Retina Cinema Displays

[Rmafive]

I have been spoiled by the display on my new RMBP! Switching between it and my 24" LED cinema display is painful (especially when I have them both running at the same resolution)! I saw this article from Cult of Mac a while back and it basically outlines that Apple doesn't need to increase the resolution by much more to attain Retina levels on the iMacs and Thunderbolt display.

http://www.cultofmac.com/168509/why-you-might-be-disappointed-by-the-resolution-of-those-new-retina-display-macs-feature/

Yet, the required resolution of 3840 x 2160 for a 27" retina display seems far off. I also worry because Apple is shipping Mountain Lion with 3200x2000 wallpapers. I wonder if this is an indicator that we will not be seeing retina iMacs and Cinema display for quite a while. What do you think?

 

[maflynn]

The pixel density needed for 27" display to be deemed retina is sufficient high enough that I'm not sure if its economically feasible to provide retina displays quite yet. The manufacturing yields may be too small, and the per unit costs too high to be a viable option.

 

[Rmafive]

The pixel density needed for 27" display to be deemed retina is sufficient high enough that I'm not sure if its economically feasible to provide retina displays quite yet. The manufacturing yields may be too small, and the per unit costs too high to be a viable option.

That is exactly what I was thinking. I wonder if Apple plans on releasing retina desktops with its 10.9 operating system. That would explain the wallpapers being only 3200x2000 in 10.8.

 

[Aksta]

still not economically feasible to produce retina displays? then when will it be. we have been stuck with 30 inch 2560 x 1600 resolution displays for the past 8 years or so (at reasonable prices anyway [below $10,000]). Now is the time for apple to push forward and bring higher resolution large displays or we will be stuck at this resolution.

 

[goMac]

I'm not sure there are any GPUs even out that could reliably drive a Retina Cinema Display.

I mean, look at the performance issues people are already having with a Retina MBP.

As far as OS version, it doesn't matter. A screen is a screen, whether it's on a desktop or a laptop.

 

[Rmafive]

My laptop screen now has more pixels than a 27" iMac! I am fairly certain that current graphics cards can handle a retina display iMac.

 

[goMac]

My laptop screen now has more pixels than a 27" iMac! I am fairly certain that current graphics cards can handle a retina display iMac.

No, they can't. Again, the Macbook Pro is already struggling. An iMac would have almost 4 times as many pixels as a Macbook Pro. So the graphics card would have to be much much more powerful just to get the same iffy performance.

As you said, the Retina MBP has more pixels than the current iMac, so just driving the existing MBP display would slow the iMac down.

 

[TickleMeElmo]

Currently the only real place to go for the desktop space is 4K.

Currently 4K desktop screens cost about as much as a BMW 3 Series. (The Eizo costs $38,844 for a 36 inch display). ViewSonic is going to ship a 4K 31.5" display at the end of the year for the "price of a car."

It will be at least 2-3 years before consumers will get their hands on such high resolution displays.

 

[Xcelerate]

No, they can't. Again, the Macbook Pro is already struggling.

Uh... no actually. There's an article on the front page of Macrumors detailing how the MBPR can drive its own display as well as three others for a total of 15.6 million pixels at 60 Hz. No lag either. All popular games play fine as well.

MBPR + 4K display = 13.4 MP < 15.6 MP

 

[haruhiko]

Uh... no actually. There's an article on the front page of Macrumors detailing how the MBPR can drive its own display as well as three others for a total of 15.6 million pixels at 60 Hz. No lag either. All popular games play fine as well.

MBPR + 4K display = 13.4 MP < 15.6 MP

I went to the Apple Store yesterday and ran some WebGL tests using Safari on the rMBP, and it completely hanged (even the "Apple" on the top left didn't respond)