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Anyone else want a higher-native-res 13 rMBP?

B

blackreplica

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 28, 2010
105
49
I really like the rMBP but one glaring aspect which strikes me as a weakness is the monitor resolution.

At 'best for retina' resolution. Well, I personally think space is still too limited. And it could do with some more real estate.

It's only when I set resolution to 'maximum space' on the 13 that I think 'OK, this is about right though it could still do with more screen space'

On the 15. Its the same thing, only a little better. On 'best for retina' i think it could have more space, then set it to max but this time I think the amount of desktop space is perfect, as opposed to on the 13 where i thought it was just above average.

I also started wondering how much of a compromise it would involve to graphics quality by running at non-native max space resolution but I saw no appreciable difference reading text between 'best for retina' and 'max space' resolutions.

Having said that, that was pretty much all the 'testing' I actually did so I definitely do not know how much of a compromise it is to run at higher non-native resolutions on the rMBP.

So now I'm wondering. We have this lovely display, at what I find to be an inadequate native (scaled) resolution. I'm wondering what the chances are apple will bump up the scaled native resolution at a future date, particularly for the 13 inch version. This little resolution niggle (and the high cost of the large capacity SSD upgrades) are the only things holding me back from a rMBP upgrade, which I would dearly love to own one day

If anyone's wondering> I am using a mid 2010 MBP (180GB SSD + 1TB Optibay) which spends 99% of the time plugged to a 27 cinema display. So maybe I am a little too used to large drive space and high res displays, I'll admit
 
blackreplica said:
I really like the rMBP but one glaring aspect which strikes me as a weakness is the monitor resolution.

At 'best for retina' resolution. Well, I personally think space is still too limited. And it could do with some more real estate.

It's only when I set resolution to 'maximum space' on the 13 that I think 'OK, this is about right though it could still do with more screen space'

On the 15. Its the same thing, only a little better. On 'best for retina' i think it could have more space, then set it to max but this time I think the amount of desktop space is perfect, as opposed to on the 13 where i thought it was just above average.

I also started wondering how much of a compromise it would involve to graphics quality by running at non-native max space resolution but I saw no appreciable difference reading text between 'best for retina' and 'max space' resolutions.

Having said that, that was pretty much all the 'testing' I actually did so I definitely do not know how much of a compromise it is to run at higher non-native resolutions on the rMBP.

So now I'm wondering. We have this lovely display, at what I find to be an inadequate native (scaled) resolution. I'm wondering what the chances are apple will bump up the scaled native resolution at a future date, particularly for the 13 inch version. This little resolution niggle (and the high cost of the large capacity SSD upgrades) are the only things holding me back from a rMBP upgrade, which I would dearly love to own one day

If anyone's wondering> I am using a mid 2010 MBP (180GB SSD + 1TB Optibay) which spends 99% of the time plugged to a 27 cinema display. So maybe I am a little too used to large drive space and high res displays, I'll admit
Click to expand...

I am hoping Apple will eventually offer a 'high-res' retina option like they've done with the cMBPs because although the display looks good at say 1680 x 1050 on the 15" rMBP it doesn't look as good as the native 1440 x 900 resolution.

But I don't think that's going to happen soon, or ever. IMHO Apple is happy with the way higher resolutions look on the rMBPs because the smaller pixels hide interpolation.

The cost of making higher density displays and yield issues are also another issue that will push out truly higher density displays out years and year unfortunately.
 
I suppose I could just run the 13 inch rMBP at maximum space resolution which I think would be OK, I've read about some of the guys here who do this, but I'm wondering what real kind of graphics compromise are we talking about by going this route?

On a normal non-retina panel like the one on my cMBP. There is a huge difference in the graphics quality at anything other than native res. Text goes all blurry and everything just looks wrong.

So I was pretty well shocked when I maxed out the rMBP resolution on the 13 and 15 and noticed no difference at all. I had small text put up in the browser, looked at the default photo library to check the colours and and everything just looked the same as compared to when it was at best-for-retina. My test was hardly scientific but it seems, to me at least, that any compromise in graphics quality is minimal at best. Can anyone else chime in with whether this is conclusive with their experiences?

I'm definitely plonking down some money for the next gen MBP but whether the cMBP or rMBP, well that remains to be seen

In addition to Haswell (not really a big deal for me actually), what I really want is a 1GB SSD BTO option (that hopefully wont cost me a kidney though I know it probably will), and a higher res. I suppose I could live without the higher res and just run at maximum space if I knew that the loss in graphics quality wasn't something perceptible to most human beings
 
If anything, 1680x1050 actually looks better than 'best for retina' on my 15" rMBP :p Of course its all subjective, but this is what displays are - subjective. The sole existence of pixel-based graphics is just a hack that reflects our technological limitations. In time, as the resolution of the displays will increase, the notion of pixels will become less and less important.
 
I couldn't deal with a higher res 13" MBP. Heck my old eyes could barely deal with my 2010 13" MBP.

I think it would be too small, yet as I type this the 11" MBA has tiny text and people buy it, so who knows may it will strike a chord with some
 
You could always try running the 13" rMBP at 2560x1600 with scaling disabled :p

I suppose that at some point in the future, two or three years down the road, they might shift to 2880x1800 in the 13" notebooks and 3840x2400 (4k) in the 15".

That would make "Best for Retina" equivalent to "1440x900" and "1920x1200" respectively.
 
Stetrain said:
You could always try running the 13" rMBP at 2560x1600 with scaling disabled :p

I suppose that at some point in the future, two or three years down the road, they might shift to 2880x1800 in the 13" notebooks and 3840x2400 (4k) in the 15".

That would make "Best for Retina" equivalent to "1440x900" and "1920x1200" respectively.
Click to expand...

LOL as much as I like high res....there is such a thing as too much. More pixels than my 27 inch ACD in a 13 inch panel would be downright unusable

As far as a 2-3 year timeframe before the next resolution upgrade, that actually sounds reasonable and not too much to ask of apple.

Would be a great reason for me to just go with the next cMBP, transfer the hard drives over, and keep using it another 3 years like i did with my current MBP. Who knows maybe apple will release a 4K thunderbolt display by then and for sure I'd be all over that one too to replace my 5 year old (by then) ACD. I'd be saving heaps of money going this route. A rMBP with a large SSD still costs a ridiculous amount of money.
 
I leave my 13" at "best for retina" setting most of the the time. On the rare occasion I need more real estate, I just hit my QuickRes toggle key to bump it 1680x1050 interpolated.

The main thing that crowds my desktop space is the dock. I made it smaller and moved it to the right side of the screen (I hate auto-hide) which really helps.
 
If I understand the question, you are asking for a native 2880x1800 resolution so you can run best for retina at 1440x900, correct? Then the answer is yes I would like that. However I run at 1440x900 all the time on the 13" and I'm not really noticing a problem with it. But sure, in a perfect world I'd like it.

----------
Krazy Bill said:
:eek:

I can tell most of you here have eyes under the age of 20.
Click to expand...

:D

Yeah, the 1680x1050 is just too small for me for any period of time.
 
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