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SPNarwhal

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 22, 2009
1,260
156
illinois
if Apple used that Retina Display that is in the iPhone 4, in their Macbooks / Macbook Pros, would the display be higher quality?
 
As OS X has no resolution independence, all we'd get from a Retina in a MacBook/Pro is ruined eyes.
 
No display like that would be manufactured in any large quantity, or in any sort of non-millionaire price range.

4000x2520 display in a 15" MBP.

But I think Apple named it 'retina' because at a certain viewing distance, we wouldn't see the pixels. The iPhone is closer to your eyes and would need to have a higher PPI to reach that. A laptop, on the other hand doesn't have to be as high.
 
if Apple used that Retina Display that is in the iPhone 4, in their Macbooks / Macbook Pros, would the display be higher quality?

Well of course the display would be higher quality, but that quality would be out of my price range. Also, the OS would likely be unusable since resolution independence in OS X is practically nonexistent so everything would be incredibly small.
 
The retina display works on the assumption that you have the display within roughly a foot to 18 inches of your face. Your computer screen is typically further away, so the pixel density being that high wouldn't do you any good, as your eyes couldn't see the difference at a further distance. The Hi-res display in the 17" is probably about as much as your eyes can see before things just get too small, without any noticeable change in detail.

If you look at a projection screen, the pixels are fairly large, but when you sit 10 feet back or so, the image is crystal clear.
 
if Apple used that Retina Display that is in the iPhone 4, in their Macbooks / Macbook Pros, would the display be higher quality?

There is no such thing as "Retina Display". It's just a PR gimmick - an euphemism for high density or high resolution. It is impractical even on iPhone but Apple had no choice but to go with it because they wanted to have easy path to backward compatibility for all old Apps. iPhone resolution is too hight for such a small display and it'll be wasted.
 
There is no such thing as "Retina Display". It's just a PR gimmick - an euphemism for high density or high resolution. It is impractical even on iPhone but Apple had no choice but to go with it because they wanted to have easy path to backward compatibility for all old Apps. iPhone resolution is too hight for such a small display and it'll be wasted.

It's just a name. There's no such thing as a Macintosh computer then, according to your definition. Macs are PCs right? It's a PR gimmick to make people think Macs are better.

It's a nice display and stop whining. It's not like Apple made iPhone 4 more expensive. It's still at the $199, $299 price point.
 
There is no such thing as "Retina Display". It's just a PR gimmick - an euphemism for high density or high resolution. It is impractical even on iPhone but Apple had no choice but to go with it because they wanted to have easy path to backward compatibility for all old Apps. iPhone resolution is too hight for such a small display and it'll be wasted.

Well, let's see if that resolution is really wasted. I'll tell you as soon as I got My iPhone4..
 
It's just a name. There's no such thing as a Macintosh computer then, according to your definition. Macs are PCs right? It's a PR gimmick to make people think Macs are better.
That's some weak logic.

I agree with others that it's a stupid marketing term. Anyone who uses both sides of their brain can see it's just a high pixel density screen, not some fancy new "retina display" technology.
 
That's some weak logic.

I agree with others that it's a stupid marketing term. Anyone who uses both sides of their brain can see it's just a high pixel density screen, not some fancy new "retina display" technology.

Apple never marketed the new high res display as "Retina Display" technology. Behind all LCD displays, it's still the same technological concept powering it all. What you can differentiate by is the resolution, ppi, IPS/TN, color gamut/accurate. They just call it the retina display. On their site, they clearly state that their engineers made pixels smaller and etc. Stupid marketing term or not, it's an amazing technological feat.
 
As OS X has no resolution independence

Not completely true...OS X has been moving in this direction. In Leopard, Apple redesigned the interface elements in OS X for resolution independence. It's just the majority of software on OS X would have to be updated to support resolution independence too.
 
It's just a name. There's no such thing as a Macintosh computer then, according to your definition. Macs are PCs right? It's a PR gimmick to make people think Macs are better.

It's a nice display and stop whining. It's not like Apple made iPhone 4 more expensive. It's still at the $199, $299 price point.

Well it IS just a name; and Macs are PCs (Personal Computers) - and well... it is just a PR gimmick, no matter how epic the display is.
 
i think the highest non eye breaking resolution in a 15" would be 1920x1200.
looks pretty damn sweet in the 15" alienware

For me, that is an eye breaking resolution and why I believe that 1680x1050 is definitely the sweet spot for resolution at 15.4", which is why I bought a high res Macbook Pro recently.

Resolution independence or not, 1680x1050 is the only resolution I'd have in a 15" laptop. That or 1440x900 but 1680 is preferred.

And don't get me started on those ridiculous 1366x768 15.6" laptops that exist in the PC world.
 
Apple never marketed the new high res display as "Retina Display" technology. ........................... They just call it the retina display. On their site, they clearly state that their engineers made pixels smaller and etc. .....................


i have the feeling i'm missing something in the logic here.....:confused:

anyway it seems to be not only a high res display it also seems to have a very high dynamic range and great colors.

so in a sense i would hope that this technology makes it in some form into MBP's assuming that OS X becomes resolution independent.
 
There is no such thing as "Retina Display". It's just a PR gimmick - an euphemism for high density or high resolution. It is impractical even on iPhone but Apple had no choice but to go with it because they wanted to have easy path to backward compatibility for all old Apps. iPhone resolution is too hight for such a small display and it'll be wasted.

Bull. The display is absolutely perfect for a screen the size of the eyephone. I dont even have very good eyesight, but I love being able to see/read entire web page content rather than having to repeatedly zoom in and out to read each section - because the previous iphone display couldnt show it any better. After using the iphone4, the original iphone feels like an atari 2600.
 
This whole "Retina Display" is just marketing, Just call it High Resolution, they have almost a desktop resolution on a 3" Screen, however if you want a "Retina Display" you already have one, you already have more resolution than that, if you want the same 320dpi on a 13" Screen you'll have a resolution of probably 4000x3000 or something, which is incredibly expansive to make these days

It's just confusing marketing
 
This "retina display" is dependent on how far away you are from the display. Apple say 300dpi (or ppi) is the highest possible PPI resolution buy which no human can distinguish individual pixels at 12 inches from their eyes (I think it's 12"). Though, even someone holding the iPhone 8 inches from their face probably can't tell the difference, simply because not everyone has this "perfect retina vision".

So, in a sense, "retina displays" for laptop/desktop displays pretty much already exist. I sit no closer than 24" from my 1920x1200 17" MBP screen (and I know most people won't). At 133 DPI, and at 2x the viewing distance from the screen (compared to the iPhone) it's theoretically 266 DPI if it were to be a 3.5" screen at 12" from the face. Almost "retina" quality. Right?
Theoretically that should be right.

I think 1680x1050 FOR 15.4" and 1920x1200 for 17" is "retina" quality anyway. I expected 1440x900 for the 13" MBP though.

Now the only reason people would really want 1920x1200 on a display less than 17" would be screen real estate. Fit more on your screen, fit more tools/sidebars in photoshop, more webpages, better for multi-tasking.
However go over 1920x1200 on a display at most 15", it'd just strain your eyes.
 
Not completely true...OS X has been moving in this direction. In Leopard, Apple redesigned the interface elements in OS X for resolution independence. It's just the majority of software on OS X would have to be updated to support resolution independence too.

It is actually possible to play with this. If you install the Developer Tools and run Quartz Debug you can alter the interface scaling. If you do so you'll see just how much doesn't like running at 2x.

Even with Apple's own apps some parts scale better than others. I've attached a screenshot of Safari running at 2x. Note how the back/forward buttons have a really nice, correctly scaled border (so are correctly rendered as a vector somewhere), but the address bar border is clearly a scaled bitmap so looks like an older app running on an iPhone 4!
 

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