13" rMBP 2013 - Performance of Scaled Resolutions?

[victorhooi]

Hi,

I currently use a MBA (2012).

I'm looking at getting the new 13" rMBP, and was just wondering what people's experiences with the difference resolution settings are?

I have seen the Macbook Pro's in person, however, I'd like to get opinions from people who have used them for more time.

The machine will be used predominantly for coding/browsing - so there will probably be large swathes of text. I tend to prefer more screen estate, as it means I can have more text/tabs visible.

My understanding is that the LCD panel is a native 2560x1660 panel, but the resolution at the "Best" setting is effectively 1280x800, which to me doesn't sound like a lot of real-estate .

(Compared to my current MBA has 1440 x 900).

What are people's experiences with the other scaled resolutions?

Do you lose a lot of the sharpness, or "retina-ness" if you move away from Best?

Which settings have you found usable day-to-day for more screen-estate?

And most importantly, how much of a performance hit do you take with the late-2013 rMBP 13" at these other resolutions? (Reviews seem to suggest the 2012 rMBP 13" took a massive hit).

Cheers,
Victor

 

[durkkin]

I'm a college computer science student, so I spend most of my time in various dev environments and browsing online. I've run my early 13" rMBP at 1680x1050 since day one and it's performed great. Every once in a while some slight scrolling lag on content heavy sites, but it's honestly not a big deal at all. If you're coming from an older laptop it's going to still perform better.

Apple does a great job with how they scale content due to their off-screen rendering (which on the other hand is also the culprit for the slight performance hit) so there's no loss of crispness. Everything seems huge at native retina resolution and there's hardly any screen real estate which is why I always keep mine scaled. However it is nice when staring at text late at night since it's easier on the eyes.

I think with the new Iris graphics on the late 13" rMBP the performance hit is going to be negligible. If I were you I'd go for it.