Why do you want a retina display?

[92jlee]

Just something I cannot understand is why everyone wants these super high resolution displays. Its going to bog down the graphics straight away as well as not having any media to run at that resolution.

Can I see some other peoples views and how a 'retina' display would be beneficial to you?

 

[GGJstudios]

Just something I cannot understand is why everyone wants these super high resolution displays. Its going to bog down the graphics straight away as well as not having any media to run at that resolution.

Can I see some other peoples views and how a 'retina' display would be beneficial to you?

Simply having a high resolution display doesn't "bog down the graphics". It depends on what content you display on it.

 

[ahdickter]

Because everything looks better? It's the difference between watching a movie at 480p vs 720p

 

[macNewbie02]

Just something I cannot understand is why everyone wants these super high resolution displays. Its going to bog down the graphics straight away as well as not having any media to run at that resolution.

Can I see some other peoples views and how a 'retina' display would be beneficial to you?

Have you played with the new iPad which is equipped with a Retina display? It should answer your question.

 

[Elven]

porn.


Come on... be honest, it is what the internet is made for, and will be one of the first things many people view on their new devices with the retina screen.

 

[scarred]

Just something I cannot understand is why everyone wants these super high resolution displays. Its going to bog down the graphics straight away as well as not having any media to run at that resolution.

Can I see some other peoples views and how a 'retina' display would be beneficial to you?

The biggest thing for me is the resolution of the small text. As someone above noted, don't diss it until you've seen the new iPad. Reading on it is amazing. Would love that on my notebook. It's one of those things, you don't know what you are missing until you see it.

Also, "bogging down the GPU" won't be a problem. The gpu is really only stressed in games, and those we can dial down the resolution. I am worried about the battery required to drive the retina display, though.

 

[GoodOne]

Because Text Looks kinda blurry on non-Retina MacOS thanks to Quartz. Should be fixed with Retina (see New iPad).

Oh, and obviously for porn.

 

[skaertus]

Because Text Looks kinda blurry on non-Retina MacOS thanks to Quartz. Should be fixed with Retina (see New iPad).

Oh, and obviously for porn.

I'm not going to comment on the porn part (which I agree entirely). But text looks blurry in Mac OS due to the sub-pixel rendering technique used by Quartz. ClearType, on Windows, produces much sharper fonts, although it also distorts them.

Retina display will make text crisp without distorting the fonts. It's a natural evolution of Apple's approach to typography and design.

That's why retina is definitely a must-have.

 

[yanksrock100]

Thats kind of a silly question. A retina display will make text much clearer and sharp. Pictures will look great, as well as videos.
Why dont you watch youtube videos in 240p? Because its not as clear.

I think Retina on the Mac will be the best addition since the Aluminum Unibody

 

[MassiveAttack]

I can't understand why anyone would want to question a radical new improvement? It's like asking someone with sight issues why would they want a better pair of glasses that would greatly improve their sight. Makes no sense.

 

[derickdub]

For me it's a matter of screen real-estate, but judging by the "hi-dpi mode" I don't know if it will be that much of an improvement vs. the high-res models. My eyes are fine and I don't have trouble reading small text on a 1680x1050 15" screen, an even higher resolution won't bother me either. Things tend to look better in a way when they're smaller too.

The increase in DPI is nice, but not so much a deciding factor for me. Hell, I'm using a 1920x1200 24" monitor now, which is pretty low in the DPI department.

 

[Prodo123]

I can't understand why anyone would want to question a radical new improvement? It's like asking someone with sight issues why would they want a better pair of glasses that would greatly improve their sight. Makes no sense.

I'm all for a retina display, but I'll play devil's advocate.

A retina display of 2880x1800 will make everything sharper, yes. But it also means your graphics processor must push 4x the number of pixels. It's an equivalent of plugging in 3 extra 1440x900 monitors to your MBP.
Crystal-sharp games sound good right? But what if it runs at 7fps because your GPU has to work 4x as hard? Not that fun, is it?
Or one could also think of the non-gaming aspects. 3D rendering programs like Maya rely heavily on the GPU, and occasionally lag on the current 1440x900 screen. With a high resolution display it will bog down performance of the program.
Even with GPU improvements, it won't change the fact that the GPU has to work harder.

Which leads to a heat issue. A hardworking GPU creates a lot of heat, which means a retina display will cause your laptop to run at high temperatures much more often. A hardworking GPU also draws a lot of power, which, along with the brighter backlighting necessary for the retina display, should greatly decrease battery life.

 

[arcite]

With no optical drive and sad, that will leave room for Avery big battery!

 

[Prodo123]

With no optical drive and ssd, that will leave room for a very big battery!

(i'll assume that's what you meant)

Bigger battery means a much heavier laptop. And it doesn't solve the heat and performance issue.

 

[samac92]

I'm all for a retina display, but I'll play devil's advocate.

A retina display of 2880x1800 will make everything sharper, yes. But it also means your graphics processor must push 4x the number of pixels. It's an equivalent of plugging in 3 extra 1440x900 monitors to your MBP.
Crystal-sharp games sound good right? But what if it runs at 7fps because your GPU has to work 4x as hard? Not that fun, is it?
Or one could also think of the non-gaming aspects. 3D rendering programs like Maya rely heavily on the GPU, and occasionally lag on the current 1440x900 screen. With a high resolution display it will bog down performance of the program.
Even with GPU improvements, it won't change the fact that the GPU has to work harder.

Which leads to a heat issue. A hardworking GPU creates a lot of heat, which means a retina display will cause your laptop to run at high temperatures much more often. A hardworking GPU also draws a lot of power, which, along with the brighter backlighting necessary for the retina display, should greatly decrease battery life.

I'm sure Apple has thought of this, they're not going to sell the new MBP if it sucks. The iPad handles it fine and it's pushing almost as many pixels as the 27" iMac on basically mobile phone internals. Games can just run at lower resolutions and will still look great.

 

[Xcallibur]

For clarity that cannot be beaten, so when the latest laptops come out throughout the years, I know the screen I'm looking at should be as clear, making my purchase feel all the more satisfying.

 

[JMountainDew]

I'm simply hoping that the retina display will reduce eye strain for my astigmatic eyes.

 

[Ice Dragon]

I think the MacBook Pro is due for a display upgrade. Don't many 15" displays have full HD options?

 

[Xcallibur]

I think the MacBook Pro is due for a display upgrade. Don't many 15" displays have full HD options?

Yep, even some 13" laptops have full 1080p displays.

 

[Maven1975]

Real question is if Apple will offer an anti glare retina option. My gut says no.

 

[BubbaMc]

Text.

/thread.

 

[theSeb]

I'm all for a retina display, but I'll play devil's advocate.

A retina display of 2880x1800 will make everything sharper, yes. But it also means your graphics processor must push 4x the number of pixels. It's an equivalent of plugging in 3 extra 1440x900 monitors to your MBP.
Crystal-sharp games sound good right? But what if it runs at 7fps because your GPU has to work 4x as hard? Not that fun, is it?
Or one could also think of the non-gaming aspects. 3D rendering programs like Maya rely heavily on the GPU, and occasionally lag on the current 1440x900 screen. With a high resolution display it will bog down performance of the program.
Even with GPU improvements, it won't change the fact that the GPU has to work harder.

Which leads to a heat issue. A hardworking GPU creates a lot of heat, which means a retina display will cause your laptop to run at high temperatures much more often. A hardworking GPU also draws a lot of power, which, along with the brighter backlighting necessary for the retina display, should greatly decrease battery life.

Games would not run at the native resolution anyway. There are no games that support 2880 x 1800. There are games that will run at up to 5760 x 1200, but you need SLI for that. What's most likely to happen is that the image would be rendered at the normal 1440 x 900 res and displayed like that or scaled. Most games on the Xbox / ps3 render at 720p and then the image is up-scaled to 1080p.

 

[rpmor]

Games would not run at the native resolution anyway. There are no games that support 2880 x 1800. There are games that will run at up to 5760 x 1200, but you need SLI for that. What's most likely to happen is that the image would be rendered at the normal 1440 x 900 res and displayed like that or scaled. Most games on the Xbox / ps3 render at 720p and then the image is up-scaled to 1080p.

theres no such thing as 'normal' for a pc game. games can be rendered in whatever resolution we choose to set it. upscaling doesn't apply to PC titles in the same way; we would need to implement an internal scaler (which is gpu independent) to do that but it then defeats the purpose of selecting your resolution. PC games and console games are designed very differently in terms of how resolution is done. console games are designed in 1 resolution (can never ever for the love of god be defined by the user) and then upscaled (if needed). PC games are designed to be scalable and user-defined by default therefore the notion of rendering in 'normal' resolution and upscaled doesn't apply...

also the replies of 'well then you can just tone down the graphics' is laughable at best. you dont buy X graphic card to then play at low specs. either you provide a laptop capable of handling the outputs without having to manually gimp the performance so it runs 'well' or you hold back on releasing retina display and simply place 1920x1080 screens on your 15inch as an upgrade option (with the 1600x1050 as the new default) similarly do the asme for the 13inch (while offering a 1600x900 as the new default).

this counter argument is as stupid as saying buy a quad core than set it to disable 2 cores in bios so you can save on your energy bill and reduce the heat being produced in your computer. you might as well just have bought a dual core to start with and have gotten better performance that way than gimping a quad core set up....

edit: now if lowering the resolution to 1920x1080 and the game performs well and it doesnt look like its running in lower than native resolution. then fine ill accept lowering the resolution to compensate. the problem is whether or not the game will look horribly playing at such a lower than native resolution....if it does look bad you're really neglecting a market that until recently the Macs were failing behind with. neglecting that market again will be a foolish move...

 

[dusk007]

Can I see some other peoples views and how a 'retina' display would be beneficial to you?

Aside from the pure resolutions there is one more side to the topic.

A retina Display will most likely be a decent IPS Panel or something similar with good viewing angels, better contrast and a good color gamut.
The current MBP have fairly decent screens but only compared to other notebooks which usually have crap screens. The TN Panels are outmatched by even fairly cheap Desktop Screen TN Panels. It is a good enough panel for most people but it could be better.
Along with a Retina resolution a better Panel will most likely come along and that is even if it was the only thing a great reason of its own. The higher resolution will add to that and GPUs can handle it in 2D. In 3D interpolation should finally be good enough so everybody can game at the res that works for the Game and the GPU, like it used to work in old CRT Screens.
The only side effect really would be power consumption. In a 15" Notebook the Display is the biggest consumer of Juice. Would the Retina Display also double its power consumption as the iPad panel apparently did that would require a much bigger battery or result in worse battery life especially on the far end. Or the display gets much dimmer. I want 400 nits on my MBP and no less
It is hard to say though. The TFT net isn't nearly as fine as with the iPad, the LED Backlight is also already of higher quality than the ipad 2's poor cheapo backlight. The higher gamut backlights usually suck more power.

I think it would be great but I still doubt that it will really show. The rumors seem to suggest it but they have been wrong before. I would have expected it in a year. I thought they'd still be to expensive today.

 

[maflynn]

Simply having a high resolution display doesn't "bog down the graphics". It depends on what content you display on it.

There is increased overhead to deal with the higher pixel count so in effect it could very well bog down a computer. If that wasn't the case, then Apple wouldn't have opted for the dual GPU option in their new iPads but they needed more GPU horsepower to handle the increased pixels