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

How does the new retina display fare when zoomed in?

L

lannisters4life

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 14, 2012
298
2
Sydney
Can a new owner of the fancy retina MBP do me an enormous favour?

I am visually impaired and (at the moment) switch between using my early 2008 15" MBP and a 2009 27" iMac, using zoom (default if zoom is on in system prefs is control + two finger swipe up) at around 2.5x. It works very well for my needs, even if it inhibits a few of OS X's functions. The only thing I dislike is the blurry, sometimes pixellated zoomed display, which more than halves the 'pixels per inch', and even though I have poor eyesight, the fuzziness of text is still obvious. My alternative is to simply lower the screen resolution so UI elements are enlarged, but this looks far worse than the native resolution zoomed in.

The new MBP's screen might alleviate this a little. If its huge display is halved in PPI once I've zoomed in, that just about normalises things, as if I was looking at a regular MBP non-retina screen.

If someone could get their new retina MBP, zoom it in 2x or 2.5x and then take a screenshot/picture from their iPhone/camera, it would be an enormous help! Otherwise I'll visit a Mac store in a few weeks once they have plenty of stock.
 
lannisters4life said:
Can a new owner of the fancy retina MBP do me an enormous favour?

I am visually impaired and (at the moment) switch between using my early 2008 15" MBP and a 2009 27" iMac, using zoom (default if zoom is on in system prefs is control + two finger swipe up) at around 2.5x. It works very well for my needs, even if it inhibits a few of OS X's functions. The only thing I dislike is the blurry, sometimes pixellated zoomed display, which more than halves the 'pixels per inch', and even though I have poor eyesight, the fuzziness of text is still obvious. My alternative is to simply lower the screen resolution so UI elements are enlarged, but this looks far worse than the native resolution zoomed in.

The new MBP's screen might alleviate this a little. If its huge display is halved in PPI once I've zoomed in, that just about normalises things, as if I was looking at a regular MBP non-retina screen.

If someone could get their new retina MBP, zoom it in 2x or 2.5x and then take a screenshot/picture from their iPhone/camera, it would be an enormous help! Otherwise I'll visit a Mac store in a few weeks once they have plenty of stock.
Click to expand...
I don't have mine yet but when i do I will do this for you! Maybe someone else could do it before me?
 
I saw a youtube video where someone did this. Yes the text will look better zoomed in in an app that supports HiDPI. Let me see if I can find it for you.
 
Did you know that the Retina MBP has a software scaling option that scales the whole UI smaller or larger?

The default scaling makes things the same size as the 15" 1440x900 display, but you can set it so that the screen real estate is the equivalent of 1024x640 or 1280x800 while keeping things much smoother than simply setting a non-native resolution on an older display.
 
Here's a screenshot of Anandtech that gives you a bit of an idea of what the "Large Text" scaled setting (1024x600 equivalent) looks like:

Screen%20Shot%202012-06-11%20at%204.35.25%20PM.png


It's probably worth going by an Apple store and seeing how it look for you in person on the actual display.
 
I saw the new retina display MBP's in store last night and have to say I'd really struggle to use it due to the small text size and menu bars etc.

As some will know when I bought my MBP at the start of the year I was toying with the idea of waiting for the retina display model, but couldn't wait. I then couldn't decide whether to go for the hi-res or standard screen as was dubious about how small the text was in menus etc. Sure you can change the size by default on a number of applications including web browsers, but a lot you can't, such as the menu bar. However, I decided t go for the hi-res and glad I did. The menu bars and text is just about on the limit imo. When I saw the retina display last night the menu bars etc are even smaller and I don't think I'd be happy using it.
The screen quality looked slightly better than my hi-res one, but not a major difference imo, especially looking at it from the distance you would normally use it.

I would strongly recommend seeing one for yourself before buying. Yes there's the screen zoom option but would you really want to be doing this all the time and have to put up with not being able to see all the screen at once?
 
houkouonchi said:
Found it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0kEHlY9Zs

Amazing job for a kid IMHO. Surprised at the negatives. Anyway flip to 2:08 to see the zoom shot.
Click to expand...

Wow, that is an enormous difference! Thanks for finding that. And yeah, that kid's hilarious, good on him.

----------
snerkler said:
I saw the new retina display MBP's in store last night and have to say I'd really struggle to use it due to the small text size and menu bars etc.

As some will know when I bought my MBP at the start of the year I was toying with the idea of waiting for the retina display model, but couldn't wait. I then couldn't decide whether to go for the hi-res or standard screen as was dubious about how small the text was in menus etc. Sure you can change the size by default on a number of applications including web browsers, but a lot you can't, such as the menu bar. However, I decided t go for the hi-res and glad I did. The menu bars and text is just about on the limit imo. When I saw the retina display last night the menu bars etc are even smaller and I don't think I'd be happy using it.
The screen quality looked slightly better than my hi-res one, but not a major difference imo, especially looking at it from the distance you would normally use it.

I would strongly recommend seeing one for yourself before buying. Yes there's the screen zoom option but would you really want to be doing this all the time and have to put up with not being able to see all the screen at once?
Click to expand...

The text on the retina MBP would appear bigger in its default scaled resolution than your current MBP though, since it's simulating 1400 x 900, and you're currently running 1680 x 1050? But either way I've become very accustomed to using the zoom and not seeing the whole screen at once over the past five or so years when my eyesight began to fail.
 
snerkler said:
I saw the new retina display MBP's in store last night and have to say I'd really struggle to use it due to the small text size and menu bars etc.
Click to expand...

It sounds like the Retina MBP you looked at had the display preferences set to the highest "More Space" mode. By default, everything on the Retina MBP should be the same physical size as the non-high-res 15".
 
Stetrain said:
It sounds like the Retina MBP you looked at had the display preferences set to the highest "More Space" mode. By default, everything on the Retina MBP should be the same physical size as the non-high-res 15".
Click to expand...

Oh, OK. I didn't really want to know that as don't want to be tempted by the new one as only just bought mine lol :p
 
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