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MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

arstechnica.com

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Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#271

Post by jarek »

electrograv wrote: post #154

This may be a bit off-topic, but I have to wonder why I see laptop screens with much higher resolution than desktop monitors. It just seems so backwards (in terms of practical use) that as screen size increases, the screen resolution seems to decrease . So now in many ways most desktop rigs are inferior to a 15" laptop as far as productivity goes. My intuition for the cause, is that the more surface area of the scree…

I don't think that really holds. I had a cheap 2048x1152 23" monitor in 2009. Excepting very rare 2048x1536 15" laptop displays, it was comparable in pixel count to the previously-top 1920x1200 laptop resolution. The iMacs have had a 2560x1440 27" option since 2009 and I'd expect the next update to go higher. There have been 2560x1440 or similar 30" displays for a while, my boss was using one in early 2009 or so, 2880x1880 or higher can't be far off.

Since you're comparing with "most desktop rigs", you should also remember that most 15" laptops are 1280x800 or 1440x900.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#272

Post by oblique63 »

ori_b wrote: post #191

I really hope that other manufacturers try to copy this soon. I'd kill for a thinkpad (or any other machine that runs Linux nicely, has three buttons and an eraser-stick, and has decent battery life) with a retina display.

Well, once scaled, the retina screen comes to be about the same resolution as that of the W series Thinkpads (1080p), which is probably how you'd be using it until apps start supporting the resolution bump natively anyway. I just ordered a W530 with that display, 2.7ghz i7 quad core, and their most powerful graphics card for under $1,900. It's not a 'Retina' macbook, but still seems like a good deal to me.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#273

Post by jakeonthemove »

2880x1800 pixels on a 15.4 inch display? That's pretty impressive from a technical stand point, but I can't see how it's going to be useful in real life - I find 1680x1050 to be at the threshold of usability for me.

1600x900 is perfect on a 15.6, and 1920x1080 is the maximum I'd go for on a 17 inch display. Any higher and I'd just connect a bigger external display...

Can anyone give me an idea of what this resolution can actually be useful for?

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#274

Post by ditoa »

sandipc wrote: post #249
ditoa wrote: post #160

Very nice. Every year I am getting more and more tempted to make the switch from Windows to OS X. I like my iPhone but have always preferred Windows to OS X however I am not very excited with the way Microsoft are taking things with Windows 8. Also I love the hardware and design. They only company who comes close to Apple's design is Asus in my opinion and even then they are still not quite there. Does anyone know if…

custom. looks like the RAM is custom too, just like on the Air.

That is what I suspected. It is a shame as I doubt the built in SSD has the performance of the Intel SSDs :(

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#275

Post by sycren »

I think even if you are not a fan of macs or even this laptop you should still love it. Because of this new release we should expect to see releases from every other competitor by the end of the year to match the same screen resolution. Hopefully this will jumpstart the tv resolution from HD 1080 to something bigger like 4k and once this happens the next gen game consoles will surely follow on with greater amounts of details.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#276

Post by dkersten »

bermanoid wrote: post #187
steverb wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be frank, Apple makes awesome Windows PCs. Their Windows drivers are quite good also. Still hate the placement of the control key on the keyboard though, but I am slowly becoming acclimated to it.

Remap caps lock to control, and you'll be a lot more comfortable. Unless you use that other text editor, you know, the one that makes you always have to reach for the escape key...in that case, I suppose you should map it to escape instead.

you always have to reach for the escape key

Nonsense. Map caps lock to control regardless of whether you're an emacs or vim user. If you use vim, control+c does the same as escape and since vim does still use control sometimes, it makes sense to keep control easy to access and just use that (IMHO very easy to press) key combo instead.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#277

Post by trimbo »

It looks great. But I think I'm waiting to see how hot this machine gets. It's more compact and still has an 85W power adapter. Because of the higher DPI, it's pushing a lot more pixels even doing menial stuff.

For perspective: my (larger) 2010 MBP 15" w/SSD gets very warm even when not doing anything with the GPU. Compiling in IntelliJ will get it to burn your lap off. When I've tried to use it to play games, it practically melts itself.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#278

Post by jamesaguilar »

natural219 wrote: post #8

I have been a Windows user my whole life. As a hacker who has recently moved to San Francisco, I've continuously battled Apple fanboys and Linux fanatics alike on why I love Windows and absolutely do not understand why people want to switch platforms. Then I watched this keynote. I'm buying a Macbook Pro.

Interesting. I love Macs and I have one for work, but for home I use Windows because Macs are so bad for gaming. Way I see it, Windows is close enough to being as good as Macs that it doesn't bother me too much to use it, but to my taste Macs are somewhat superior.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#279

Post by phaus »

While the new laptops seem very nice, the Mac Pro is a blatant attempt to insult the customer's intelligence. A video card from 2009, seriously? A quick search of newegg.com revealed that this card is so old and obsolete that they don't even sell it anymore. I understand that graphics cards aren't the most important thing in the world to many of Apple's customers, but there is absolutely no reason that they don't at least have a 6990 or even the new 7990 available as an option.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#280

Post by jsz0 »

adrianhoward wrote: post #115
notatoad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB 3 accessories are pretty far and few between too, aren't they? What do you actually want to plug in to that port?

My external hard drive :-) I throw a lot of data around. I like backups. The difference between USB2 and USB3 will be non-trivial for me.

Seagate has a $99 ThunderBolt dock available but figure an extra $50 for a cable to go with it. It's designed for their GoFlex enclosures but I think it works fine with a bare drive too.
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