MacBook Pro's Retina Display Has an Inferior Color Gamut, 72% NTSC Color Gamut vs 95%

[derbothaus]

It has been said that the contrast ratio is slightly higher on the Samsung. Also, the Samsung does not suffer from the image retention issues that some LG RDs do. Color gamut should be roughly the same however as all reviews I've seen have measured 67-69% AdobeRGB, and we can assume at least one had a LG and another had a Samsung.

It seems your metric for display quality is yours alone and not wavering. I would rather have accurate color than total color. Total adobe RGB coverage on a TN based panel will still be crap. The extra dimensions you are stating mean that the color is wrong and inaccurate. The polar opposite of what users who care about color and quality want in a display and the metric all use on whether a display is any good or not. I just hope your philosophy on color is never something I pay a designer for. No offense. I would not hire them.

And wide gamut DOES feel forced to me. Red's are crimson, Yellows are banana, etc. And that was on actual $3000.00 professional display fully calibrated @ >0.3 dE. Not some laptop way inaccurate. All for the reasons cited above regarding content and standards. The future is not here yet. Having a future gadget is not very beneficial unless it is useful for something. It will cease to function in 3-6 years and new things will come into existence. I didn't buy laser disc for this reason.
If you are not actively editing wide gamut content you basically have a screen that looks worse than most others. Kind of like having a 54-core 800MHz Mac Pro running Office 2011. A single core 3GHz chip will obliterate it. Specs are not useful unless they actually make experience better. Or is that just me?

 

[Bytor65]

That sounds perfectly logical, and without a real point of reference perhaps strictly sRGB coverage is enough. Although once you see AdobeRGB covered, you will wish that all photos are created for the standard. Heck, even sRGB-optimized images look better. It is all more saturated although not to the point it feels forced. I may begin saying this quite a bit if this thread continues, but AdobeRGB coverage adds an extra dimension to colors that is a non-issue for a display that can only display the full sRGB gamut until you have used an AdobeRGB display for a period of time.

A standard sRGB image should look exactly the same on an sRGB display as it does on a properly color managed AdobeRGB display.

If you see more vivid color when you show an sRGB image on a higher gamut display, then you are not actually doing proper color management and you are seeing overemphasized inaccurate color. This is generally not a benefit, no more than turning up the color saturation control.

Retina Macbook has essentialy the ideal real world gamut matching sRGB:

http://cdtobie.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/color-gamut-of-retina-display-macbook-pro/

 

[mcdj]

Wait, so is there a way I can attach a big wide gamut computer monitor with a power brick to my MacBook and still have it fit in my shoulder bag. Oh, didn't think so.

 

[simonmet]

I'm no expert, but my iPhone 5 appears to have a far superior and wider colour gamut than the rMBP (I have one with a Samsung display), so I think I can back up this finding that the rMBP gamut is merely "above average".

Don't get me wrong, it's still a great screen and probably the best so far for any laptop. The contrast, resolution and IPS technology are fantastic, but after having seen the iPhone 5's screen, the rMBP's gamut left me wanting more.

I'm basing my judgement on a supremely recorded (seemingly with film) night-time concert DVD that has a lot of bright coloured lighting and lasers. The iPhone 5 is simply amazing. The colours look vibrant, vivid, realistic and with very noticeable grading in these saturated colours that I hadn't previously noticed. It was like listening to an audio recording on vastly superior speakers or headphones where you notice detail in the sound that you hadn't heard previously, and even though it was only a 4-inch screen it greatly increased my feeling of presence and of "being there".

On the rMBP, the colours seem much duller and with less subtle gradation than on the iPhone. I think this is more a testament to the iPhone 5's screen than any criticism of the rMPB.

I've heard people here and elsewhere say that wider is not always better. That may be the case for some, but for me I have no interest in printing and would much prefer a display to mimic as much as possible what I see in real life, which is a very wide colour gamut.

So maybe in future Apple will move to improve the rMBP's gamut to match that of the iPhone 5, because let's face it, there's not much else they can do to improve this amazing laptop.