy bet to consider that by SkyLake intel will produce chips with lower TDP allowed with improvements on both design and process, and offering higher performances than today.
Broadwell's 30% better power efficiency means intel can offer new chips in the range of TDP between something roughly like 0.77*oldTDP and oldTDP, but of course the higher the TDP is, the higher the gain in raw performances are.
15W Haswell could be replaced by anything between 11.5W and 15W (apparently 15W Broadwell will exist, at least for NUCs), 28W replaced by anything between 21.5W and 28W, and 47W replaced by anything between 36W and 47W.
And then, SkyLake again allow you to target a lower TDP if desired, with still higher performances than the previous line at higher TDP.
Today we have 15W - 28W - 47W. My bet is, by SkyLake, we'll have ~10W - ~22W - ~35W and with higher performances than today with higher TDP. The direction today is not only to gain in raw performances but also to gain in power consumption performances; it translates in thinner designs and/or better battery life + less heat.
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Anyone else wrestling whether buying a cheap MBA now? Everything points to an awesome product in a few months, but I also know how bad the first MBA was, and how laggy/warm the first rMBP was. The current MBA may have a crappy screen, but it also never suffers from heat, performance or battery problems..
I considered that.. I was waiting for the rMBA this year but it didn't come and I sprung for the rMBP. The retina screen is magical. It's so easy to work on all day and I never get tired of how crisp the screen is. The MBA was my favorite system so maybe I'll jump back on board for the second iteration of retinas in the Air.
Everything has been pointing to a retina MBA for the last 2 years. Sure, there are a lot of rumors that it's imminent, but there were a lot of rumors of the same last year, etc.
I'm not saying it won't happen. It might. But you shouldn't assume it will happen soon either.
I bought a new MBA a few months ago because I needed it and I figured, what's the worst that could happen? I end up with a small, thin, light, cool, quiet laptop with great performance and battery life? That's not the end of the world.
Yes.
But, as so many have opined, though a 13" MacBook Air would meet my computing needs (as I am now convinced 11" is not ideal for someone doing lots of word processing and reading) and can be had for a great price, I cannot get over the fact that the screen quality is so mediocre and far away from state-of-the-art.
At this juncture I just want to see what the MacBook Air Retina is going to be like, and everything I have researched indicates it should be released by Spring of 2015. If nothing else, once released it will tend to drive current generation MacBook Air prices even lower.
You raise a great point about the first iteration of a brand new Apple product often being problematic. This is a worry for me. Hopefully Apple has become expert with retina screens and can incorporate such into what is otherwise an already great device in crafting a MacBook Air Retina.
I think the MacBook Air Retina will be a very flashy and popular product. How awesome it may be remains to be seen, it seems to me. With the word being that it is going to be thinner and utilize a retina screen, something (battery life and/or processing power) may need to be compromised. The risk here is that Apple prioritizes form over function. But I am going to wait it out and see.
You make it sound like MBA screens could be used as torture devices. Remember that when the current MBA designs were released just 4 years ago, they were widely praised for having excellent screens.
So yeah, the screens aren't state of the art but it sounds like you need some perspective.
I remember you posting about this before October. If you were waiting for an Apple announcement then and are able to keep waiting until almost halfway through next year, I posit that you don't actually need a new laptop and maybe you should just keep waiting until your current one is no longer satisfactory.
I have been wrestling with the "should I buy now when I really want a Retina Air" decision for some time now. Finally, I decided to take the plunge with a current gen Air and marched to my nearest Apple Store to pick one up...
....after 2 minutes of test driving the store model, the relatively poor screen fidelity immediately changed my mind. I came to the decision that I'll definately wait for the retina version or pick up the rMBP 13 in the meantime.
Really, whilst not terrible, the screen quality on the MacBook Air is noticeably poor compared to the rest of Apples products, and more importantly, compared to the competition.
I really hope we see a Retina Air early 2015, if not sooner....
I'm currently using a late 2013 rMBP and while i really like it, I find the fans and the noise annoying. So annoying in fact, that i might be switching to this rumored fanless MBA. I'm a bit worried about the 12" screen size though. The 13.3" size i'm currently using seems perfect to me, i can't imagine it being any smaller and me being able to look at it all day without fatigue.
So i really hope that in addition to the 12" size, they provide a bigger option. Unless it's like 12.9" which i'd be okay with. The rumors don't really specify if it is exactly 12" or 12-point-something inch.
Also something I'm thinking about is the power that the currently available Broadwell chips can provide in terms of integrated GPU performance. I might wait for Skylake until the GPU gets closer to the Iris 5100 GPU i'm currently using.
So i really hope that in addition to the 12" size, they provide a bigger option. Unless it's like 12.9" which i'd be okay with. The rumors don't really specify if it is exactly 12" or 12-point-something inch.
Also something I'm thinking about is the power that the currently available Broadwell chips can provide in terms of integrated GPU performance. I might wait for Skylake until the GPU gets closer to the Iris 5100 GPU i'm currently using.
Yup. I don't disagree.
Just a quick aside though, evaluating screen quality at an Apple store is tough. The laptops are on tables and you're standing in front of them. Not a typical scenario for using a laptop. And if you tilt the screen to get a better angle, it's perpendicular to the very bright lights in the ceiling, so that's an unusual situation with reflections. And because the store is so bright, the screens are usually turned up to full brightness, which typically causes some issues with color accuracy with LCD screens.
I'm not trying to say the MBA screens are nearly as good as the retina screens, just that the Apple Store setup/conditions might make them seem worse than they actually are.
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It's going to be a few years before fanless MacBooks are viable, at least.
I spent some time with a rMBP recently and it was basically inaudible. What are you doing with yours that stresses it out enough that fan noise is an issue?
Oh i believe you that it was inaudible, it is right now when i'm typing this (of course not a really taxing task). It is mostly noticeable when watching non-youtube flash videos and streams. Also now that YouTube has introduced 60fps video, when watching one in 720p60 (which is HTML5 video btw) it brings up both CPU cores to around 100° while the fan is running at around 4000rpm. When you try watching of course it's annoying. So that are currently the use cases where it does annoy me.
EDIT: It's actually closer to 5000rpm
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Four years ago, the MBA had an excellent screen. Four years ago.
A processor that performs like a processor from four years ago is considered crap these days. A high-end video card of four years ago is a low-end card today.
Why shouldn't the screen of four years ago be considered crap as well.
It's arrange that people have different perceptions on the timing of evolution of different components of the computer. Perhaps this is why screens took so long to evolve.
Nope... four years ago you could have bought a nice i7 with a GTX 580 graphics card and it'd still be a pretty nice setup today.
And if you go by the numbers, the Air screens aren't actually all that bad compared to recent competition:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/5
Again, it's not as good as the retina's display but calling it crap is doing it a disservice.
When the Air was released in 2010, it still used a Core 2 Duo processor. These processors are crap these days.
And Apple was widely criticized at the time for using such a slow, outdated processor. Bad example.
Take my money, Apple. I'm ready for a rMBA!
That's a fairly naive perspective. Of course we can't guess a release timing, but Apple has taken the entire iOS lineup to retina displays. Their MacBook Pros all use retina displays. Their newest iMac uses retina displays. I feel like it's absolutely a fair assumption that they'll move all their computing devices to retina displays.
Uh, yeah. Duh. I'm sure in 40 years we won't be using 1366x768 screens, so, good prediction.
The reason people want to know is to schedule their purchases. If something is coming out in a few months, they probably don't want to buy a current MacBook. If it's coming out in a year, they might be on the fence. If it's coming out in 2 years, then most people would probably want to buy something now if they're considering purchasing anything.
So, when is it coming out? A few months? 1 year? 2 years? Nobody knows, even though a lot of people think they know. That's my point.
OR, duh, just wait until you actually need a new machine, buy the best one for you that's available at that time, and don't worry about what might or might not come out down the line.
I don't really know about it. You may end up buying a machine that is going to be replaced very soon, and then you will probably be a few years with this one. If I bought a MacBook Air now and see it replaced by a brand-new retina model in a few months, I would be incredibly disappointed.
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Nobody really knows, but it is not hard to predict. An educated guess, at least.
The MacBook Air was last revamped in late 2010, four years ago. That means that the current design is four years old, which is a lot of time in terms of laptop designs. Plus, Windows ultrabooks are getting thinner, lighter and better, so the Air has competitors which are getting stronger every day. And there are lots of rumors of a retina MacBook Air in the pipeline.
So, I would say it would be very surprising if Apple does not release a brand new MacBook Air in H1 2015.
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On a side note, I just read that the Asus UX305 is already on sale in Europe, and for as low as 600, for the model equipped with a 1920x1080 screen, 4 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD. I have only seen Italian websites reporting this, and the news seem to come from Notebook Italia: http://notebookitalia.it/asus-zenbook-ux305fa-intel-core-m-prezzo-vendita-europea-20752
The price is lower than what was previously expected, and which was 800 for the base model. This one seems to compare favorably to the Yoga 3, which is much more expensive and is disappointing so far, according to reviews.
This Asus, and other laptops that may come in the following months, may be a compelling reason for Apple to update the Air. Given the very aggressive prices, I don't know if Apple will have much room to increase the price of the Air when it releases the revamped model.
Never had a problem with a day 1 RMBP. Just sold it after two and a half years for over 50% of its cost, it was a great desktop replacement and I ran it hard. It was never laggy nor unnecessarily warm. That was just a beat-up on mac rumours, just like the current ones about the retina iMac being underpowered or the iPhone 6 bending.
Now I got the rimac (because of the screen) I'm without a portable, and will be buying the rMBA the day it's announced. Don't care about power, 256gb ssd would be plenty, it's just the screen I'm waiting for.