And just $399 for the 16 GB version!
Technology is so ridiculous at times.
Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.
> Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080
Because they know they can rip you off, and because it's a lot more expensive to produce high resolution displays (or rather, displays of any resolution) when they're being produced in small quantities.
If I'm not mistaken the new, formerly known as "Metro", UI is vector based and any applications built with the WPF which includes all Windows 8 GUI based applications (at least the non-html one's) are of course vector based so it's simply up to the designer/developer to scale it however they want.
This is not true. Windows has had very good support for custom resolutions since Vista. Windows 7 actually looks great when set to higher resolution. Windows applications is another story, but the number of DPI aware applications is growing http://www.rw-designer.com/DPI-aware
What's worse is that VS2012 is nearly unusable because IntelliSense explodes all over the screen. I have many sads when I have to deal with that on my rMBP.
VS2012 is still a problem though
I upgraded my HP 17" laptop panel to 1920 x 1200 (bought less than $200 on ebay 2 years ago). That was on Windows 7. I don't notice any visual issues. Just upgraded to Windows 8 and all Windows apps look just fine too. So applications aren't real issues here.
Yes they do. It's just not automatic - you tweak it in control panel to suit your preferences.
The good news is that the popularity of high resolution tablets will also force laptop makers into a trend with higher resolutions, too. Asus for example is one of the leaders of this trend, and has even 11.6" laptops with 1920x1080 resolution.
If not, this marketing and competition on resolution may be distracting us from issues that have a bigger impact on our usage experience.
So with a briefcase full of Retina, I'm quite happy. But the 27" iMac still feels like the most spacious screen. The other thing the Apple hardware has going for it is that I can tether my MacBook to my iPad's 4G network via bluetooth, so the iPad doesn't even have to come out of the briefcase to be incredibly useful, and saves me having to have another data plan. I note the Nexus 10 does not come in a 4G model. That seems crazy to me.
The biggest advantage for me is the ability to change resolution (on the MBP) without having a poor display due to using a non-native resolution.
I actually think this is a pretty effective strategy. However, it does impede productive discussions and conversations, sometimes. Oh well, c'est la vie.
This being Android, I'm a bit disappointed that it does not appear to have a microSD slot. There is also a relatively heavy premium for 16Gb more internal flash.
The modern usage pattern seems to be get enough built-in storage for what you want to do, then use wifi or usb to transfer stuff between the device and the cloud or a desktop with a larger collection of media.
Market segmentation. The goal is to make more money off people who don't care much about the price without losing those customers who do.
The voting is ludicrously complex (Americans like things that way!). For example many bureaucratic positions are elected. Consequently when people go to vote, they have to vote on a lot of things. Here is the California voter guide: http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/pdf/
Here is what someone in my city would see as their ballot: http://www.votescount.com/nov12/root1106/ballots/bt000039.pd...
It starts out with Obama and Romney, heads into Senate & Congress, then the state senate & assembly, then into county positions and finally city positions. Then there are propositions for the state, county and city.
After that digression, the California sales taxes for purchases made in person are based on where the store is. Except for cars which are based on the purchaser address. For distance purchases (eg internet, mail order) they are based on where the business decides its tax presence is. Amazon for example took that into account when deciding where to have their presence on opening in California and actually got some tax concessions from the "lucky" cities (yes corporate welfare is well established in the US).
For sales where the purchaser and seller are in different states no sales tax can be charged. Most states then have a provision requiring the purchaser to report these purchases and pay a "use" tax whose rate is identical to the sales tax rate. As far as I can tell many do not report this.