Retina display - worth it?

Hanif

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 20, 2007
Messages
448
I sold my pc to get the retina macbook pro - it surprised me how clear the screen was when I saw it

so is it worth the money?
 
Were you working with a glossy or matte screen before? Because switching from matte to glossy will also make the screen seem "clearer".
 
Have had lots of issues with mine, unfortunately. Despite the ridiculous issues I've had I still love the thing. Apple has taken care of me pretty well with all the issues, too.

I've gone through like four now all for various issues (the LG panel ones were the worst, if you get one with an LG panel you may as well just return it now).

I had to bring one into the apple store because it was making insane creaking noises anytime I touched the thing -- the apple store guy was so appalled that I thought it was an issue. Fuck you guy, for a $3k laptop I want it to be flawless.

If you look on the Macrumors forums you'll see lots of people have had various issues and it's pretty common for people to have had theirs replaced several times already.

The one I'm writing this on needs to be replaced as well since the screen started flickering and there is a weak point in the LCD that makes the whole screen scramble when I touch it.

Meh.
 
The 13 inch will be more "worth the money"
TWSS

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The leaked heatpipe part only has one contact. If it's the final part, it means there's probably no discreet GPU. Have fun running 2560x1600 pixels full-time on an HD4000 when the 650 in the 15" can barely keep up with intensive video tasks. I'm hoping it's not actually the final part, but we'll see, I guess. If there's no discreet GPU, it'll just be a clunkier version of the Air with a better screen.
 
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The leaked heatpipe part only has one contact. If it's the final part, it means there's probably no discreet GPU. Have fun running 2560x1600 pixels full-time on an HD4000 when the 650 in the 15" can barely keep up with intensive video tasks. I'm hoping it's not actually the final part, but we'll see, I guess. If there's no discreet GPU, it'll just be a clunkier version of the Air with a better screen.

Probably why I'm going to wait for gen2 or 3 of any retina products. Currently the MBP retina can barely keep 30fps for its animations as shown by testing by anandtech. I want at least a solid 60fps for basic UI tasks if I'm going to pay up a huge premium for a retina display.
 
Maybe I got lucky, but I've had zero problems with my MBPr so far. I'm not an intense mobile user though, I mainly use my desktop or my iPad, but the screen has been flawless, it's silent unless I'm running a game (and even then it's very quiet) I've had no issues with video playback, and the battery life is unbeatable (regularly get 8 hours, according to the battery meter if I turn off the wireless radios, KB backlight, and dim the screen I can get upto 13 hours!).

The only thing that annoys me a little is how sensitive the touch-pad is, it's almost impossible to use the "click" feature, I *have* to use "tap to click" (though I'm used to it by now so that doesn't really bother me)

The 1 software bug I've come across is that sometimes when I run a full-screen game then quit, the screen seems to lag a little, making white spaces when I move windows around for a moment, but a reboot usually fixes it. seen zero problems running Windows 7 under bootcamp (other than insanely tiny icons)

I think the price is a little high, but I've never had any trouble with apple's support and never had to pay for repairs (except to replace an iPhone4 which was severely water damaged and that was only $99 iirc WITHOUT applecare) I've even had repairs that *should* have cost me been free because the technicians added them onto free repairs (older white plastic macbook has seperation issues, which are covered for free, but the Wifi card was borked - they fixed the separation issue and tacked on the wifi card free of charge - no applecare and out of warrenty) So when you figure in the service (and low-cost of upgrading OSX vs Windows) it doesn't seem nearly as bad of a deal.
 
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The leaked heatpipe part only has one contact. If it's the final part, it means there's probably no discreet GPU. Have fun running 2560x1600 pixels full-time on an HD4000 when the 650 in the 15" can barely keep up with intensive video tasks. I'm hoping it's not actually the final part, but we'll see, I guess. If there's no discreet GPU, it'll just be a clunkier version of the Air with a better screen.

Intuition hints that Apple wouldn't put a 2650x1600 pixel screen on a 13" form factor. I'd guess it'll be about half that. But it'll still look pretty gosh darn nice.
 
Intuition hints that Apple wouldn't put a 2650x1600 pixel screen on a 13" form factor. I'd guess it'll be about half that. But it'll still look pretty gosh darn nice.

No, the screens are already in the supply chain, made mostly by LG. They're 2560x1600.
 
Absolutely. However, I'm pondering on the idea of a 13" just for even more portability. Though, with the decreased weight with the Retina, the it's more tolerable than my previous non-unibody MBP.

I'll probably stick with it.
 
Very vague question, that entirely depends on the needs of the user. The majority will be absolutely fine with the Air, and it'll likely stay as the most popular model.

This said, if I were buying now, I'd probably pay the extra to get the "retina" model.
 
Intuition hints that Apple wouldn't put a 2650x1600 pixel screen on a 13" form factor. I'd guess it'll be about half that. But it'll still look pretty gosh darn nice.

The current 13'' Air and Pro have a 1280x800 display. Doubling that results in a resolution of 2560x1600. In other words, 13'' Apple laptops already ship with that "half that" resolution you speak of. So, yes, if Apple is putting a Retina Display on a 13'' laptop, then it's going to be that resolution.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The leaked heatpipe part only has one contact. If it's the final part, it means there's probably no discreet GPU. Have fun running 2560x1600 pixels full-time on an HD4000 when the 650 in the 15" can barely keep up with intensive video tasks. I'm hoping it's not actually the final part, but we'll see, I guess. If there's no discreet GPU, it'll just be a clunkier version of the Air with a better screen.

Methinks you should read this.
 
Can't they just upgrade the 1280x800 to Retina resolution?
 
Methinks you should read this.

Methinks you should read your source.

Anandtech said:
To quantify exactly what I was seeing I measured frame rate while scrolling as quickly as possible through my Facebook news feed in Safari on the rMBP as well as my 2011 15-inch High Res MacBook Pro. While last year’s MBP delivered anywhere from 46 - 60 fps during this test, the rMBP hovered around 20 fps (18 - 24 fps was the typical range).

Anyways, good news is that they were able to improve performance with Mountain Lion. Bad news is that the fps still hovers around 30fps.
 
Methinks you should read your source.

Anyways, good news is that they were able to improve performance with Mountain Lion. Bad news is that the fps still hovers around 30fps.

The point wasn't to say "60 FPS everything over here!" The point was to say that the resolution will scale up and down depending on content, and the target resolution for a game isn't the same as the base desktop resolution.

And 30 FPS is not "bad news", especially for mobile gaming on a platform that is historically not supported well or at all by the gaming industry. The release of Steam on OS X did not eliminate the practices of selling emulated binaries or the implementation of unoptimized code.
 
The current 13'' Air and Pro have a 1280x800 display. Doubling that results in a resolution of 2560x1600. In other words, 13'' Apple laptops already ship with that "half that" resolution you speak of. So, yes, if Apple is putting a Retina Display on a 13'' laptop, then it's going to be that resolution.



Methinks you should read this.

The 13'' Air is actually a higher resolution (1440 x 900) than the Pro.
 
The choppy gui is the main thing keeping me from getting a retina macbook. My 2012 MBA is smooth as silk except on some rich websites.
 
The choppy gui is the main thing keeping me from getting a retina macbook. My 2012 MBA is smooth as silk except on some rich websites.

Of all the issues I've had with my MBPr, this has not been one of them.

The GUI is smooth to my eyes once I went to OSX 10.8.
 
Of all the issues I've had with my MBPr, this has not been one of them.

The GUI is smooth to my eyes once I went to OSX 10.8.
which browser do you use? I'm not sure if my friend had upgraded to 10.8 when I was testing his rMBP but scrolling in Chrome was too choppy for me, so was switching spaces. I had it in 1920x1200 scaled mode which obviously takes more horsepower since it's supersampled but I just don't see the point of getting the equivalent of 1440x900 retina or not, my MBA has that already.
 
I just got a rMBP 15. Don't have issues with choppy UI etc. What does bother me though is that the casing creaks... One nice thing about the "Retina" display is that scaled resolutions look pretty darn good. I am using 1680x1050 when I am at home and hook up to an external LCD and 1920x1200 when I am on the road and both looks perfectly sharp.
 
I just got a rMBP 15. Don't have issues with choppy UI etc. What does bother me though is that the casing creaks... One nice thing about the "Retina" display is that scaled resolutions look pretty darn good. I am using 1680x1050 when I am at home and hook up to an external LCD and 1920x1200 when I am on the road and both looks perfectly sharp.

It seems that cutting the new air intakes to the side of the solid aluminum chassis is what causes that creaking noise. Apple will probably reinforce that area with additional material on the next model.
 
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