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So long, Retina

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Re: So long, Retina

#51

Post by X-Istence »

brackin wrote: post #5

I love my Retina. I haven't noticed problems with scrolling, I have my resolution set higher than 'Best for Retina'. I upgraded the SSD with ease, pops in an out once you remove the pentile screws to open it up. It's easy to do and your point about "None of the components can be upgraded" is incorrect. I don't believe anything else can so it is limited but this was enough for me. Source for one way to upgrade: http:/…

Do you have a source for this upgraded SSD? Would love to purchase a higher capacity one.

Re: So long, Retina

#52

Post by Tagbert »

mkhalil wrote: post #33
rm999 wrote: post #31

The Retina is a fascinating and revolutionary laptop. But it's the first generation, and most companies' (including Apple) almost always mess up their first generation products in substantial ways. Everyone I know with a Retina is mostly happy with theirs, but I am going to hold off until the Retina grows into its high price. Meanwhile, a 13" macbook air and a 27" cinema display costs the same and is more compelling…

How's the MacBook air for dev? Was debating if it was powerful enough or if I should get a pro.

Depends on how you work. Its very portable. While that means the screen is small, you typically have it plugged into an external monitor when you are at a desk.

The processing speed is quite good. Any disk intensive operations, like compiling, are fast because of the SSD speed. The raw cpu may not be as fast as the Pro, but in practice the Airs seem faster than the specs would suggest.

Re: So long, Retina

#53

Post by DHowett »

rorrr wrote: post #46
relix wrote: post #8

Have the retina. It's an awesome machine, and his points are correct: * A lot of them suffer from burn-in, mine doesn't (I have a samsung display). I'm lucky! * The scrolling is jittery at times. Yes I do notice. * You can't really update anything inside. None of these things bother me, at all. Update things inside? Last time I did that was to upgrade a 2GB to a 4GB for my previous laptop. It cost me as much as my Ap…

> Last time I did that was to upgrade a 2GB to a 4GB for my previous laptop. It cost me as much as my Apple upgrade from 8GB to 16GB. This is either a lie or some messed up apples-to-oranges comparison. There's no way upgrading via Apple is even close to buying RAM and replacing it yourself. 8 -> 16 GB upgrade via Apple costs $200 http://i.imgur.com/gDCdQ.png If you buy it yourself, it's $77 http://www.newegg.com/Pro…

You are discounting the possibility that he could have owned and upgraded his previous laptop when two 2GB memory sticks were more than $200. Yes, such modules are cheap today, but that is immaterial.

Re: So long, Retina

#54

Post by rbanffy »

mkhalil wrote: post #33
rm999 wrote: post #31

The Retina is a fascinating and revolutionary laptop. But it's the first generation, and most companies' (including Apple) almost always mess up their first generation products in substantial ways. Everyone I know with a Retina is mostly happy with theirs, but I am going to hold off until the Retina grows into its high price. Meanwhile, a 13" macbook air and a 27" cinema display costs the same and is more compelling…

How's the MacBook air for dev? Was debating if it was powerful enough or if I should get a pro.

It depends on what you run on it.

I develop for Django comfortably on an old Atom-based netbook. When I'm not on the road, I hook it to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Runs Emacs very well.

When I need to do stuff with Plone, the Atom is just too slow (Plone takes half a minute to start and buildouts take forever). For those jobs I have a Core i3 (which runs Django just fine too) that's far less portable, but much faster than the Atom (and fast enough for buildout).

A MacBook Air should be good enough for most uses, with its i5 and SSD. If it's not, you should rethink your choice of technologies rather than get a beefier computer.

Re: So long, Retina

#55

Post by tesseractive »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49
partymon wrote: post #48

If Samsung makes some of the retina displays, does that mean more laptops will have it soon?

Eventually, but two problems that could slow down the process (meaning, not necessarily "soon"): (1) Apple has made lots of forward looking investments to get long-term lock ups on supplies even if the manufacturer is Samsung. So perhaps they've already bought the next 1 or 2 years of these displays that Samsung can produce. Samsung would then have to build more factories to supply the needs of other OEMs, where the…

There have been high-end Windows laptops for a while now that had higher resolutions than Apple was willing to go. For example, for several years, Sony has had a 1080p option on the Vaio Z's 13" screen. That's a lower PPI than the Retina screen, but it's a much higher resolution than the 1366 x 768 resolution of a MacBook Air.

Nowadays, I think 1080p screens are starting to creep into even smaller 10"-11" devices. And with the light Apple is shining on high resolution screens now, I expect this will accelerate, and we'll see more high resolution screens on laptops filtering down from specialty PC laptops to midrange ones, and extreme high resolution screens start to show up on the specialty ones.

This is a lot like how it worked in the iPhone vs. Android world of phone resolution. Android phones jumped up to 800x480, then the iPhone jumped all the way to 960x640. Android stayed at 800x480 at first, then 960x540 (qHD) screens became more common, and now a device doesn't count as a high end Android phone unless it has a 720p screen, a higher resolution than the iPhone (though usually at slightly fewer PPI because of the different screen size).

Re: So long, Retina

#56

Post by rorrr »

DHowett wrote: post #53
rorrr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last time I did that was to upgrade a 2GB to a 4GB for my previous laptop. It cost me as much as my Apple upgrade from 8GB to 16GB. This is either a lie or some messed up apples-to-oranges comparison. There's no way upgrading via Apple is even close to buying RAM and replacing it yourself. 8 -> 16 GB upgrade via Apple costs $200 http://i.imgur.com/gDCdQ.png If you buy it yourself, it's $77 http://www.newegg.com/Pro…

You are discounting the possibility that he could have owned and upgraded his previous laptop when two 2GB memory sticks were more than $200. Yes, such modules are cheap today, but that is immaterial.

That's fresh-apples-to-rotten-oranges comparison. It's pointless.

Re: So long, Retina

#57

Post by DeepDuh »

bobbles wrote: post #35
DeepDuh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to Apple's Retina displays there's a bit more to it than what you're used to: - when OP says 1440x900 he means the pixel doubled version. All GUI lengths / fonts have the size of their 1440x900 versions, but there are twice as many pixels, enabling high resolution graphics and fonts. It's basically a crotch because Apple never got around to make their OS resolution independent, however from a programmer…

A crutch is something that helps you when you are unable to stand on your own.. A crotch however, is an area for your genitals to play

Thanks, unfortunately it's too late to edit.

Re: So long, Retina

#58

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tesseractive wrote: post #55
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, but two problems that could slow down the process (meaning, not necessarily "soon"): (1) Apple has made lots of forward looking investments to get long-term lock ups on supplies even if the manufacturer is Samsung. So perhaps they've already bought the next 1 or 2 years of these displays that Samsung can produce. Samsung would then have to build more factories to supply the needs of other OEMs, where the…

There have been high-end Windows laptops for a while now that had higher resolutions than Apple was willing to go. For example, for several years, Sony has had a 1080p option on the Vaio Z's 13" screen. That's a lower PPI than the Retina screen, but it's a much higher resolution than the 1366 x 768 resolution of a MacBook Air. Nowadays, I think 1080p screens are starting to creep into even smaller 10"-11" devices. An…

You can't just upscale most apps for a higher PPI. The art is mostly pixel based and upscaling will create artifacts. So for some boosts in resolution, this is ok, the art just gets smaller, and app developers slowly adapt by making their art bigger. But from 1X to 2X...upscaling works a bit better but is still not ideal, while you really have to go and completely redo your pixel art.

Re: So long, Retina

#59

Post by DeepDuh »

relix wrote: post #8

Have the retina. It's an awesome machine, and his points are correct: * A lot of them suffer from burn-in, mine doesn't (I have a samsung display). I'm lucky! * The scrolling is jittery at times. Yes I do notice. * You can't really update anything inside. None of these things bother me, at all. Update things inside? Last time I did that was to upgrade a 2GB to a 4GB for my previous laptop. It cost me as much as my Ap…

I had the same experience as you did. I tell you what, though: You will get used to that resolution very quickly and after that everything else is like a punch in your face. I wonder whether OP will feel some regret when using a below 2200p or so screen again.

Re: So long, Retina

#60

Post by brudgers »

DeepDuh wrote: post #15
gvb wrote: post #9

It works best with 1440x900 resolution. So if you like 1680x1050, your GPU will have to do extra work. The display's native resolution is 2880x1800. Why would you set it to half the native resolution? That defeats the whole point of having all those pixels! You might as well have a 1440x900 (non-retina) display. Setting the display output to 1680x1050 is totally whacked - that is displaying each pixel in 1.7 native p…

When it comes to Apple's Retina displays there's a bit more to it than what you're used to: - when OP says 1440x900 he means the pixel doubled version. All GUI lengths / fonts have the size of their 1440x900 versions, but there are twice as many pixels, enabling high resolution graphics and fonts. It's basically a crotch because Apple never got around to make their OS resolution independent, however from a programmer…

"All GUI lengths / fonts have the size of their 1440x900 versions, but there are twice as many pixels"

At 2800 x 1800 there are four times as many pixels.

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