Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

160 ppi on iPhone - any hope for higher ppi on MacBooks?

Anuba

Anuba

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 9, 2005
3,791
394
One reason I've always avoided PowerBooks/MacBooks like the plague is the ridiculously low screen resolution. There's just never enough pixels for all the stuff I need on my workspace and I'm not a big fan of ceaseless X/Y scrolling and resizing.

Currently I'm on a Dell notebook with a 15.4" screen and 1680x1050. It's acceptable, but I should have gone with their 1920x1200/15.4".

Apple must have some kind of ppi hangup, because their 15.4" only has 1440x900 (beyond useless) and the 17" has 1680x1050 (OK-ish, but a complete waste of a 17" screen which should have 1920x1200 at the very least).

Now that they've introduced the iPhone with 160 ppi and there are rumors of new icon sizes up to 512x512, might there be any hope that Apple will finally abandon this whole "Xtra Large pixels for the half blind" type deal and introduce higher res screens on the MacBooks?

(edit: Wrong forum, admittedly)
 
Well, I think an 160ppi LCD big enough for a MB or MBP is expensive to make at the time. I'd like to be proven wrong and have this kind of resolution in the next upgrade cycle
 
dllavaneras said:
Well, I think an 160ppi LCD big enough for a MB or MBP is expensive to make at the time. I'd like to be proven wrong and have this kind of resolution in the next upgrade cycle
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm not asking for 160ppi on the MacBooks, that's like a gazillion pixels. I was just wondering if they might be rethinking this long standing policy that pixels must be the same size regardless of screen size (it would appear that this is their policy).

I don't really mind if my laptop pixels are smaller than my desktop monitor pixels, I sit closer to the laptop screen so... and 1680x1050 on 15.4" is just fine, no squinting here, and considering most system text in Windows is smaller than on Mac I think 1680x1050/15.4" and 1920x1200/17" should be just fine.
 
I think that apple will introduce full 1080p resolution on a 15" laptop within two years or so, but not much more than that until some new standard of HDTV comes out.

of course, I'm writing this from my measly 1280x854 powerbook;)
 
Anuba said:
Apple must have some kind of ppi hangup,
Click to expand...
Yes, they do, 72 is hard-coded into all kinds of application interface elements, and this is already a problem on displays that have dropped a little over 100.

This has generally been less of a problem in the Windows world, where the interface has long supported adjustable text and button sizes (though individual apps haven't always been good at paying attention to that).

The scalable interface in Leopard should finally allow Macs to catch up, and perhaps even do a little better in the short term.
 
adk said:
I think that apple will introduce full 1080p resolution on a 15" laptop within two years or so, but not much more than that until some new standard of HDTV comes out.

of course, I'm writing this from my measly 1280x854 powerbook;)
Click to expand...

;) 1280x854 is more than plenty for writing, no doubt. But working with an app like Cubase 4 where you'd need something like 80000x60000 pixels to see all elements on the screen, you want a monster resolution or you'll be spending 50% of your time toggling between views. Same thing with Flash, with too little space you gotta hide/unhide inspectors and tool panels constantly or put up with a stage that's like 16x16 pixels. I feel bad billing clients if half the time has gone into cumbersome desktop rearrangement.
 
iMeowbot said:
Yes, they do, 72 is hard-coded into all kinds of application interface elements, and this is already a problem on displays that have dropped a little over 100.

This has generally been less of a problem in the Windows world, where the interface has long supported adjustable text and button sizes (though individual apps haven't always been good at paying attention to that).

The scalable interface in Leopard should finally allow Macs to catch up, and perhaps even do a little better in the short term.
Click to expand...

It seems odd because Win95 assumed 96 ppi instead of 72, so when Mac OS X was developed, it doesn't make sense that they stuck with 72.

It's been a bit of a pain working on photos but at least, you can adjust the zoom factor in most applications.
 
I can read 150 ppi in OSX. I put 1920*1200 OSX screenshot on a 15 inch 1280*800 dell and EVEN WITH SCALING I could read it. I could probabally even do 160 ppi. I will try it.
 
160 ppi is readable on a computer! At least for a 14 year old with perfect up close eyesight
 
If only :apple: allows other hardware manufacturers to pre-install their system with OS X. We will have great variety of choices and not restricted to only what :apple: can produce - who knows, we might have cutting-edge graphic card, powerful processor, higher resolution LCD screen etc. With competition between hardware manufacturers, we as consumers will also benefit from cheaper price, and bigger variety.
 
I think 100 to 120 PPI is a reasonable resolution for a MacBook, but a MacBook Pro should have more than just a nicer hardware, big speakers and more memory, a 160 PPI with upgrade to Apple's so-called Retina Display (326 PPI) would be nice.

But hey guys, not everybody needs that amount of pixels per inch, so this would only be reasonable to be sold by order, because it's stupid to sell laptops with outstanding specs if only 10% of the customers will actually use them.
 
doubt it

the reason the high resolution works on the iphone is

A) bring it closer to you if you need to see more detail
b) pinch+ zoom


also I'm pretty sure this is the wrong subforum for this question
 
holy camolie...another old thread.

i was reading the first post and was like...160? the new display is 326 ppi.

then i realized it's 3 years old.

::sigh::
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back