Considering Returning my Retina MacBook Pro

[EvilShenaniganZ]

I won't lie I was let down when I first powered up this retina 15" mbp I'm typing on. However after using it than going back to my 13 inch 2010 mbp I was shocked at the dip in clarity. It's weird but I had to use it a few hours until I really started to see the "pop" that I now can't live without.

So far not a single site or the photo's I've looked at have a blur or fuzz to them. Not sure why people say photos don't look as nice on the Retina. I also have yet to see any lag. The only thing "off" is when I go to Youtube and go full screen the video takes a second to go full screen. The display goes black and the video stays the same size, than fills the screen.

$2199 Is a lot of money. I mean a lot... However this is the most fun I have ever had on the internet. I even got The Walking Dead game to try out the gaming experience. This screen is just perfect to me...
Just remember this is an Apple product. If it has flaws or problems you know they are working on it. I hope people don't get turned off by these "problems".
This device really is a bit o fun!

 

[macduke]

Even if Adobe updates Photoshop with a Retina UI, that does not fix the fact that you will not know exactly what designs (specifically talking about user interface designs) will look like on non-retina devices. This is simply because you're able to see every pixel of regular resolutions way more clearly and thus the pixelation is much more apparent.

I'm a designer and I do web, print, and photography. For web I'm going to start (at the least) upgrading my own website for retina and moving forward, I'll probably design everything in retina for clients. What I mean is I'll start with a retina PSD and downsize everything. Then if the client comes back later I can charge them for an upgrade, or I can try to up sell when writing the contract. With retina iPads being so popular it's important for us to start doing this extra work. With RMBP we can get a jump on other designers as we can see everything 1:1. If I need to test lower-res setups then I can just use an external monitor. Or use my old school iPad 2 for quick and dirty testing of non-retina stuffs. I'm also looking at getting into iOS development. So seeing iPad retina apps 1:1 while designing is also great.

So while I wait for my new system, I need to read up on the CSS magic needed for configuring a retina edition of a website. Does anyone have any good resources on the subject? Guides, best practices, etc? Thanks!

The web won't get any better unless we start doing something about it. Time to suit up!

 

[mackry]

exactly. Graphic design is not just about making a beautiful art work, but making a beautiful art work your customers can see. If on your machine, you can't see what your customers actually will see, how can anyone know what we are actually delivering to them?

Is Retina MacBook too ahead of its time? But if the developers don't start developing in Retina, there won't be content to drive adoption. So we really have a chicken and egg problem! I think we probably have to design on two computers: Retina for retina graphics and regular for regular graphics.

By the way, all these problems don't really affect video and photography artists since they are dealing with works on a larger scale. It really impacts the web/graphic designers where each pixel counts (really, each pixel does count).

Yep. I implore all designers and developers to use CSS3 and font icons (this one is your choice, but it's a nice 100% scalable option) and for images, make sure to create two versions and serve the appropriate according to the device's resolution.

----------

I'm a designer and I do web, print, and photography. For web I'm going to start (at the least) upgrading my own website for retina and moving forward, I'll probably design everything in retina for clients. What I mean is I'll start with a retina PSD and downsize everything. Then if the client comes back later I can charge them for an upgrade, or I can try to up sell when writing the contract. With retina iPads being so popular it's important for us to start doing this extra work. With RMBP we can get a jump on other designers as we can see everything 1:1. If I need to test lower-res setups then I can just use an external monitor. Or use my old school iPad 2 for quick and dirty testing of non-retina stuffs. I'm also looking at getting into iOS development. So seeing iPad retina apps 1:1 while designing is also great.

So while I wait for my new system, I need to read up on the CSS magic needed for configuring a retina edition of a website. Does anyone have any good resources on the subject? Guides, best practices, etc? Thanks!

The web won't get any better unless we start doing something about it. Time to suit up!

Hehe, suit up! Sure, just use CSS3 for UI and for assets check out:
http://timkadlec.com/2012/04/media-query-asset-downloading-results/ (Test 7)
http://benfrain.com/how-to-serve-high-resolution-website-images-for-retina-displays-new-ipadiphone4/
http://retinajs.com

And don't forget Google. This is a very hot topic today – responsive/adaptive design and all... it's fun

 

[dreamtenstudios]

Hopefully you didnt return it yet. It would be a lame mistake. Just wait. After a month, there will be massive improvments.

I sure hope so. Besides this issue, I love everything about the laptop, and I hope this thread doesn't sound like a rant. I was thrilled about the wwdc announcement, more so than I've been for any apple announcement to date. In person it's an incredible machine to behold, and retina-ready apps look amazing.

 

[PhaserFuzz]

Waiting on my RMBP to arrive, but does the web look anymore pixelated than it does on the iPad 3? I went from a first gen iPad to the newest, and pretty much everything looks fine. Are people over-exaggerating a bit with this issue?

 

[dreamtenstudios]

Waiting on my RMBP to arrive, but does the web look anymore pixelated than it does on the iPad 3? I went from a first gen iPad to the newest, and pretty much everything looks fine. Are people over-exaggerating a bit with this issue?

It's exactly the same as w/the iPad 3. It's not a big deal to most people, only designers who are concerned with creating pixel perfect imagery.

 

[deannnnn]

I think a crappy standard resolution external monitor is necessary for web design from a Retina MacBook Pro.

I do some web design myself and I'll definitely be using my old white MacBook to make sure websites look the way they should on non-retina displays. It won't be long until we start seeing a lot of major websites upgrading for retina though.

 

[mackry]

Waiting on my RMBP to arrive, but does the web look anymore pixelated than it does on the iPad 3? I went from a first gen iPad to the newest, and pretty much everything looks fine. Are people over-exaggerating a bit with this issue?

No. This topic is mainly about designing for normal resolutions on a retina screen; you won't truly know what your designs will look like on normal devices until you test it, which isn't an efficient workflow. This issue will not be solved until the number of non-retina devices has dwindled down to 5% or less of the devices out there (~2025 maybe?) and the consensus of all developers/designers/clients is to no longer support older resolutions.

This is essentially the same issue with IE6 and the supporting of a 11 year old browser today. Thankfully we've just about killed it off completely, but believe it or not, people and corporations are still using this browser.

 

[Rmafive]

I still haven't gotten my rMBP yet, but wouldn't changing the resolution to possibly 1920x1200 fix the problem? I could understand why the retina 1440x900 mode would cause things to appear blurry (similar to the iPad 3).

 

[zachnelson]

I still haven't gotten my rMBP yet, but wouldn't changing the resolution to possibly 1920x1200 fix the problem? I could understand why the retina 1440x900 mode would cause things to appear blurry (similar to the iPad 3).

1920x1200 is still scaled "retnified" its not the native resolution of the screen. Some guy in another thread said hes working on an app that turns off HiDPI mode so you could run 1440x900 normally on the 15" screen.

 

[dreamtenstudios]

I still haven't gotten my rMBP yet, but wouldn't changing the resolution to possibly 1920x1200 fix the problem? I could understand why the retina 1440x900 mode would cause things to appear blurry (similar to the iPad 3).

Unfortunately not, though it does improve things. Pixels are still scaled at that resolution.

 

[aaronw1986]

Wouldn't the pictures look just as blurry on say a 30 inch 2560X1600? Likely you would zoom in when browsing, and the web is not optimized for that resolution either. The retina is not too many more pixels in comparison.

 

[mackry]

Wouldn't the pictures look just as blurry on say a 30 inch 2560X1600? Likely you would zoom in when browsing, and the web is not optimized for that resolution either. The retina is not too many more pixels in comparison.

No because that's true resolution – it's using every pixel as it normally would. Retina is stretching images to it's native resolution, then downsampling them to imitate a normal resolution (unless it's a vector image, then this is not necessary).

 

[Rmafive]

This is what happens when you are on the threshold of a new technology. Give it a year and things will start to catch up (apps, images, and the web)! Until then it sounds like a standard MacBook pro is the choice for you.

 

[JohnDoe98]

Unfortunately not, though it does improve things. Pixels are still scaled at that resolution.

The point you missed from the first post wasn't that you could use 2880x1800 resolution, but that third-party Apps, like the one referenced to in that link open the door to 2880x1800 by allowing you to turn off HiDPI mode and it's scaling.

You can force your screen to show normal resolutions as they appear on other people's screens. How good the quality is I don't know. But before you give up on the screen, try turning off HiDPI mode. There was another thread where someone was asking for beta testers since he was writing an menubar app to do just that. It would be like when we run lower resolutions than native on our screens, just this time with a much higher quality screen. In other words, there might be a perfectly good fix.

Try to find out how to turn off HiDPI and test it yourself before you bring it back.

 

[Mak47]

Waiting on my RMBP to arrive, but does the web look anymore pixelated than it does on the iPad 3? I went from a first gen iPad to the newest, and pretty much everything looks fine. Are people over-exaggerating a bit with this issue?

Yes and no. I haven't gotten the rMBP yet, but I spent a lot of time with one today.

First, if you're using Safari, it's basically like it is on the retina iPad. Sometimes you encounter images that are blurry because the web designers who handled them didn't use a high quality image. This wasn't noticeable before, but it is now. Text renders nicely, just like on the retina iPad.

At this point, basically all non-Apple apps (and some of those too) aren't updated for the retina display. This is a problem that will solve itself. Developers will update their apps. Mac App Store developers will likely be obliged to do this before others. We already know that Adobe will be updating CS6 for the retina display. I would assume other major newer apps will do the same.

The shock that people are expressing at the situation is ridiculous. We've been through this before. First with the iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 transition and again with the iPad 2 to "New" iPad transition. People love to complain and find reasons to justify not buying an expensive product. It makes them feel good about themselves--this is nothing new on the web.

What is a problem--sort of--is the fact that it's doubtful that older apps will get updated for retina. People using CS5 and earlier will probably not see an update, Adobe will use this as a selling point for the new software. Don't want to upgrade? Tough luck.

Other developers will be slow to make changes as well. If retina displays are launched across the Mac lineup in the near future, we can expect them to lose business from Mac users as it becomes clear that they develop for the lowest common denominator.

The new display is beautiful. Is it for everyone? Maybe not yet, but there's no reason to trash it like I see in so many threads.

If you bought a new pair of glasses and could see the crappy paint job on a car when you couldn't previously, do you blame the glasses or the painter? As it turns out, there are a lot of crappy painters. Hopefully they touch up their work quickly before anyone notices.

 

[mackry]

This is what happens when you are on the threshold of a new technology. Give it a year and things will start to catch up (apps, images, and the web)! Until then it sounds like a standard MacBook pro is the choice for you.

I'm not sure about a year. If it's taken some people 10 years to upgrade their browsers (IE6/7), I'm going to presume it will take at least that long to make 99.9% (non-retina) of devices out there a thing of the past. As long as a good chunk of people use these devices, they will continue to be supported.

However, you are right when it comes to responsible designers/developers. If done correctly, even today, you will begin to see more and more resolution independent websites (websites built with CSS3, vector images, and optimized/adaptive images) and apps.

 

[wundram]

I did some comparisons by looking at web pages on my imac27 after using the rmbp for a while. They actually look just as bad on the iMac as they do on the rmbp. It is amazing how quickly you get used to the retina screen, and how it makes older screens look bad. I did some close up shots of the same image on the two different displays, that shows how the rmbp is handling the scaling.

retina screen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wundram/7392072386

non retina screen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wundram/7392073100

so you can see that there isn't really much difference between images on the two displays. However for apps that try to use sub pixel rendering (clear type) with the 2x pixels, that looks terrible. But web sites don't do this to their images, because they don't know the sub pixel layout of the client.

 

[Xcallibur]

I did some comparisons by looking at web pages on my imac27 after using the rmbp for a while. They actually look just as bad on the iMac as they do on the rmbp. It is amazing how quickly you get used to the retina screen, and how it makes older screens look bad. I did some close up shots of the same image on the two different displays, that shows how the rmbp is handling the scaling.

retina screen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wundram/7392072386

non retina screen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wundram/7392073100

so you can see that there isn't really much difference between images on the two displays. However for apps that try to use sub pixel rendering (clear type) with the 2x pixels, that looks terrible. But web sites don't do this to their images, because they don't know the sub pixel layout of the client.

Looks to me like the iMac displays the images a little blurrier than the rMBP, not that you would notice however, since the entire screen is as blurry.

 

[wundram]

Looks to me like the iMac displays the images a little blurrier than the rMBP, not that you would notice however, since the entire screen is as blurry.

That is probably just my inability to hold the microscope in focus against the screen.

 

[Bnorton]

Was anticipating the arrival of the new retina MacBook for over a year and ordered as soon as it was on sale. I received it Friday and I'm nearly 100% satisfied with it. It's fast, looks beautiful, and is super thin and light.

The one and only issue I have with it is how it displays images on the web. Text and any css3 rendered elements look amazing and are crystal clear, but photos and graphics look really bad... significantly worse than on regular, non-retina displays. This was a big surprise to me, I thought images and photos would rendered with more clarity, similar to how video quality is clearer on upscaled DVDs. I was wrong. Photos are pixelated and edges are jagged. Best way I can describe it is that it looks like anti aliasing has been turned off.

As a web designer, I'm not sure I can do my job properly without being able to see images as they'll appear to 99.99% of users out there. Going to try using it for a week and see if I can adjust, but without being able to see images as they ought to appear, I'm not sure if the retina macbook is right for me (or for any visual content creators out there for that matter).

dreamtenstudios,

I understand your thoughts. After seeing the new MBPs, I went and purchased a 17" late 2011 model from Apple. I was hoping for a ivy 17". Some web sites do not look so good!

The retina, cool but it is not that much better than the 2011 MBPs

 

[Orange Furball]

dreamtenstudios,

I understand your thoughts. After seeing the new MBPs, I went and purchased a 17" late 2011 model from Apple. I was hoping for a ivy 17". Some web sites do not look so good!

The retina, cool but it is not that much better than the 2011 MBPs

I hope the 17" isn't gone. But I have a feeling it is a permanent discontinuation

 

[fig]

Adobe might be able to fix it within PS, as of now images are scaled no matter what resolution you choose. This won't change the problem that images you view in your browser will be less sharp than the original.

Good point.

 

[iamthedudeman]

i don't understand why are there more people on this forum complaining about the "lack of matte screen reduce image fidelity" when they completely ignore the fact that, retina screen actually shows you a very different picture than your users will see.

This is the sole reason I returned my RMBP. I had a base model and loved it, but content creation is hit or miss depending on what program you are using. And when you rely your laptop to basically run my business, waiting it out isn't a option.

Apple is ahead of the curve once again, and the world has to play catch up. Not necessary a bad thing, but a necessary evil right now.

I will repurchase in the future. No doubt. Love the laptop. It's a great machine. But then again, so is the current non-retina MBP.

I have a late 11 model, and might buy a 12 model just for the USB 3.0. I already have Apple Toshiba SSD. It is only SATA 2 but the 4K random speeds is what matters. I could not tell a difference between my late 15 MBP with 16GB of Ram and 256 SATA 2 SSD and my just returned RMBP as far as performance goes.

But I miss USB 3.0, and the display was nice.

 

[Haarith :)]

To be honest i seriously hope the retina macbook pro will dipsplay important sites like youtube nicely and applications like microsoft office and watching 1080p movies will look extremely nice