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starstreak

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 5, 2004
456
12
So now that apple opened the can-o-worms with the retina screen, do you think they should include that resolution for the new laptops?
I think they should.
 
I doubt it will come out until either Haswell or Hardwell cpus are released because of battery consumption. The 'new' iPad's retina display consumes ~70% more battery than the iPad 2

A retina display macbook is almost certainly coming out of the pipeline sooner or later
 
I was going to wait and get a new MBP later this year because I thought there was a good chance retina was coming, but after a bit of googling around I've come to disbelieve it's coming this year. I went ahead and ordered a 17" MBP. :D
 
The new iPad needed a 70% larger battery to satisfy the power demands of the retina display and the A5X (quad gpu) that is required to run the display.

I'd rather not have 70% reduced battery life, or a fat MBP :eek:
 
So now that apple opened the can-o-worms with the retina screen, do you think they should include that resolution for the new laptops?
I think they should.

People complain about the current graphics performance of the MBP enough already. With a "Retina" screen the MacBook Pro will have to push 4x amount of pixels more than now. Not good.
 
I doubt they will have "retina" display this year, and I have serious doubts for next year. I find resolution to matter less on a laptop compared to a tablet or my iPhone.

I would rather they focus on other things, like battery life, like USB 3, like coming out with more thunderbolt devices.
 
Unless I'm missing something here, the battery is larger for the GPU. Screen size is still the same. It may draw more power, but nowhere near what they can cram into a powerbook pro. I don't believe power will be the issue. If anything people will demand to play games at that resolution on the computer and Apple hasn't caught up to PCs when it comes to GFX potential.

I hope I'm wrong as I need a new laptop. And I would love to have the high res screen.
 
u must also consider having a high res screen means eeverything else will become even smaller.

compare the standard res screen on th 15inch macbook pro and high res

u really want smaller stuff?
 
u must also consider having a high res screen means eeverything else will become even smaller.

compare the standard res screen on th 15inch macbook pro and high res

u really want smaller stuff?

Screen real estate, it's about time someone offered the option of higher res screens on laptops. The higher the resolution on a 17" the better. It's quite depressing watching the screen res options being taken away, heck even 1920x1200 is on it's last legs. There's a significant sector of the market that appreciate high res rather than 1440x900, huge icons etc.

As long as OSX can scale effectively there's no reason not to do it. I'm pretty sure it'll appear on the macbook range at some point whether it be the next update or Haswell.
 
The GPU for something that high res on a 15 inch would have to be pretty substantial... If they are going to shrink the form factor of the MBP to look closer to the Air, this would be hard with the need for a beefier battery. IMO we won't see a retina display on the MBP until the lithium polymer battery is modified or some of the newer technologies (IIRC hydrogen power is one) become a reality.
 
Unless I'm missing something here, the battery is larger for the GPU. Screen size is still the same. It may draw more power, but nowhere near what they can cram into a powerbook pro. I don't believe power will be the issue. If anything people will demand to play games at that resolution on the computer and Apple hasn't caught up to PCs when it comes to GFX potential.

I hope I'm wrong as I need a new laptop. And I would love to have the high res screen.

Yes, you are missing something. The retina is not just a higher resolution... it quadruples the number of pixels. Now, while I'm not sure that I can fully explain it, I remember reading that a higher res screen needs more backlight for the same brightness - this has something to do with the light per pixel that comes through being much smaller. So both the screen and the GPU increase the power usage.

MBP graphics performance is well on par with other mobile PCs. Only a very small number of gaming laptops offer faster graphics than the 15'' and 17'' MBPs.

Finally, I would appreciate a higher res 13'' screen. But a doubled resolution might not be what most people are looking for. It would require resolution independence for most applications, and all that don't support it will look like crap.
 
Apple had to increase the battery to 70% more to use retina display on iPad 3.

People want better battery life and they want retina display?

Ain't happening.

I also don't think those crappy intel graphic cards can handle 4 times more pixels.

2880 X 1800 resolution is absolutely insane and our 15 and 17 inch laptops will have a higher resolution than 27 inch iMac.

No. No. No. No.

I don't see it happening anytime soon. Maybe it will probably like 2-3 years later, but not this year or next.

Apple brought retina display on iPhone first, iPad and it will be Macbook pro's turn.

I am not expecting more than 1080P displays.
 
Yes, you are missing something. The retina is not just a higher resolution... it quadruples the number of pixels.

No it isn't. Apple clarified their definition of retina display in the ipad keynote and it has been much discussed these past few days. Apple simply uses the retina display to brand a display with a pixel density high enough that the resolving capability of the eye can no longer discern the individual pixels at typical viewing distances.

The Macbook Pro already comes reasonably close to that point. Also, OSX is designed to be used at different resolutions. The only way Apple could increase resolution on iOS devices was by increasing resolution by a multiples of two in either dimension. On OSX, a small bump will work fine.
 
No it isn't. Apple clarified their definition of retina display in the ipad keynote and it has been much discussed these past few days. Apple simply uses the retina display to brand a display with a pixel density high enough that the resolving capability of the eye can no longer discern the individual pixels at typical viewing distances.

Apple said:
Four times more pixels than iPad 2.
http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/
 
The Macbook Pro already comes reasonably close to that point. Also, OSX is designed to be used at different resolutions. The only way Apple could increase resolution on iOS devices was by increasing resolution by a multiples of two in either dimension. On OSX, a small bump will work fine.

Well, I guess then the Thinkpad T520 with 15'' 1080p HD screen already has a retina display, as well as some 13'' laptops from other manufacturers.

The resolution that was being discussed for the 15'' retina MBP is 2880 x 1800:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1291346/

A simple increase of the resolution e.g. to 1920 x 1200 on the 15'', would probably not be considered "retina", even if it satisfies the formal conditions - one could argue that the 15'' high-res and the 17'' MBPs already have a retina resolution.
 
I was going to wait and get a new MBP later this year because I thought there was a good chance retina was coming, but after a bit of googling around I've come to disbelieve it's coming this year. I went ahead and ordered a 17" MBP. :D

you ordered a new $2000 laptop based on your 'belief' after spending some time googling the topic? :rolleyes:
 
A simple increase of the resolution e.g. to 1920 x 1200 on the 15'', would probably not be considered "retina", even if it satisfies the formal conditions - one could argue that the 15'' high-res and the 17'' MBPs already have a retina resolution.

You're probably right. That's the problem with this 'retina display' nonsense. It is a brand nothing else, this isn't some breakthrough in LCD technology. It was coined as a less technical way to describe the significantly better display of the iPhone 4 and now people have taken way out of hand.


I'm sorry but are you hanging on to that just for the sake of argument? If next year's MBP is twice as fast as the current one, does that mean all future computers that are twice as fast also get to be called MBPs?

Apple explained the retina display during the keynote. For the iPad, they needed to quadruple the display resolution, there was no other way they could have done it. There is no need to quadruple the resolution of the current laptops to achieve the same angular resolution as the ipad.
 
You're probably right. That's the problem with this 'retina display' nonsense. It is a brand nothing else, this isn't some breakthrough in LCD technology. It was coined as a less technical way to describe the significantly better display of the iPhone 4 and now people have taken way out of hand.

Yes, thats the problem of course. A 20'' CRT TV with 640x480 resolution would easily qualify as retina, if you sit at the appropriate distance.

My impression is that for most people, it implies a doubling of the resolution, since this is what happens on the iphone/ipad (and of course the 2880x1800 screen rumors). The problem is that this has to come with some new software technology, otherwise everything just gets tiny. The "retina effect" does not come from just the higher resolution - it comes from objects of the same size being rendered with four times as many pixels.

Now, on the other hand, can you imagine a scenario where the $500 new iPad has 3 million pixels on 10'', but the new $2000 MBP has only 1.5 million pixels on 15''?
 
MBP's screen is already pretty much of retina quality to my eye.

Anyway, if they go the retina from any distance route, OS X may have to change the way to handle the size of everything. And if you run Windows on such MBP, everything would look ridiculously small or ludicrously pixelated.
 
Now, on the other hand, can you imagine a scenario where the $500 new iPad has 3 million pixels on 10'', but the new $2000 MBP has only 1.5 million pixels on 15''?

I don't really care about the numbers, the perceived resolution is fairly close. The MBP's res could be bumped a bit for sure but right now I think the main reason it is lagging behind is that it still does not have an IPS display.
 
With the iPad having retina and ML coming up, I think apple may have a retina MBP or MBA by the end of 2012. If not, at least a higher screen resolution.

I can't see apple waiting awhile to do this when they can do it sooner rather than later.

I assume MBA would get the bump first because they are 11 and 13 inches, rather than 13, 15, and 17 on the pros, however.

:apple:
 
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