Displays Retina Displays for normal people?

[Tyinsar]

I work with blueprints all day.

11"x17" Blueprint viewed on my secondary screen:
16.96" W x 10.6"H @ 99 DPI (20" 1680x1050)
Lots of zoooming in and out and panning around the screen.

11"x17" Blueprint printed out
17" W x 11" H @ 600 DPI
Very clear from the same distance. No magnification required.

What I could really use (to go paperless) is a 36" W x 25" H screen (for the most common size prints) at 200 DPI. - But I'm not expecting that any time soon.

At home I run six 19" 5x4 screens (3840x2048, see my avatar). I also have a Dell 30" but I find I spend most of my time on the jumbotron because, even though it has bezels in the way, it has almost 2x as many pixels.

Originally Posted by Guinevere

...
Pixels are cool!! But even cooler when we don't see them, and that's why many people love high pixel density screens (Call them retina if you like) and technology such as anti-aliasing is so heavily used to work around lower resolution screens. Same with sub pixel rendering, font smoothing etc - all there to work around screens not having enough addressable pixels.

Subject: Once it's impossible to spot individual pixels we don't need anti-aliasing..... discuss.

Agreed (mostly - I think AA could still provide some benefit but it would certainly not be as necessary as it is today.)

[azrael-]

Originally Posted by Elton

At 15" this screen in retrospect is not that great. Even though there's a huge amount of pixel density most if not everyone will end up scaling it down to a lower resolution.

Which in a sense defeats the purpose of the screen. Simply at 15" at native resolution this is a bonkers excercise in extravagance. Not saying that it's bad. It's awesome. Just a bit pointless at such a small size.

I also wonder what the display panel yields are with such high density displays, it must be worse as the size and PPI increase.

Well, (right now) you *can't* use the native resolution. At least not on the desktop. Apple saw to that. The default mode is still 1440x900 with quadrupled pixels, although it is possible to raise the resolution a bit, all the way up to 1920x1200.

Anand was kind enough to try running Windows 8 on the new MBP and you can see what the screen looks like at native resolution here.

[Elton]

Regardless it's a tasty bit of tech. If marred by an absolute lack of practical usage except for really high res photos. But seeing as you can't use native...

Meh.

That windows 8 thing looks epic.

[Tyinsar]

Originally Posted by Elton

... marred by an absolute lack of practical usage except for really high res photos. ...

When I look back and remember how almost everyone (including me) was extremely impressed by the original VGA games (320x200 in 256 glorious colours!) then think of how each step since then has been hyped as "life-like / photo-realistic / ..." - and it always felt that way compared to the previous generation.

When I look back at movies that, in their day, had the best, most convincing special effects ever, they now look dated and many of the special effects are almost jarring in their obviousness (even though we found them harder to spot in their time). We learn to spot these things - to see details we missed before - like audiophiles or wine tasters or ... as our interaction with a subject increases so do our standards. Likewise we have a harder time accepting what we once thought was "good enough".

I suspect (and sincerely hope) that when we look back on the displays and resolutions of today it will be the same way. Even now I find them insufficient for my uses. Anti-aliasing and especially font-smoothing just make things blurry. There is no good substitute for better resolution.

[Mac_Trekkie]

Originally Posted by Tyinsar

At home I run six 19" 5x4 screens (3840x2048, see my avatar).

What displays are those?


Also one thing I noticed is people constantly complain about companies being stuck in a 1080p rut, yet as soon as Apple actually does something about it, people can NOT complain enough about how useless it is. If it had been Asus unveiling a new 2880x1800 display, you people wouldn't get enough of it, calling it the greatest thing since pixels themselves were invented. You can't have it both ways.

[Boscoe]

I will bet a lot of money that everyone will say how pointless this is then a PC manufacturer will try to copy it not do as good job then it will be the best thing since sliced bread. This is just an apple bashing thread. Apple are leading the way in computers and nothing is close to the new MBP at the moment.

[true_gamer]

Originally Posted by Tyinsar

When I look back at movies that, in their day, had the best, most convincing special effects ever, they now look dated and many of the special effects are almost jarring in their obviousness (even though we found them harder to spot in their time). We learn to spot these things - to see details we missed before - like audiophiles or wine tasters or ... as our interaction with a subject increases so do our standards. Likewise we have a harder time accepting what we once thought was "good enough".

I suspect (and sincerely hope) that when we look back on the displays and resolutions of today it will be the same way. Even now I find them insufficient for my uses. Anti-aliasing and especially font-smoothing just make things blurry. There is no good substitute for better resolution.

So so true!

[Yslen]

Originally Posted by wuyanxu

so how will 1:1 photo editing work with retina display? wouldn't that just mean less zoomed in, which in turn mean harder to pick out the details?

You'd have to view in 2:1 or 3:1 instead, unless you have exceptional eyesight. Makes the whole thing a bit pointless really. It's still not high enough resolution that you can view and entire photo 1:1 without zooming at all, so I don't see the benefit.

Maybe it would be good because the pixel density is getting close to the DPI of a printed image? Might make it easier to sharpen for printing etc.

On the whole though, I struggle to see the argument for resolutions above 2560x1600 on a 24'' and 1920x1080 on a 15/17'' laptop display. With normal viewing distances, I don't think my eyes can resolve the resolution difference.

Just something else to sell Apple products I guess. As with most of their technology, the majority of customers will just buy it and never use it to anything like its full potential, they just want to own it.

Don't get me wrong though, 4k screens will be great in the 27'' and 30'' size range, when they're finally affordable. I agree with increasing resolutions, but going beyond a certain pixel density gives diminishing returns.

[GeorgeStorm]

Originally Posted by Mac_Trekkie

Also one thing I noticed is people constantly complain about companies being stuck in a 1080p rut, yet as soon as Apple actually does something about it, people can NOT complain enough about how useless it is. If it had been Asus unveiling a new 2880x1800 display, you people wouldn't get enough of it, calling it the greatest thing since pixels themselves were invented. You can't have it both ways.

For me, it's not that it's a Mac at all.
It's the fact it's an insane resolution for the screen size.

A bigger res than 30" monitors on a 15" monitor, only good thing about it is hopefully it will bring prices down of general high res screens.

[teppic]

It's only an insane resolution if you use it at the native resolution at that screen size. If you start to get to huge screen sizes, this resolution would just become a regular high resolution rather than one where you can't distinguish pixels.

[rollo]

Once dell releases a 30 inch monitor with this rez everyone moaning here will say I want to buy it

For whatever £1k + it will cost.

Apple is not well liked on these sort of sites, dout they care either when millions of normal people do lol.

Profit beats anything in there eyes

[faugusztin]

rollo, 30" 2880x1800 and 15" 2880x1800 is a damn huge difference.

[GeorgeStorm]

You've both just proven my point.
This res isn't stupid in itself, most people here think it's stupid on such a small screen.

[Yslen]

Originally Posted by GeorgeStorm

You've both just proven my point.
This res isn't stupid in itself, most people here think it's stupid on such a small screen.

Exactly. If Apple had announced a 27'' monitor with the same resolution I'd be wishing I had one.

[teppic]

If Apple announced a 27" monitor with this resolution it would not be comparable in any way. It'd just be a high resolution monitor, nothing particularly new. This is all about giving a level of detail for images, fonts and whatever not seen before, at any given screen size.

[true_gamer]

I would be more than happy with a pixel pitch of 0.25 on a 4k display. As that is what the Dell 30" models are.

So by taking the pixel pitch of 0.25 x 3840pixels will give you 96cm for length. 0.25 x 2160pixels will give you 54cm for height.

So by a quick calculation Will give you a 110cm/43.3" Display.

43" 4k panel sounds good to me.

If you take a typical 27" 1080p monitor with a pixel pitch of 0.31 and turn that into a 4k monitor, this is the screen size you will get.

0.31 x 3840 = 119cm for length. 0.31 x 2160 = 67cm for height.

So by another quick calculation Will give you a 137cm/54" Display.

54" 4K Panel would just be EPIC!

[Elton]

It's not that it's because of apple, but because this display isn't available on native resolutions on the MBP. That and it's on a 15" screen. Which is quite pointless. If this resolution was on say a 20" monitor or a 24". That would be fantastic.

[rollo]

15inch vs 20inch ? still too small to be readable by most

24inch 30inch we in business

[Elton]

20" is a decent size. A 24 would be better but small steps first.

[Pookeyhead]

Originally Posted by GeorgeStorm

You've both just proven my point.
This res isn't stupid in itself, most people here think it's stupid on such a small screen.

Exactly.

If there was such a thing as a 4k 15" screen.. it still wouldn't be the resolution we're objecting too.. that would be stupid. I'd LOVE that on a 30" screen, or even larger... just not on a 15" screen, where it's useless and can't be taken advantage of.