How does retina display work?

[malistrais]

so i'm debating between a MBA and a rMBP as my first foray into Apple-land, and I'm a bit perplexed on "retina" and how it relates to resolution...

I understand the concept of retina, in that it's meant to prevent the distinguishing of individual pixels. What i don't understand is scaling, "best" resolutions, and how all of that relates to how things look on the screen (aside from just appearing sharper).

The MBA native res is 1440x900 and the rMBP native res is 2560x1600. That retina resolution doesn't seem very "usable" on a 13" screen. And I've seen information thrown around about cutting that in half as a useable resolution (which would be lower than the MBA).

I guess I'm just really confused. Because as far as I can tell, retina is really just about the lack of visible pixels and not necessarily higher useable screen real estate?

Does anyone have a good resource they can point me to?

Thanks!

 

[richwoodrocket]

How does retina display work?

The retina means your eyes can't distinguish the pixels at normal viewing distance so the display looks amazingly sharp. Text especially.
More pixels=smaller pixels
Smaller pixels=harder to distinguish pixels
Harder to distinguish pixels=sharper display

 

[malistrais]

cool, that's what i expected.

how does it relate to screen real estate though? in other words, what is the "effective" screen resolution for day-to-day tasks (working on a word doc, writing code, browsing the web, etc.)?

thanks!

The retina means your eyes can't distinguish the pixels at normal viewing distance so the display looks amazingly sharp. Text especially.
More pixels=smaller pixels
Smaller pixels=harder to distinguish pixels
Harder to distinguish pixels=sharper display

 

[richwoodrocket]

How does retina display work?

cool, that's what i expected.



how does it relate to screen real estate though? in other words, what is the "effective" screen resolution for day-to-day tasks (working on a word doc, writing code, browsing the web, etc.)?



thanks!

The actual resolution of the display is what you mentioned in your first post, 2560X1600. You can use all the pixels.

 

[thundersteele]

This might help:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5996/how-the-retina-display-macbook-pro-handles-scaling

 

[malistrais]

that helps - thanks!

This might help:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5996/how-the-retina-display-macbook-pro-handles-scaling