I see PCs have 4K laptops. Not too many OLED though last time I checked.
I was wondering if/when they would do it or why they don’t do it.
I was wondering if/when they would do it or why they don’t do it.
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Why doesn’t apple release 4K laptops or OLED ones or both 4K and OLED?
- Thread starter Hieveryone
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I see many people using Retina MacBooks and the fonts are huge.
Having a 4k screen makes things too small for some people and enlarging everything sort of defeats the purpose in my opinion.
I personally run my 2013 13" Pro with very tiny fonts and love it this way.
Having a 4k screen makes things too small for some people and enlarging everything sort of defeats the purpose in my opinion.
I personally run my 2013 13" Pro with very tiny fonts and love it this way.
because 4k on a 13" or 15" screen does little more than drain battery.
Right now, OLED is super high energy consumption for a screen that's less bright than a comparable LCD. 4K (3840x2160) vs the current 3072x1920 at the sixteen inch size is a nearly imperceptible difference in pixel density in exchange for higher power consumption.
You'll notice OLED laptops from other manufacturers will have lower rated battery life when configured with the OLED display. You'll also notice they'll max out at 400 nits brightness.
Apple will eventually move to something like MiniLED, but don't expect resolution bumps as there's really no tangible benefit for Apple to do so.
You'll notice OLED laptops from other manufacturers will have lower rated battery life when configured with the OLED display. You'll also notice they'll max out at 400 nits brightness.
Apple will eventually move to something like MiniLED, but don't expect resolution bumps as there's really no tangible benefit for Apple to do so.
macOS works well with pixel doubling, so the resolutions are based on that. 4k isn’t needed for most use cases.
OLED suffers from burn-in. Computer screens often have static screens that are a problem with this.
I have a 4K OLED TV, which is fantastic, but don’t feel the need for either on a Mac.
OLED suffers from burn-in. Computer screens often have static screens that are a problem with this.
I have a 4K OLED TV, which is fantastic, but don’t feel the need for either on a Mac.
OLEDs have a lot drawback that's people don't really talk about, namely burn in on static images and PWM dimming. The former is especially bad because you're leaving the door open to expensive repairs down the road for burned in docks and menu bars. The PWM dimming causes a lot of people, myself included bad headaches and eye strain.
The colors are gorgeous though, can't wait until we get proper microLED panels but sadly that's still another 5 or so years ago from mass production.
The colors are gorgeous though, can't wait until we get proper microLED panels but sadly that's still another 5 or so years ago from mass production.
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Why would you want a 4k resolution on a small-ass screen?
How would you even see anything?
How would you even see anything?
Windows has variable scaling (up to 300%?) but macOS has only pixel doubling (but it does a better job than Windows). macOS used to have variable scaling (for developer testing) but they settled on only 2x as an option. I haven't tried getting anything other than 2x working in current macOS versions (called HiDPI or Retina). 3x would be useful on an 8K display.
I often use QHD (2560x1440) on my MacBook Pro 15 and it's pretty good for seeing a a lot of stuff even though it is tiny. MBP 16 is pretty close to 4K; sometimes Apple does something just to be different. You'd need a pretty big laptop screen to be able to use 4K effectively. I think that QHD is readable, at least for me, even down to 13 inches. I use QHD on 27 inch monitors and things are pretty small.
Having owned a 4k laptop, I can say without hesitation that 4k resolution is just too much for 15" (or 16") displays. it makes no sense other then having 4k as a marketing ploy.
IMO, 4K on a smallish laptop screen isn't worth the inevitable hit to battery life. If battery technology gets better, then sure.
I’m running “looks like” 1680 x 1050 on my 16. Parallels sends that to Win10 which sees 3360 x 2100 and is set at 200%. Both are perfect IMO. Everything is sharp and clear, no eye fatigue and a reasonable amount of space in both OSs.
4K isn’t a requirement for me until 27”.
4K isn’t a requirement for me until 27”.
OLEDs are not as bright as LED, though have better "blacks." I use a late 2013 15-MBP. Screen captures are UHD. It is regularly hooked up to a Dell P2715Q. I use 4K about 1% of the time - too small. Mostly, I use it at 1440p - looks great. Now I'm thinking about either a 32- or 40-inch 4K screen. Which is a little too big to fit in a backpack. 
Ok, but in what way is it too much? Meaning the text is too small, or the difference between Retina and 4K is unnoticeable, or the battery life is not good?
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General question:
People are saying 4K would make the fonts small, but why can't you have 4K and make the fonts and everything look normal?
So basically, the screens we look at now on our 15" MacBook Pros, just in 4K resolution
Kind of like iPhones when it went from the 3G S to the iPhone 4 with Retina
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I also think Apple should add OLED as an upgradable feature, like 4TB SSD
Many people might not want it, but I would probably spend some extra money and get it
I enjoy my iPhone 11 Pro Max screen more than I do my MacBook Pro just in terms of colors and vibrance
To my eye, OLED feels like the future. Like the next generation of content viewing, especially these iPhone Pro models.
Apples retina is great, don't get me wrong, but I just love OLED lol
You mean scaling which basically means making everything bigger, thereby reducing any possible advantage of having 4k.
Let me ask you this, what advantage is there for 4k on a MBP? I mean you already have a high resolution that is scaled so its usable. 4k would only scale more, for what benefit?
Yes, just change your MBP to its native resolution (2880 x 1800) now and try to use it on a day to day basis, and then compare that against a similar form factor but 3840 x 2160 pixels on such a small display
Honestly I don’t really know I was just asking.
I don’t understand the connection between scaling and resolution.
Like I don’t get why you can’t have the exact same font and images just a higher resolution.
The reason why I was asking about 4K is bc pictures and videos would be more crisp.
But I wouldn’t want them to be smaller.
I would like pics and vids to be the same size just 4K resolution instead of retina resolution.
4K screens use a LOT of battery life. Windows doesn’t fractionally scale as well as macOS, so 4K is the most logical upgrade from 1080p for a Windows PC, which is why it is common on that side.
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Agreed. I have a 15.6” 4K monitor that I bought for the WFH era. I run it at 200% scaling, so it is effectively 1080p. Windows doesn’t always play nice with scaling, so sometimes dialog boxes are hard to read.
You can, at least sort of. Fonts and graphics can be made to work with higher resolution and be the same size. As you were thinking, more pixels to use in rendering - sharper images. This would require no small amount of effort on Apple's part, which they so far seemed disinclined to do at 4K.
Images, such as photos, would be trickier. These things are generally best rendered 1:1, so you would get smaller images with more resolution. You could magnify them, but what would be the proper default?
How you viewed rendered environments (your screen) can get very complicated. Pixel size, bit depth, and so on. Apple seems to have done an excellent job. I daresay that if they could conjure up some marketing logic and label their screens 4K, most people would believe them because the screens look really good.
Many LCD screens have PWM (including the iMac Pro apparently), although it is more common on OLED due to the solutions being more expensive than for LCD. It is a particular issue for OLED iPhones as many have the brightness set low (plus they are also PenTile screens, which itself can cause issues). The lower the brightness, the greater the issue with PWM (because the modulation is used more to dim the screen).
OLED is still massively underperforming when it comes to color accuracy on the extremes. They are generally good with boosting contrast and saturation levels, but grayscale, or ultra white values, or anything too close to absolute black and white and they fall apart. They either clip through or cause discoloration.
But beyond that, brightness just isn't as good as the best LCD panels. And power consumption for OLED is insane as you scale up in size and resolution.
As the Macbook Pro has a pro-level display(*) that caters to "working professionals"(*), I don't think Apple can afford the inaccuracy and lack of brightness. Maybe in a few more years? OLED display tech on bigger panels are not quite there yet, though. This is also why the Pro Display XDR has to be LCD and not OLED, even though Apple easily could have made it an OLED display. In practice, Apple's choice to go with an LCD made it outperform OLED in almost every possible metric except for absolute black.
(*): according to Apple.
Now, you may be tempted to ask "what about the iPhone Pro", and my answer to that would be:
...I don't know. Clearly, Apple is treating the word "Pro" differently than the rest of us.
Granted, though, an OLED screen will at least clear up one of the problems people find with the 16" MacBook currently: display ghosting. OLED in general has much faster response time compared to LCD.
marketing doing it's job.
People NEED 4K everywhere!
Because most people wouldn't be able to notice the difference. If you can find the iPhone 4 introduction on YouTube, watch the bit where Jobs talks about Retina. Once you get beyond a certain PPI threshold, depending on the distance of use from your eyes, there's no point, because your eyes can't tell the difference.
4K on a laptop as others have said, is a marketing ploy and a battery drain.
Every choice involves a trade off. For example, the 4K displays panels are cheaper (because there are more buyers and they usually are the cheaper 16:9 format), they have higher resolution, but they also use more power without offering any noticeable improvement in image quality. OLED displays have great contrast, but their brightness, accuracy and power consumption is not the best.
Apple uses the tech that they consider the most suitable for their products. The resolution of their displays is carefully chosen to provide uniform UI sizes across various devices while having the “retina” property. At the same time, their displays are among the best when it comes to things like color accuracy while consuming around the same amount of power as your average 1080p panel. There are things that are less perfect - response rate is rather slow and the contrast could be better, but it’s still one of the best laptop displays on the market. HP has a better one (DreamColor ZBooks), but that machine comes with a price premium.
Apple uses the tech that they consider the most suitable for their products. The resolution of their displays is carefully chosen to provide uniform UI sizes across various devices while having the “retina” property. At the same time, their displays are among the best when it comes to things like color accuracy while consuming around the same amount of power as your average 1080p panel. There are things that are less perfect - response rate is rather slow and the contrast could be better, but it’s still one of the best laptop displays on the market. HP has a better one (DreamColor ZBooks), but that machine comes with a price premium.