Anandtech: Macbook Pro with Retina Display Review | Hacker News Reader

Anandtech: Macbook Pro with Retina Display Review

anandtech.com

130 pointszdw111 comments

He's unsatisfied with his 'old' MBP 15" (previous gen) because "it always made me feel like the old fogey at tradeshows where everyone else had something 13-inches or smaller".

Stuff like that defies parody.

Sure, it's a little ridiculous, but I think it's the equivalent of being a hardware fashionista. If you review hardware for a living, it's not (only) about being practical.

You are correct that it offers little insight to the rest of us, but that sort of obsession is what gets you a review like this.

That's signature style of a lot of great, obsessive reviewers. Connecting to what a particular product ultimately "means" to you is something that differentiates reviews from spec-sheets.

This reminds me of Jeremy Clarkson on Porsche Boxster - "The only reason you would buy one of these is because you can't afford a 911... so what you're doing as you're driving around is advertising the fact that your life hasn't worked out quite as well as you had been hoping"

And that is why Jeremy Clarkson's reviews should not be the final arbiter of what constitutes a "good" car. The Boxster/Cayman has been consistently judged to be a better driver's car than the 911 because the engine is mounted in the right place to begin with. It's very much similar to Intel and the x86 architecture where its greatest success is keeping it from future greatness.

The key word here is "judged" - whether the boxster/cayman is a better car than the 911 is exactly that, a matter of judgement.

An early 70's 911, all that weight hanging over/behind the skinny (by modern standards) rear wheels, no traction control - a joy to drive. That's just a judgement too!

No... read the quote again. "The ONLY reason you would buy one of these is because you can't afford a 911..."

He has it backwards. The only reason why the Boxster/Cayman is crippled as compared to the 911 is because the Porsche 911 "fans" are keeping it from becoming the best. If you go back far enough when they had the whole air-cooled vs water-cooled engine nonsense, it's the exact same thing.

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask the Porsche engineers why each subsequent iteration of the "best" 911, the GT3, has been shifting the engine closer to a midships layout.

Clarkson is not a car reviewer. He's an entertainer.

To be fair, some of it is Porsche being a low-volume manufacturer for as long as they were, until the introduction of the Cayenne. Porsche has long stood by its practice of ensuring they make no less than $10,000 front-end on every car they sell. The fact the Cayman came into existence at all was a bit of a surprise -- that's a car that sells in far fewer numbers than the 911. Even in its last model year, fewer than 1300 Caymans made its way to the US, a tremendously small number for a car that starts around $55,000.

The Cayenne (and to a lesser extent, the Panamera and the upcoming Macan) increasing overall sales volume is what is allowing them to loosen the reigns on the Boxster and Cayman. Upon launch the Type 987 Cayman did not have a limited-slip differential. The refresh did, and now the Type 981 Boxster offers the same torque-vectoring rear diff as the Type 991 911 from Day 1. Porschephiles aren't a fan of the SUVs and the… thing… that is the Panamera, but the reality is it lets Porsche further improve its sports cars, and go on crazier exercises in racing and allow for more hyper cars like the 918 Spyder.

The Type 987.2 Boxster Spyder and Cayman R were faster around a road course than the base Type 997.2 911 Carrera, despite being significantly cheaper. Odds are good that this trend will continue with the Type 981 which is further straying from the 911 -- the original Boxster (and even the Type 987) was a cost-control exercise and was heavily parts-binned from the Type 996 911, down to the doors being identical.

Watch his review of the Cayman S.

"You get the impression that the engineers could have made the Coxter[1] faster and better. But they weren't allowed to because it would have been faster and better than the 911. So the Coxter then, isn't quite as good as it could have been.

I couldn't live with that. I like to think a car has been designed to be as good as it could be, not just to fill a gap in the market." --Clarkson

[1] Coxter being his pet name for the Cayman

He's a troll. In a very rare, good sense of the word :-)

It isn't about 911 fans doing anything. Porsche has done this before, with the 914 vs. the 911. The 911 is an icon, and Porsche is a company that leans on history/lineage to help sell their cars, much like Triumph Motorcycles. They believe that keeping the idea of the 911 alive is better for the company in the long run.

I think you've rather missed his point - it has nothing to do with how good the car is to drive or not, it's a judgment on what buying the car would say about your aspirations. As usual from Clarkson, it's extremely opinionated and nobody sensible would take it as the final arbiter on anything, although it is a unique and fairly perceptive take on the car.

In which case the poseurs driving 911s should go out and shoot themselves in the head since they can't afford a Carrera GT... which is also mid-engine.

They made 1,200 of the things. Failing to be wealthy enough to own such a limited-production car is only called "failure" by a very few.

Alright, seeing a Jeremy Clarkson quote in a macbook review link is unexpected.

Actually though he's a good analogue to Jobs in some ways. I'm thinking back to his review of the Ford GT where he trashed it entirely, and ended up buying one. I don't always agree with Clarkson, but he is normally up front with his biases.

>Stuff like that defies parody.

You mean the mentioning-his-actual-feelings part? Should he have lied to seem more "deep" and "above all that"? Or is mere fashion and consumerism absent from the general public at large, so that a journalist admitting to it would be hilarious?

Not to mention that that is just a tongue-in-cheek single phrase from a multi-thousand words review.

Or is mere fashion and consumerism absent from the general public at large

I admit, I cracked a grin. Of all subjects to be devoid of fashion and consumerism, Apple?

I don't think it's parody-defying so much as burying the lede. Why don't they use a 13"? If it's because their eyes don't like it, then maybe they are an old fogey.

I appreciate those saying this is a matter of feelings, but it's also a reviewer's blind spot, their personal circumstances which affect their technology choices. They probably don't want people to think they're just writing reviews for old people (which would probably actually be a money-maker), so they hide it behind tradeshow one-upmanship.

I feel like you're taking it a bit too seriously, but I could be wrong.

The "glare handling" pictures makes me wonder why anybody would buy a portable device (=to sometimes be used outdoors) and be happy with those outrageous reflections. I mean, you can barely see the content!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-w...

With the new decice, Aplle again tries to makes those unusable mirrors the only display you can order. I'll pass.

Not everyone buys a portable device to use it outdoors. Some people just like moving room to room indoors.

I often switch between:

* office desk * standing desk (really an ikea shelf) * kitchen table * couch * cafe (very easy to carry)

Have a three pound computer means I don't even have to think about these switches.

Glossy displays do have better contrast and lower black levels.

You really equate "portable" with "to be used outdoors"? I can't recall ever using my laptops outside.

Glossy displays are exclusively better in controlled lighting, because their black levels are actually good. Controlled lighting is not difficult to achieve and is already a necessity for graphics work.

Actually, it can even be better outside. A screen with reflections on it is not as bad as a screen that you can't see due to low contrast.

(I'm currently using a matte desktop LCD, but wasted tons of time looking for a model with an 8-bit screen and good contrast.)

Whatever happened to the matte-ish finish used on some late-90s-and-on CRTs? I had some with way less glare than my MBP, and, being a CRT, about as perfect black levels as you're going to get.

I can't understand why Apple offers a glossy display, the screen has to be angled slightly and that's the perfect setup for glare from ambient light.

It's like trying to read a glossy magazine and you keep having to shift around to see it avoiding the glare off the page.

Whether it makes blacks blacker or colours sharper the end result is it's annoying.

It makes the display 'pop' indoors, some people like shiny things, and it is a popular platform for art-stuff.

And they're cheaper to make.

Personally I find the glare from matte displays far more annoying than that from glossy. It diffuses across the whole display and makes contrast much worse

It's interesting how people's personal preferences affect these things. I hate the gloss on my MacBookPro because it makes it very hard to watch any movie without being distracted by reflections on the screen.

I accept that it's an excellent screen, and if I was in a better environment (or doing professional work) I'd be grateful for the good screen.

At least we're not still using these things anymore. (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=screen%20filter)

I'm hoping that we see a 13" Air edition with the Retina Display sometime soon. That I will pull the trigger on.

I think the focus on retina means we likely won't be seeing a 15" Air anytime soon.

That would be nice, but the battery life would be really poor. There's no optical drive to ditch for more room in the Air.

I expect this to be the main differentiator between the 13" Air and Pro models going forward.

Considering the 13" Pro doesn't have room for a discrete GPU, I doubt we're going to see a retina Air until a few more revs of Intel's integrated GPUs.

Have you heard of the iPad?

The iPad needed nearly double the battery to keep up with the larger display+GPU's power requirements. The MBP still had to add 20% to keep up. There's no room in the current Air for extra battery, so even if the current GPU could keep up to Apple standards, running time wouldn't. Which means either becoming less Air-y or waiting for a more efficient part (likely Haswell)

One more revision, in fact. Ivy Bridge's 4K display support enabled the 15" macbook pro to exist with discrete GPU switching. Haswell will be faster enough to ditch the discrete GPU.

If they had stuck an APU in the Air, we might not have had to wait

[1] http://lenzfire.com/2011/11/reason-for-apple-to-reject-amd-l...

The most interesting section for me was the performance issues of the retina display ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-w... ). I wonder if waiting for a next generation mbp to really be able to push those pixels would be a smart choice. I had noticed a few stutters when playing around with one in the store, though if Mountain Lion will optimize it as claimed then that could fix it.

What I'm surprised about is that people are just realizing that retina uses a lot more processing power. I bet most people still don't realize that a "retina-optimized" game should should have half the performance on iPad 3 compared to the "low-res" version on iPad 2, if everything else is equal, even though the GPU in iPad 3 is twice as strong.

Yeah, twice as strong but pushing four times the pixels, I think a lot of people get easily confused. What can you do but hope the hardware improves more I guess.

Yes however retina games don't require 4x AA to look great. So you're trading one performance hit for another.

4x AA is only a 15-20% hit when you're talking about MSAA: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/535?i=455.488.456.492

Not all games support MSAA, however yes it's much more GPU friendly.

you're always advised to skip Apple's first generation products. Sure, If they're faulty, they'll change them for you; but it's still a hassle and you can bet 400 dollars the second iteration would be much more powerful and much cheaper (like Air). So if you're like me and your old computer still works reasonably well, skip this generation.

if Mountain Lion will optimize it as claimed...

It's always fixed in the next version! :)

Just FYI: Mountain Lion has been out (for developers) for over 6 months, and is almost complete now and will ship in a few weeks.

I'm allergic to the "best product x Apple has ever built" line, it is such an obvious manipulative marketing spin. Of course every new device should be the best they ever built. All the components have been improved - it is just the way computer technology has progressed for a long time now.

Also, it is just a slightly slimmer notebook with a higher resolution. It is not "changing computing as we have known it".

Yet, lots of manufacturers release products that back-slide from their predecessors.

Give examples? I heard a lot of complaints about ThinkPads, but I think that was when they were no longer being made by IBM. Sure, it happens - but I suppose typically if the manufacturer as whole is in decline.

Even as a lifelong PC user, I tend to disagree somewhat. It's hardly just 'a higher resolution and thinner design' by a long shot. There is a lot more here, and I was a huge Apple sceptic in the past.

First of all, this is a powerhouse of a machine in a relatively small form factor. It's also one of the first 'mainstream' laptops to feature full-flash storage as stock and not as an available upgrade (ultra books excluded here - I'm talking laptops with serious power, not portable form). Also, there is nothing on the market even remotely close to the Retina display (yet). I'm blown away by its clarity. Its also the quietest laptop I have ever owned, has the best input (trackpad) device, decent battery life, and really good sound. The OS is first-rate, too and beats Windows in form and function handily (although, with a few minor complaints).

Full disclosure: The Retina MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is the first Apple computer I have ever bought in my 12+ years of professional IT experience. I've never owned an Apple device prior to this dating all the way back to the 80's. I also own three other PCs, most are relatively new, and for mobility I only own three or four Android devices thus far. Have been running either Windows or Linux for as long as I have been computing.

Of course it is better than most (maybe all) notebooks that came before it. But only slightly better. There have been slim notebooks with fast CPUs and even GPUs before. There have also been very high resolution displays (probably not as high as "retina", but still). The higher resolution is nice, but will it lead to completely new applications that have not been possible before?

I have switched over to SSDs for quite a while now - it's nice that Apple does not even offer normal HDs anymore, but again, not a game changer.

The rest of your post reads a bit like a marketing spin ("great sound"??) - to be honest I wonder if you were hired to scour the internet for discussion threads of the MBP and chime in with your anecdotes. Realistically speaking, companies must be doing this already.

Not at all. I work in software engineering and project management and was the anti-fanboy for years. What changed my mind was actually giving the Macbook a thorough test drive. I have all SSDs on all my PCs at home, and the Apple still bests them easily. The Retina display is more than just high-resolution, its crisp and clear like nothing I have seen before. Doing web development work, its definitely a great thing to have.

As for the cooling system the laptop is dead quiet and the sound is far, far better than the "Beats" audio in any of my new PCs. My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad (Sandy Bridge) sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" anti-glare screen (which I paid extra for) looks like absolute crap compared to the MacBook's Retina display. Its the little things that Apple pays attention to that matter whereas the "traditional" PC makers are content pushing out mass produced mediocre machines.

Like I said, I have multiple PCs at home and have been working with Windows and Linux my entire career in enterprise software engineering.

> My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" screen looks like crap compared to the MacBook.

Sigh, I hate these arguments. You're comparing a laptop with (currently) a starting price of $899 to a laptop with a starting price of $2199. Do you really expect similar quality?

Anecdote time: My 2009 HP Elitebook is extremely quiet under regular workload, has a trackpad I've yet to have a single problem with, and a great screen that rivals the latest non-retina MacBook Pro.

Sure - non-Retina, yes you could compare. That was precisely my argument in the beginning.

But, actually, if you look at the specs, which I went heavy on the updates and mods for the HP, I actually spent closer to $1,600 to get the highest resolution display, fastest SSD, and highest performance CPU (which is still beaten by the MacBooks Ivy Bridge, but not by much I admit). $500 is a fairly negligible difference and the HP is far too full of defects for that price point while the $2199 MacBook Pro w/Retina which offers a far better quality in design and function. The 'aluminum body' on my HP is a half-assed attempt at looking cool but it's a joke. The overall quality of most PCs I have bought in the past two or three years is horrendous, even if they are cheaper.

Again, I have been doing this for a long, long time and I know value when I see it. Otherwise I would have stayed a skeptic for the rest of my days.

I'm not denying the MBP might be worth it's price, just that it is an evolutionary jump in computing. Also you compare to a laptop from last year. A year is a lot in technology.

Besides, if the HP is so ugly, why did you buy it in the first place?

> $500 is a fairly negligible difference

No, it really isn't negligible. $500 can be the difference between a laptop with absolute crap build quality and a laptop with great build quality. There is a reason that HP (and most other vendors) have different models with different starting prices, and it has very little to do with base specs.

The DV6t has such a low starting price because it isn't built well, simple as that. I don't care if you put a screaming fast CPU in it and the highest quality screen possible. It still has shit build quality. It is still built like a $800 dollar laptop.

It's interesting that you talk about a PC "at home", but it's actually just a cheap laptop. I only use laptops when travelling; weight and size then are far more important than performance. High-performance laptops, IMO, are for laypeople who can't afford two machines, students and homeless consultants. My PC, on the other hand, is liquid cooled for reduced noise, has SSD, 32GB of RAM, 680 GTX graphics, 2 monitors (limited by desk space), etc., and generally performs far better than anything in a mobile form factor. Windows "experience index" is 7.9 across the board except for CPU/memory at 7.8.

Pretty much all trackpads suck. Apple's big glass trackpads, when running OS X rather than Windows, are the best implementation I've seen, but mostly because the two-finger gesture scrolling is so slick - it's continuous, rather than anything for Windows which is stuck with discrete mouse wheel up / down buttons. (Mouse wheel movements are not continuous.) Apple trackpads are great for reading single long web pages, but when you need lots of fine control, particularly while maintaining a dragging operation, they too suck horribly. They're not a decent alternative to a mouse.

FYI almost all synaptics touchpads (ie almost all) have supported 2-finger scrolling for years. Not even specifically multi-touch hardware needed. Update your drivers @ synaptics.

The problem isn't in hardware or drivers. It's in Windows and the application ecosystem. Even though Windows WM_MOUSEWHEEL allegedly supports fine-grained control, in practice it isn't implemented anywhere, not by vendors, not by applications.

(That is, I think you missed my point. The reason Apple's support is good is not because it's multi-touch; it's because it's continuous. It's also multi-touch in Windows using the Bootcamp driver - my MacBook Air spends most of its time running Windows - but it is still discrete.)

Is Synapatics a hardware maker or a software maker? Every PC laptop touchpad I've ever used was crap compared to the MacBook, and I don't know if that's Synaptics' fault.

  > But only slightly better

You know, with this POV one can dismiss anything. One the other hand that's how we became humans — by getting only slightly better with each generation.

I didn't dismiss the MBP - I'd like to have one myself, if I could afford it. I only challenged the notion that it supposedly changes computing as we know it. My "only slightly better" is a response to the article, not a shrugging off of the new MBP.

For some of us high density displays have been a holy grail for years. Up until now progress has been stuck as an archetypal chicken and egg problem between display manufacturers and the appearance of resolution independent display servers (granted, though not without trying, Apple has resigned itself to a compromised form of the latter). So for those who have been waiting eagerly for this, it really does change things dramatically from here on out. If you don't particularly care about that sort of thing, it certainly is just an incremental improvement. So, at least speaking for myself, this is where the discrepancy in opinion you've been seeing will come up.

I don't recall anybody saying the first macbook air was the "Best product Apple has ever built" - it was _clearly_ a concept piece that i wasn't even tempted to purchased. Too Expensive. Too Slow. Too little storage. No Optical Drive. - it missed the mark on _everything_ except for being small and light. It took a few years before the price came (way) down, it got faster, storage started to recover (a bit) and the lack of optical drive became as irrelevant as not having a floppy.

On the flipside - I'm tempted top purchase the 15" MBPro - and, where it not for the still-to-expensive storage and overall too great price, as well as having a display that's probably two years ahead of content/applications capability of supporting it - it would be a great device.

Also - nobody got that excited about the MacPro update - it was widely lambasted as too little, too late.

You're missing the 'x' that the gp implied. Every MacBook is the "Best MacBook Apple has ever built", every Air is the "Best Air Apple has ever built." In that line, the gp's comments make more sense.

Nobody has suggested that the latest MacPro is the best anything. It was a huge disappointment and Apple fell behind the curve with their release of it. Nobody is that excited about the new MacBook Airs - they are reasonable updates, but the big jump came in 2010, with some dandy performance improvements in 2011. This year was just an evolutionary move - fine for 2010 users, but very few people with a 2011 MBAir are that excited about upgrading. Likewise, the upgrade from the 4 to the 4S wasn't a must upgrade - most pundits indeed, even suggested you could take a pass if you were an iPhone 4 users.

The rMBPro, on the other hand, moved the needle.

I would reserve the "Best X Apple has ever made" for the 2010 MBAir, iPhone 4, iPad 3 - though, you are right, obviously any product that is better than a previous "best", should, in theory, inherit the next best label. Maybe "Best" has to be judged based on what you expect at any given time to be deserving of that trophy?

I haven't played with the rMBPro - so not sure about that yet. I was never that pleased with any of the 3 MBPROs I owned from 2003-2009. They were well built, solid laptops (with the exception of having one battery go all bulgey on me) - but They didn't excite me the way recent products from Apple have.

Who knows - I may still be "meh" on the MBPro - it's still pretty heavy. Expensive. Low Storage. And if you use it, sounds like 3.5-5 hours battery is all you can expect. Not to mention that there aren't that many apps or content that can support that crazy display.

Also, it is just a slightly slimmer notebook with a higher resolution. It is not "changing computing as we have known it".

Wow. This is like saying "the iPad is just a tablet you can touch." You're completely trivializing the rMBP's benefits.

It's not just "slightly slimmer," it's a 15" laptop that weighs 4.6 pounds. I see one laptop in that range (Sony Vaio S series), and it has an i5 and a spinning platter. A "higher resolution" is also too hand-wavey, since the screen has 220 ppi. I couldn't find a 15" screen that comes within 80 ppi of that mark. [0]

Apple's ridiculous marketing ("the most magical, splendiferous touchscreen device since the last touchscreen device we produced!") can be too much, but, I mean...have you used one of these? They're amazing in person--it weighs less than my 13" MBP, the screen is infinitely nicer, and apps launch so fast...[1]

[0] http://sortable.com/find-laptops/high-PPI-laptops-15-to-16-s...

[1] Granted, I don't have a SSD in my laptop, but still.

I've had laptops that weigh less than 4 pounds for years. It's nice that we can now have one with a bigger screen, but show me the revolutionary new things you can do with it that you couldn't do before?

For what it's worth, I think broad availability of capable netbooks for 300$ was probably more of an evolutionary jump. Or things like the Rhaspberry PI - those things open up new use cases. Like, it makes a difference if everybody can afford to buy a notebook instead of a desktop PC, because it makes mobile computing take off (in turn leading to localized services).

You're doing it again. Do any of those machines have a quad-core CPU with SSD, 8GB RAM, a 220 ppi screen, and ~7 hours of battery life?

I'm not arguing that the rMBP is revolutionary or magical or whatever, but give it it's due: this is a uniquely practical and powerful machine. I'm sure you've used sub-4lb laptops before, but I bet none of them posted Geekbench scores over 7000, much less 13000. [0]

[0] http://www.maclife.com/article/features/benchmarking_macbook...

I prefer reading it this way: http://www.anandtech.com/print/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-...

I didn't realized until now that the Ethernet port is gone. I need that! That might actually be the main and only reason for me to not buy this. How sad, I really like the device otherwise.

They will be happy to sell you yet another adapter. http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/MC704ZM/A

Why that one, when you can get this one? http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/MD463ZM/A

Or this one: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/MC914LL/A

Note: the ethernet chip _is_ present. In this article (anandtech) they look at Gigabit Ethernet performance and benchmark it at 925-928 Mbps - using the _Thunderbolt_ adapter.

Over at the iFixit teardown (step #13), you can see that the ethernet chip is present on the I/O board:

"Broadcom BCM57100 series Gigabit Ethernet + Memory Card reader controller"

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-with-Retina-Displ...

I'd like to see a teardown of the adapter. My understanding of thunderbolt is it's not going to carry ethernet signals. There's another ethernet chip in the adapter (I think). The one on the motherboard is there primarily for the smart card reader and because it allows Apple to use the same chip on the laptops that do have ethernet jacks.

Correct. Tunderbolt is PCI-Express + Displayport. PCIEx part is what makes all these dongles possible at great speeds.

And here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4155178

The ethernet port takes up 100% of the edge thickness of the previous generation 15" MBP. Also, I'd guess that something like ~5% of users take advantage of it on a regular basis.

So why would Apple let that keep them from making the device thinner? If you really need it, pay the extra $30 for the Thunderbolt ethernet adapter and call it a day: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/MD463ZM/A

The ethernet port is also critical for a fast migration.

The ethernet port, much like the optical disk/Firewire is gone forever from Apple laptops. I use an ethernet cable at home/work with a permanently connected dongle, and carry one in my bag while travelling.

It's never been a problem, and, as soon as they start rolling out 802.11ac, I expect you'll have even less need for one at home/work (though may still be useful in hotels/remote offices without wireless)

You can buy an Ethernet adapter to use with Airs or this new MBP.

So, if not an adapter, what exactly do you think he meant by "dongle"?

I only use wired Ethernet on my laptop at work, so I would look for some kind of Thunderbolt dock if I got one (like the Belkin one coming out in September [1]). They're really pricy at the moment though so I hope we see more competition leading to cheaper devices in the Thunderbolt device area soon.

1. http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/05/belkin-thunderbolt-expres...

A good excuse to get the excellent Thunderbolt display. It has a gigabit ethernet port.

I was thinking of going that route, but now I wonder how long it is going to be before a Retina version comes out... Also, the Thunderbolt display doesn't have an eSATA port so I'd still need a converter and even the standalone ones still almost cost as much as the docking station I linked...

I didn't realize Apple was pushing graphics so hard the past few years just to get to a point where retina-level resolution was possible at these sizes.

Funny, it reminds me a bit of the big push Vista caused in hardware manufacturers to stop stagnating on the amount of RAM considered 'normal' in computers.

So how will my code editor look on Retina? All blurry?

That is the issue I am having. Eclipse-based IDEs are not ready for Retina. The text is legible, the IDE is usable, but its noticeably blurry. I've logged a ticket with Aptana Studio and Eclipse, but they have no solution to this issue, just workarounds which don't really work.

If you are using Vim or a simple text editor, however, there is no issue with the appearance of the text.

Xcode works just fine, too.

There's another option. You can get a third party utility like SwitchResX ($, but the free ones didn't work very well when I tried them) and run your display at native resolution. Yes, you get a full 2880x1800 desktop, and yes, some things get terribly small. But, you can then set your font sizes larger in things you use all the time, and I find the really small stuff to still be readable, maybe just not pleasant for long term use.

I am running that way right now, using Firefox zoomed in slightly, and it works beautifully. SwitchResX lets you set up hot keys to switch resolutions too, so I've been switching back and forth between 1920x1200 and native resolution trying to decide what I like best. So far, I think 2880x1800 is winning, with Firefox zoomed in, and a 14 point font (Inconsolata) in Emacs and iTerm2. Though both of the latter work correctly at Apple's scaled resolutions already (I've so far settled on Inconsolata 11 at 1920x1200)

For me, the biggest thing that's changed is that I've used Monaco 9, or variants thereof on non-Apple platforms, as my code font for the last 15 years. This was already too small for some people to read, and I've had hotkeys set up to switch to larger fonts when showing other people code on my screen for years. Monaco 9 doesn't even really exist at scaled resolutions though - it is NOT the same font you get if you render any other point size of Monaco, which is what happens at Apple's scaled resolutions. "Monaco 9" looks like the rest of Monaco now. (Techincally the old pixel version does still exist when running at native resolution, but it's crazy small and although I can read it with some effort, it's not really practical). But the screen is so great that I'm finally over my obsession with pixel fonts. Inconsolata is a fantastic tiny font when the pixels are too small to see. I'll probably try a few more now that I've been liberated, that was just the best I happened to have installed already.

If you're using the "best for retina" resolution, you can get Monaco 9 on the native pixels by selecting Monaco 4.5. It will be extremely small, but if you have good eyes it should still be readable, more readable than anti-aliased fonts at that size anyway.

Hey thanks for that. I wasn't aware I could type smaller sizes into the font selector. It doesn't seem to work very well though. iTerm2 still renders a scaled font when I do that. Terminal does render the bitmap font, but bold text is all screwed up - apparently it's bolding by rendering twice, slightly offset - only that offset is now multiple pixels, so it doesn't look bold, it looks like two overlapping renders. Emacs has issues with the font selector dialog in general, and doesn't appear to accept typed values at all. Further, when setting the font the normal emacs way (using an X11-like font description), it errors out when trying to give it a font with a fractional size. Monaco 5 does work, but it's not quite right.

Anyway, I wasn't really trying to get Monaco 9 back, I'm actually happy I can use "real" fonts now and still get as much code as I'm used to on screen.

I'm curious to see what new fonts might be in the works for retina displays. Most (all?) existing fixed-width fonts seem to have legibility on low-res displays as a major design consideration. Since that factor is now eliminated, could we be in for some awesome new typefaces?

The problem is most likely at the level of the SWT library that Eclipse uses, and speaking from experience good luck getting any issue with that sorted out in a timely manner, let alone an issue only affecting OS X (Windows gets the best experience, then Linux, and OS X is a third-class citizen)

Add this to the info.plist file for Eclipse, IDEA, or most java or gtk apps.

<key>NSHighResolutionCapable</key> <true/>

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=382972

Works great for text, icons still need updating.

Yes, they will need to be updated, for the most part. I am fairly sure that Sublime Text 2 was Retina-ready after a couple of days from Apple's announcement, though.

Can anyone confirm on ST2? That's one factor holding me back from pulling the trigger on a rMPB.

From the dev changelog for build 2203:

* OSX: Added Retina display support

http://www.sublimetext.com/dev

Textmate and terminal look amazing.

It would have been great if apple introduced a regular macbook pro with an IPS screen. I have a hi-res 15.4" macbook pro and a 1080p Dell XPS 16. Both are non-IPS. I recently picked up a Lenovo 12.5 HD IPS screen which is lower DPI than either the mac or the dell. However after using the lenovo for a couple of days I'm blown away how shitty both the mac and the dell screens looked (dull, like someone had put a film on top). Given many applications are not ready for retina display, apple could have used their supply chain prowess to get an IPS display on their regular macbook pro line.

I agree that it would have been awesome to upgrade the non-retina MacBooks to IPS. But go try the 14" Thinkpad. It uses the shittiest LCD panel in the industry, way worse than any MacBook and worse or on par with the worst Dell laptops.

Ugh, having to upgrade to the outrageously priced high-end CPU just to get the 512GB SSD is killing me.

I need to upgrade, but I'm seriously considering a fully loaded Air instead because it'd be nice if this came in under $3k.

I find the desktop performance bit ridiculous. I mean, a (very) high-end hardware manages only 20FPS while browsing Facebook? It would have been interesting to see similar benchmark on Windows.

i'm so tempted by the weight and the screen resolution, but thrown off by the glossy display and the sluggish frame rates at > 1440 resolutions. i tried a glossy in 2010 and returned it for a highres antiglare because the reflections created a serious eyestrain problem for me. i doubt the new one will be much better, but look forward to seeing one. and i wish he'd try the framerate tests on mountain lion.

i really need the performance increase over my 2010 but may go w the old style until they work out the bugs in a year.

is it still TFT IPS display, its so thin on photos.

The article adds nothing of value and the use of different names for the same machine is nothing but an attempt to do some SEO.

How is this on the front page?

It's a pretty comprehensive review. Page 16 on the battery life at various workloads was important to me.

Oh man, I'm an ass. I read the first page on my phone and did not see the following pages. My previous comment has zero merit.

All of the major review sites split their articles into 20+ pages.

I feel his reviews are generally worth waiting for as they are more comprehensive and insightful than comparable gadget/electronic blogs.

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