
Retina MacBook Pro Review: The Age of the High-Resolution PC - basil
http://stevestreza.com/2012/06/17/retina-macbook-pro/
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MetaCosm
As someone who has used a retina display in daylight, it is unusable (bring up
a black terminal, it is a goddamn mirror). It only compares favorably with the
notoriously horrible apple glossy displays... well know for having some of the
worst imaginable glare problems (unusable in many office overhead lighting
situations). How the author found this better than the matte screen is beyond
me.

That all said, I am happy about Apple pushing forward on a decoupling of
resolution from perceived size... it is long overdue. That combined with
apples supply chain clout, I can't wait to see more ultra-high resolution
screens everywhere.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Can this kind of decoupling be accomplished on Windows and or Linux?

I just ask because I have a 1920x1080 (native) resolution LCD which looks
wonderful in Movies and Games, but makes text and other OS artefacts unusable
small.

Windows will let you set the text size (Medium, Large) but all this seems to
accomplish is to break all non-native applications (e.g. force text off of the
right hand side of the drawable area).

It would be wonderful if I purchased for example a 2048x1536 display which
Windows could run in 1024x768 "mode" but with four times the pixels per every
dot of content on the screen.

~~~
MetaCosm
It can't even really be accomplished well on OS-X yet. But I am delighted
Apple is going for it, because the application will catch up.

Right now it works really well with Apple's font render engine, and not much
else. But application developers will catch up -- as will Microsoft and Linux
(some Linux mailing lists are already blowing up with how to handle it). X can
handle it no problems, it is the libraries that can't.

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stusmith1977
Does anyone else think it weird that the first mainstream hi-res displays
weren't pushed by Microsoft? Let me explain...

Back when WPF was still called Avalon, Microsoft were pushing the technology
as a solution for the soon-to-be-arriving high-dpi displays (which, we were
assured, were right around the corner). As an example, see a contemporary blog
post:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213....](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcelolr/archive/2004/12/03/274213.aspx)

Given that Microsoft were (are?) deseperately trying to hold back the tide of
web-based applications, wouldn't displays like this, combined with tchnology
such as WPF, have been a killer feature of a desktop OS? And hence, shouldn't
they have been a high-priority for Microsoft?

So why did Apple get there first? Why didn't Microsoft research/fund/introduce
these high-dpi displays?

Edit: More links from a Coding Horror post from the same year:
[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-
bitmap...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/11/trapped-in-a-bitmapped-
world.html)

~~~
taotetek
The "first" main stream hi-res display? I have some Sony Trinitron CRTs in my
basement that would like to talk to you.

~~~
stusmith1977
Sorry, didn't really clarify what I meant by mainstream: easily available to
purchase, by non-techie consumers, from a high-street shop.

~~~
taotetek
Sony multiscan trinitrons weren't exotic - you could purchase them in any
reasonable electronics store. I have several that go up to 2048x1536 @ 75hz.
Viewsonic had monitors that did the same. While I look forward to higher
resolution LCDs becoming a standard option, LCD's set us back resolution wise
for quite a long time. LCD does have other advantages over CRT of course.

~~~
abacabb
I had and loved a similar NEC CRT. But 2048x1536 on a 22" display is ~116ppi.
Apple's non-retina laptops have been higher than that for years (with the
MacBook Air being highest, at ~135ppi), and Sony, at least, has offered
configurable 1080p displays in 13" laptops (~165ppi) for some time.

It was pretty nice a decade ago, when everyone was moving to LCD monitors that
were vastly inferior in every measure beyond size or weight, but, at least in
terms of ppi (and on consumer grade equipment), display technology eclipsed
the CRT quite a while ago.

edit: I'd forgotten that CRTs were measured with the bezel included, so at 20"
viewable, the display is 128ppi. So closer, but still pretty far behind.

~~~
taotetek
Viewsonic had a 19" display (with 18" viewable) that did 2048x1536. I think
that was the smallest size that the 2048x1536 CRT's came in.

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goombastic
As someone who has been waiting for a higher resolution laptop screen for
years, what apple has done is a godsend. At least now other laptop
manufacturers will take high res demands seriously.

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dbecker
I'm always surprised when I see internet reviews where people talk about no
longer being able to see individual pixels. I can't see individual pixels even
if I look closely at my screen... and everyone I've talked to in person has
said the same thing.

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midnight_coder
As someone who has pretty good eyesight (for the time being at least), I am
pretty excited about the prospects of coding in the terminal with a super HD
screen (I hate having to buy into Apple's marketing speak). Right now I
struggle to have three 80 coloumn wide text files open in VIM on my Lenovo
X201, and most other people have a real hard time reading the small font on my
screen, while I have just gotten used to it. A super HD screen would mean
vertical and horizontal lines of code for me without sacrificing the
readability issues of going down in font size, assuming I can adapt to the
smaller text.

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afsina
In my old 16 inch notebook I cannot notice pixels at all. And font rendering
is just fine. Ok I have an eye problem but still I fail to see the point of
having very high resolution on a small screen. What is the catch?

~~~
lucian1900
I clearly notice the pixels on anything lower than 200dpi and can only
completely ignore them past 250dpi.

It's the point where antialising becomes unnecessary, basically.

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daurnimator
The intro/overview are a complete load of codswallop... Touting increases in
DPI as game changing couldn't be farther from the truth.

Nevermind the painting of apple as innovators.

~~~
bryanlarsen
One of my first thoughts after hearing the original iPhone announcement was
"what a low resolution screen".

After all, the Nokia 770, released a couple of years before the iPhone, had an
800x480 screen.

Most full websites back then were usable on an 800 pixel screen. Because it
had a low-res screen, the iPhone required mobile versions, which I thought
would doom it due to the chicken and egg problem.

Remember, back then the iPhone didn't allow third party apps, the "blessed"
way of adding capability to your iPhone was through web sites. Who would buy
an iPhone if it didn't have any apps or mobile web sites? Who would mobile web
sites if nobody bought an iPhone?

Apparently, I was wrong.

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Mordor
Actually, it's the end of the high-resolution PC, since there's no point in
adding more detail if your eyes are physically unable to detect the
difference. Also, we're already able to buy 3D displays, so that's another
'old' technology too. Smart 3D TV's - old.

I imagine someone's going to be selling 3D contact lenses soon, so all
surfaces will be 3D video devices. The next step is to make _them_
intelligent...

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vetler
I kind of want Retina display, but I made a promise to myself that my next
laptop would be a Linux laptop. Perhaps I could run Linux on a Macbook Pro,
but it would look like this: [http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-
ubuntu-look-lik...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/06/what-does-ubuntu-look-
like-on-a-retina-display-bad)

How long until other desktop environments catch up?

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JackpotDen
It's not an mp3 player. It's an ipod.

It's not a PDA. It's an iphone.

It's not a tablet laptop. It's an ipad.

It's not a high resolution display unit. It's a retina macbook.

~~~
SatvikBeri
This is very smart marketing for Apple. They have the assets (reputation,
substantially different UX) that let them position their releases as new
products rather than improved versions of existing products.

That said, most companies would fail completely if they tried this. The
average startup wants their customers to quickly and easily recognize their
product. YMMV.

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nodata
Saw a Retina display yesterday, I can't see what the fuss is about.

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netpenthe
is it just me or is the font in this article ironically horrible?

~~~
welcomebrand
It's not just you. Could barely read it.

~~~
_Mark
In Chrome I cannot read it, but the text appears fine in Firefox.

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jesstra
Retina displays are suddenly the buzzword. Is it a new concept? No. Do we
really need it? Debatable. Do we want it? Undeniable. Credit where its due
once again to the Apple marketing machine...

~~~
rsynnott
It's not so much marketing as that _they are actually making these things_.
There has been a small but rather fanatical demand for high-DPI screens for a
good while, particularly since the demise of CRTs. Note how excited people got
about the resolution independence features introduced (and subsequently
scrapped; 10.7 does it very differently) in MacOS 10.4.

