Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

[Vanilla35]

Any word on whether they'll release a 5K version? I was in the store today and compared the resolution of the 5K iMac with the 4K rMBP and they were considerably different. Both super high quality though obviously

Do you mean 2K rMBP.

The iMac 27 5k has 217.57 PPI and the rMBP 15 is 220.53 PPI. The rMBP already has a higher pixel density... maybe the diference you notice is something about the glass coating / layers, or the panel quality / configuration, but not the resolution.

My opinion is that batteries and iGPUs needs to get much better before a 5k inch laptop is released...

I believe the distinction between the two screens is the overall larger and likely brighter display of the iMac; therefore inherently making it appear more vivid when compared to the rMBP, despite similar pixel density (clarity). It's like comparing a iPad Mini (4) to a iPhone 6S Plus. The iPad is gonna be perceived as "better".

 

[Oppenheim]

The iMac 27 5k has 217.57 PPI and the rMBP 15 is 220.53 PPI. The rMBP already has a higher pixel density... maybe the diference you notice is something about the glass coating / layers, or the panel quality / configuration, but not the resolution.

My opinion is that batteries and iGPUs needs to get much better before a 5k inch laptop is released...

Yep. I think this new MBP will be all about the power (12 hour light development work anybody?), thinness, bezel shrinking and an elimination of all ports except USB-C (x3 USB-C on the 16", x2 USB-C on the 14").

And isn't a 5k laptop display pointless? I thought the 5k display is at the limit of the human eye? I.e. you can't detect any difference at 1 foot away?

Two externally connected 5k displays over USB-C is highly probable though.

 

[ceparker27]

Question for you all. With the lack of prevalence of usb-c in the world, do you all really think that Apple would do away with standard USB ports on the top of the line rMBP? I can't see that as a great move and would solidify me looking elsewhere for a laptop.

 

[AirdanMR]

Yep. I think this new MBP will be all about the power (12 hour light development work anybody?), thinness, bezel shrinking and an elimination of all ports except USB-C (x3 USB-C on the 16", x2 USB-C on the 14").

And isn't a 5k laptop display pointless? I thought the 5k display is at the limit of the human eye? I.e. you can't detect any difference at 1 foot away?

Two externally connected 5k displays over USB-C is highly probable though.

I've to disagree with the port thing. They can't rip off all the ports... one side for jack + sd reader, the other for 2 - 3 usb-c TB3 would be enough. But wait... you can't conect two 5k displays to the TB3. I even have doubts about one 5k at 60hz as long as TB3 don't support DP1.3...

So, for me it looks like they would have to choose between dGPU + DP 1.3 and forget about the thiner - more battery in the next update, or iGPU without 5k which would mean not target display support either.

PD. We print at 300dpi so maybe that's the future goal. 4K for 13.3 and 5k for 15.4 would cover that density.

 

[Vanilla35]

And isn't a 5k laptop display pointless? I thought the 5k display is at the limit of the human eye? I.e. you can't detect any difference at 1 foot away?

No, that's just a comment butt hurt people make when they realize that other manufacturers are upgrading their specs faster.

Regardless of what your eye can "perceive", a 2k display looks much "better" than a 1080p display, and a 4k/5k display looks much "better" than a 2k display. It's all about how crispy it looks, obviously the display needs to be high quality (deep contrast, vibrant colors, etc), but all else constant, you will think the higher resolution screen is/looks better.

Regardless of "pixels" seen by the eye.

P.S. Keep in mind that you use a 4k display on a phone for a while, and then you go down to a 2k screen - it's going to look muddier; because you're used to a more dense screen. Your eye is more capable than people lead to believe. Numbers won't tell you everything.

 

[Rigby]

Question for you all. With the lack of prevalence of usb-c in the world, do you all really think that Apple would do away with standard USB ports on the top of the line rMBP? I can't see that as a great move and would solidify me looking elsewhere for a laptop.

I agree. Dropping USB-A was a bad move on the new Macbook, and it would be worse on a Macbook Pro. The connector is ubiquitous and will remain so for quite a while. It will be years before things like flash drives, wired mice, security tokens, web cams, USB microphones, card readers, game controllers etc. pp will be widely available with USB-C (if ever).

 

[doitdada]

Two externally connected 5k displays over USB-C is highly probable though.

And the 5K displays are driven by a single integrated GPU?

I agree. Dropping USB-A was a bad move on the new Macbook, and it would be worse on a Macbook Pro.

I really fell for the idea regarding the new port, and yes it is easier to plug in, but the lack of accessories are frustrating. USB-C cables are way too expensive. Over a half year after the announcement, all the USB-C hub projects are still in pre-order. The USB C port in the Macbook 12" can only power a single USB device, even with the multiport adapter. In two or three years maybe we will see some progress, but by then I will have gone through at least one update from my current rMBP 2015.

 

[Oppenheim]

No, that's just a comment butt hurt people make when they realize that other manufacturers are upgrading their specs faster.

Regardless of what your eye can "perceive", a 2k display looks much "better" than a 1080p display, and a 4k/5k display looks much "better" than a 2k display. It's all about how crispy it looks, obviously the display needs to be high quality (deep contrast, vibrant colors, etc), but all else constant, you will think the higher resolution screen is/looks better.

Regardless of "pixels" seen by the eye.

P.S. Keep in mind that you use a 4k display on a phone for a while, and then you go down to a 2k screen - it's going to look muddier; because you're used to a more dense screen. Your eye is more capable than people lead to believe. Numbers won't tell you everything.

Other optical effects are a different issue. No need to muddy the waters.

You haven't provided of an example of other manufacturers shipping these 5k screens on laptops. I don't see the point. I contend that the human eye cannot see the difference between a 5k 27" screen and a 6k 27" screen (say). OK, the eye might see a difference if it's right up against the screen, but this is an anomalous use-case and would not come under any design consideration whatsoever.

There's a limit to what the eye can see. The human eye sees light inside a wavelength range. I remember (from my college days - long time ago...) that a single satellite in space (~10,000km up) can only see "pixels" approx. +=1m at visible wavelengths. The same principle applies for a human eye 1 or 2 foot away from a 5k screen.

I'm open to correction on this.

 

[Oppenheim]

I agree. Dropping USB-A was a bad move on the new Macbook, and it would be worse on a Macbook Pro. The connector is ubiquitous and will remain so for quite a while. It will be years before things like flash drives, wired mice, security tokens, web cams, USB microphones, card readers, game controllers etc. pp will be widely available with USB-C (if ever).

The USB-A connector was badly designed. Good design and high function trumps bad design and ubiquity. Nobody cares about your legacy peripherals. The MBP has always been about the future, not the past. USB-C will finally allow Apple to ditch a myriad of ports and finally resolve many issues that have been with us for years and years.

Is a USB-C to USB3.0 connector too much for you?

http://www.nonda.co/products/usb-c-to-usb-3-0-mini-adapter

 

[Oppenheim]

I've to disagree with the port thing. They can't rip off all the ports... one side for jack + sd reader, the other for 2 - 3 usb-c TB3 would be enough. But wait... you can't conect two 5k displays to the TB3. I even have doubts about one 5k at 60hz as long as TB3 don't support DP1.3...

So, for me it looks like they would have to choose between dGPU + DP 1.3 and forget about the thiner - more battery in the next update, or iGPU without 5k which would mean not target display support either.

PD. We print at 300dpi so maybe that's the future goal. 4K for 13.3 and 5k for 15.4 would cover that density.

Maybe just one 5k so...

SD cards and headphone jacks??? It's remarkable that such things have lasted this long at all. The I/O on SD cards is pathetic. You can get better I/O to the cloud via WiFi. I hope the headphone jack will be binned too. Consigned to the dustbin once and for all.

 

[HoiPiet]

I think SD cards are quite useful. I use the headphone port a lot. If they consign it to the proverbial dustbin how is it you feel people should listen to headphones or set up a quick line out?

 

[Vanilla35]

Other optical effects are a different issue. No need to muddy the waters.

You haven't provided of an example of other manufacturers shipping these 5k screens on laptops. I don't see the point. I contend that the human eye cannot see the difference between a 5k 27" screen and a 6k 27" screen (say). OK, the eye might see a difference if it's right up against the screen, but this is an anomalous use-case and would not come under any design consideration whatsoever.

There's a limit to what the eye can see. The human eye sees light inside a wavelength range. I remember (from my college days - long time ago...) that a single satellite in space (~10,000km up) can only see "pixels" approx. +=1m at visible wavelengths. The same principle applies for a human eye 1 or 2 foot away from a 5k screen.

I'm open to correction on this.

Sorry my examples were about mobile devices, not laptops (although the 5k display is iMac) - but I find the example to be just as relevant regardless. Despite the average distance you hold your phone from your face, you can discern the difference between a 1080p device and a 2k device, ceteris paribus. I believe the same to be true between 2k displays and 4k displays. You say that only when you bring the device closer to your eye will the difference be observed, but I think that's a flawed statistical approach. Sure the average person can't see the pixels, but your eye can make out a better overall image, regardless of individual pixels being perceived.

The way I think of it, let's say the average human eye can only see an object about 30 miles out (keep in mind the curvature of the earth only allows us to see 3 miles or so). Specifically, that would be the distance in which we wouldn't be able to perceive a light source anymore from an candle sized object, unless it became bigger. However we can still see further than that object. It's not like we have a black wall where all of a sudden that's the end of our sight and we can't see anything further until we take a few steps forward. Same goes with phones, as long as the device is in our sight (activating at least 1-2 cones in our eye), we can perceive any differences it may have.

Naturally there will be diminishing returns, but I don't see an undecipherable difference occurring until around 8k res or so (on phones). I think the difference between 4k and 8k on a 27" screen will be noticeable though. Not enough for people to care, but for us picky people, noticeable.

 

[Rigby]

The USB-A connector was badly designed. Good design and high function trumps bad design and ubiquity. Nobody cares about your legacy peripherals. The MBP has always been about the future, not the past.

Some of us actually use these machines to work in the present. Imagine that.

USB-C will finally allow Apple to ditch a myriad of ports and finally resolve many issues that have been with us for years and years.

And which "many issues" would that be?

Is a USB-C to USB3.0 connector too much for you?

It's just another thing to lose.

 

[shareef777]

It's just another thing to lose.

They said the same thing of the vga/Ethernet port.

 

[Rigby]

They said the same thing of the vga/Ethernet port.

And it's still true. If you use the computer to give presentations, you need a VGA dongle. I don't need even more things to lose or forget. How does making the computer another two millimeters thinner help if I have to carry around a bag full of dongles?

 

[frosse]

Apple has never been afraid to remove ports/tech that's outdated or about to be, even if they need to bridge that gap with dongles for a while. So I can see them moving towards USB-C. With that said I don't see them removing neither the SD reader (too important for photographers) nor the headphone jack (too important for music and video pros on the go).

Edit: Added video pros.

 

[fisherking]

whatever they do (usb-c, remove sd card, remove ports, add scsi...); seriously, whatever the next macbook pro brings...we'll cheer, bitch, moan, cry...etc. then we'll adapt (until the next change). bring it on apple!

 

[AirdanMR]

Maybe just one 5k so...

SD cards and headphone jacks??? It's remarkable that such things have lasted this long at all. The I/O on SD cards is pathetic. You can get better I/O to the cloud via WiFi. I hope the headphone jack will be binned too. Consigned to the dustbin once and for all.

There are a lot of situations where you could need a headphone jack. Students at the library, public transport ie train or airplane for watching a movie, at home to not disturbing other people at night, at home to plugin better speakers... come on! there is no valid argument against that... even the macbook has one.

I don't know how good the speed transfer is in the macbook pro sd reader, but I know a lot of photographers using Mac, and honestly it doesn't matter how bad it is, you don't want to upload 1GB of RAWs via wifi to the cloud.

They could remove the sd reader, it will be annoying but you could solve with adaptor. But removing the headphone jack would be a very stupid movement from them.

 

[Patrick-Photo]

There are a lot of situations where you could need a headphone jack. Students at the library, public transport ie train or airplane for watching a movie, at home to not disturbing other people at night, at home to plugin better speakers... come on! there is no valid argument against that... even the macbook has one.

I don't know how good the speed transfer is in the macbook pro sd reader, but I know a lot of photographers using Mac, and honestly it doesn't matter how bad it is, you don't want to upload 1GB of RAWs via wifi to the cloud.

They could remove the sd reader, it will be annoying but you could solve with adaptor. But removing the headphone jack would be a very stupid movement from them.

I'm still amazed that the Retina Macbook Pro's still use USB2.0 tech for the SD-card reader. Considering cards go faster than the maximum of 60mbs via USB2.0, iMac's use a PCI-Express based reader I believe... Not fair!! I hope they fix this in the future release of the rMBP. It would pretty much cut down the transfer time by more than a third for the cards that I use.

 

[Rigby]

Apple has never been afraid to remove ports/tech that's outdated or about to be, even if they need to bridge that gap with dongles for a while.

True. But in some cases they have also backed the wrong horse (e.g. mini/micro-DVI and Firewire; Thunderbolt doesn't look too good either at this point). They have also sometimes back-paddled based on user demand, for example when they grudgingly added another USB port to the second gen Macbook Air.

 

[shareef777]

And it's still true. If you use the computer to give presentations, you need a VGA dongle. I don't need even more things to lose or forget. How does making the computer another two millimeters thinner help if I have to carry around a bag full of dongles?

Yeah, it sucks. I have to carry around an ethernet dongle and vga dongle in my backpack every where I go and have honestly used them maybe once this year (and handful of times since getting my laptop). But as people and companies tend to do, we adapt. My office's wireless is top notch now and at one point I was able to get faster wireless speeds then wired speeds in the office (only recently upgraded to 1G desk ports, which I don't bother using as it's unnecessary for my day to day work). Even conference rooms now include HDMI and display ports cables to projectors/TVs. It sucks, but it's inevitable.

 

[zerosnow]

I blame the iPad Pro for not having new laptops later this year.

We need the superior Pros.

 

[ooans]

I'm still amazed that the Retina Macbook Pro's still use USB2.0 tech for the SD-card reader. Considering cards go faster than the maximum of 60mbs via USB2.0, iMac's use a PCI-Express based reader I believe... Not fair!! I hope they fix this in the future release of the rMBP. It would pretty much cut down the transfer time by more than a third for the cards that I use.

At least my Late 2013 MBP has USB 3.0 transfer rate for the in-built SD-card reader. USB 2.0 in real world usage is limited to below 50MB/s.

 

[Patrick-Photo]

At least my Late 2013 MBP has USB 3.0 transfer rate for the in-built SD-card reader. USB 2.0 in real world usage is limited to below 50MB/s.

Strange... Apple Support stated the rMBPs use USB2.0 on their site... Maybe a type but USB3 is a bit better !

 

[doitdada]

Should be PCI