[The Godfather]

Based on the lessons learned on the retina iPad: would you give it a second thought?

Pretend it is a poll

[The Godfather]

Yep. I wouldnt buy one either.

[Waragainstsleep]

Meh. MBPs have had resolution bumps before. I don't think there are any worthwhile comparisions to draw with the iPad. If I had the cash, I'd buy one, though if they make drastic architecture or case changes, I might wait for a bit.

[Eug]

Actually, the main reason I didn't buy the 11" or 13" MacBook Air is because the resolutions are too high for the (non-resolution independent) OS. I'm sticking with my SSD-endowed 1280x800 13" MacBook Pro.

A 2560x1600 13" MacBook Air would be cool though, and I'd just run it at a functional equivalent of 1280x800. Even more awesome would be a 2304x1440 11" MacBook Air. I'd run it at a functional equivalent of 1152x720.

[SierraDragon]

Gotta see the whole package first.

[Eug]

Intel: Retina laptop, desktop displays coming in 2013 - Liliputing

[The Godfather]

Is the whole retina movement a fad, or the way that all phones, laptops and desktops are irreversibly going? Does it mean that the next iMac will have a 4K screen? Will PCs and androids follow?
Will bluray look blurry with these non matching resolutions, prompting the next optical format beyond BD? Will the still vaporware Apple TV be retina?
Is it mostly a waste of pixels, logic gates and energy, if you will not read books on it?

[Eug]

Definitely not a fad. Having used a 200+ ppi screen a decade ago, I've been wanting one ever since. Once you had seen it, you knew what you'd been missing. Back then, I had no idea I'd be getting that uber high density screen on a cell phone first though. And no Blu-ray will not look blurry on them unless you're looking from up close.

BTW, ironically, the first time I used a 200+ ppi screen was on a Windows PC: IBM T220/T221

The key though is to have the OS support it properly. IMO, OS X 10.7 Lion doesn't really support even the 27" iMac's 109 ppi screen completely properly, and it looks like Mountain Lion won't either.

Instead of current iMac 2560x1440, I'd prefer to have a 102 ppi 2400x1350 27" iMac, but obviously that won't happen. However, even would better would be a 204 ppi 4800x2700 27" iMac. At desktop viewing distances, that screen would be retina-like.

[SierraDragon]

To my eyes the upped iPad rez is a huge improvement. I bought the high rez matte in my MBP and look forward to better rez in all displays. However IMO less glare needs to come first.

How so many folks tolerate, even like, iMacs is beyond me. Using the iPad the gloss irritates me nonstop. And today I spent an hour in the Apple store on an iMac and I never did get used to it. Some rumors hint to new lower-glare glass in the future, we will see. The new iPads are certainly better in the glare department than my v1 model, by a lot.

[Salty]

In regards to the glare I have floor lamps that sit above the display but shine the light to the roof which then bounces down. I don't get problems with glare.

[The Godfather]

A retina macbook would definitely need to be matte. With the constant focusing your eyes will be doing, any background reflection are going to make your eyes slower.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

A retina macbook would definitely need to be matte. With the constant focusing your eyes will be doing, any background reflection are going to make your eyes slower.

I prefer matte, but your statement above doesn't make much sense. Retina isn't going to cause you to focus more.

BTW, if anything, my retina iPhone 4 is a lot easier on the eyes than my non-retina iPhone 3G ever was.

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

How so many folks tolerate, even like, iMacs is beyond me. Using the iPad the gloss irritates me nonstop. And today I spent an hour in the Apple store on an iMac and I never did get used to it.

Try it somewhere other than the Apple Store.

I predominantly use my iMac at home at night, and most of the light sources in the room are either above the iMac, or behind it. No glare issues at all in that context. However, if I use it in day with lots of sunlight coming in through the windows behind me, then glare becomes an issue. So yeah, I do prefer matte, but there are things one can do to minimize glare. BTW, in bright sunlight, a matte screen is bad too. It's just not as bad as a glossy screen is.

However, my bigger issue with the iMac is the non-ergonomic design. The screen height of the 27" is too high IMO, and the lack of vertical height adjustment is a problem. So much so that I bought a 3rd party VESA mount to lower the iMac. This problem could be solved if Apple simply removed the chin, but that might require making the iMac a few mm thicker. The other problem is the pixel density. The 109 ppi makes it hard to read for old eyes like mine, and Apple's resolution support is quite poor in Mac OS X.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Eug 

...and Apple's resolution support is quite poor in Mac OS X.

That is a huge issue. For folks like me who need high rez for images the OS X non-support is truly awful. It changes the Mac experience seriously for the worse. Bummer.

I have 20-20 vision but still use the vision-handicap feature sometimes just to see tiny OS fonts. I would think that once the pixels are there on the display getting the OS more adjustable would not be as difficult as it seems to be for Apple.

And no, reducing the display rez in Preferences is not a solution. It just adds fuzz.

-Allen