Going to buy a Mac Book Pro

By Razorwing
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Stetson

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Just get a nice slick powerful ultrabook and install OSX on it.. BAM you saved money you and still got a Mac ;)

Any that have trackpad hardware+drivers as good as a Macbook? Plus as far as I've seen most Ultrabooks are better compared to the Macbook Air than the Retina MBP.

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Brandon H Supervisor

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Well my MBPR just came in. Using it right now :D Really surprised it came with ML lol. Also, do you guys know if Macs can read NTFS External Harddrives? I have a 1TB External HDD I want to plugin to my mac.. to watch movies and stuff.

it can read them but can't write to them

I recommend Paragon NTFS to enable full functionality

enjoy your new mac :) wish i could afford to upgrade right now

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Just get a nice slick powerful ultrabook and install OSX on it.. BAM you saved money you and still got a Mac ;)

Point me to a notebook with a 2880x1800 display that is cheaper than the rMBP and I'm sold.

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Boz

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Point me to a notebook with a 2880x1800 display that is cheaper than the rMBP and I'm sold.

It's really not a benefit when you are basically operating at the screen size of 1440x900 but with double density pixels. There are laptops that run at 1920x1080 native resolution. So the point is moot. I guess for a lot of people 1440x900 screen real estate is fine but to me is kind of pointless just to have slightly sharper images that I won't even notice considering 99.9% of the content is not even optimized for MBP Retina display and you can get a PC laptop for $1000 less.

Don't get me wrong, I think MBP Retina is fantastic from specs point. I just think the whole high resolution thing is not as awesome as the hype makes it up to be.

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Vice

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It's really not a benefit when you are basically operating at the screen size of 1440x900 but with double density pixels. There are laptops that run at 1920x1080 native resolution. So the point is moot. I guess for a lot of people 1440x900 screen real estate is fine but to me is kind of pointless just to have slightly sharper images that I won't even notice considering 99.9% of the content is not even optimized for MBP Retina display.

So what you're saying is, you don't know of another notebook with a 2880x1800 display. Is that right?

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Boz

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So what you're saying is, you don't know of another notebook with a 2880x1800 display. Is that right?

But it's not really.. it's 1440x900 display with double pixel density. Now, granted you could raise the resolution to 2880x1800 on it but then everything becomes unusably slow and small. I tried it.

The display has the density of 2880x1800 but the resolution of your work space is not 2880x1800, if that makes sense.

So it boils down to higher density 1440x900 display really for optimal performance. And considering that 0.01% of software or web is even optimized (it won't be for a long time because image size that would look great on this density needs to ridiculously high and it will cost huge bandwidth for everything), the whole 2880x1800 retina thing is kind of pointless because for 99.9% of things you won't really even experience it considering the content is not optimized. It's similar to 4k argument for HDTVs. Would you buy a 4K TV now at twice the price of a great 1080 HDTV? Of course not.

I hope we get to the point where we have 1920x1200 workspace at double density (meaning 3840x2400) display.. NOW that would be impressive but I think we are about a decade away from that.

And of course, I'm not even going into the discussion about the fact that everything is soldered in/on on the new MBPs Retina. So what you buy is it. No backsies.

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I've seen the Retina MacBook Pro in person and I think its display is fabulous. I'm thinking about buying one myself after seeing it.

I really don't consider the windows notebooks in the same weight class as the Retina MacBook Pro because its screen is so good, using 4 pixels for each 1 pixel on the workspace results in much richer text, images and ui elements it just looks fantastic. I have a iPhone 4S with a Retina Display and the difference between my older 3GS and the iPhone 4S is like night and day and I noticed the same thing with the rMBP in-store. Sure some stuff isn't retina enabled yet but the apps I tried and the images I opened looked great.

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Boz

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I've seen the Retina MacBook Pro in person and I think its display is fabulous. I'm thinking about buying one myself after seeing it.

I really don't consider the windows notebooks in the same weight class as the Retina MacBook Pro because its screen is so good, using 4 pixels for each 1 pixel on the workspace results in much richer text, images and ui elements it just looks fantastic. I have a iPhone 4S with a Retina Display and the difference between my older 3GS and the iPhone 4S is like night and day and I noticed the same thing with the rMBP in-store. Sure some stuff isn't retina enabled yet but the apps I tried and the images I opened looked great.

I wasn't as impressed and I do appreciate technology even if it's from Apple. I think MBP Retina value is not so much in it's display as the hype is all about. I think the value currently is that it really has the fastest CPU in it of all laptops and supports tons of ram. To me, a lot of the stuff looked pretty much as pretty as I had it on a 1920x1080 laptop, maybe a bit sharper (mostly when it comes to text) but at 1920x1080 on regular laptops I don't think it even matters. Yes, you will see a difference going from 1440x900 Mac Book Pro to MBP Retina 1440x900.. but that's mostly because 1440x900 on a regular Mac Book is fairly low to begin with.

Retina on iPhone doesn't look that impressive when you compare it to 1280x800 Android phone for example with lower pixel density on bigger screen. It does look night and day compared to 320x480 though but anything can look better than that considering the resolution is ridiculously low.

Again, my point still stands.. would you buy a 4k HDTV now for twice the price of 1080p HDTV? I don't think you would.

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Luis Mazza

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But it's not really.. it's 1440x900 display with double pixel density. Now, granted you could raise the resolution to 2880x1800 on it but then everything becomes unusably slow and small. I tried it.

The display has the density of 2880x1800 but the resolution of your work space is not 2880x1800, if that makes sense.

So it boils down to higher density 1440x900 display really for optimal performance. And considering that 0.01% of software or web is even optimized (it won't be for a long time because image size that would look great on this density needs to ridiculously high and it will cost huge bandwidth for everything), the whole 2880x1800 retina thing is kind of pointless because for 99.9% of things you won't really even experience it considering the content is not optimized. It's similar to 4k argument for HDTVs. Would you buy a 4K TV now at twice the price of a great 1080 HDTV? Of course not.

I hope we get to the point where we have 1920x1200 workspace at double density (meaning 3840x2400) display.. NOW that would be impressive but I think we are about a decade away from that.

And of course, I'm not even going into the discussion about the fact that everything is soldered in/on on the new MBPs Retina. So what you buy is it. No backsies.

You're totally missing the point of a RETINA resolution... it only makes sense if you're close to the screen and of course, the size of it, which is why it is called DPI or... dots per INCH. So the "double density" you call for is worthless without saying at which size you want it and how close you'll be to such a display. If you're using like a 100 inches monitor, 4000x 3000 is not even retina or near 300dpi.

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Vice

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You can just set the rMBP to 1920x1200 and have 2880x1800 pixels working to deliver that scaled effective workspace though. So you get the res you want in the 15" form factor but even higher precision than a real 1920x1080 display could muster.

I have a 17" MBP with a 1920x1200 resolution currently and I'd probably run the 15" at the same "effective" res.

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Boz

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You can just set the rMBP to 1920x1200 and have 2880x1800 pixels working to deliver that scaled effective workspace though.

Right.. don't disagree.. but then you render the retina aspect moot. It's gonna look the same as any 15" 1080p laptop out there. So what's the point.

I think it's a step in the right direction. Is it worth it? Not really. Unless you want the fastest laptop currently available in a slick package. Then it does make sense but again only if you have no problems with not being able to change anything (which , granted, for many people probably doesn't matter to begin with).

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Luis Mazza

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Right.. don't disagree.. but then you render the retina aspect moot. It's gonna look the same as any 15" 1080p laptop out there. So what's the point.

I think it's a step in the right direction. Is it worth it? Not really. Unless you want the fastest laptop currently available in a slick package. Then it does make sense.

I think you should dig more into this concept, because you're failing to understand many technical issues.

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Vice

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Right.. don't disagree.. but then you render the retina aspect moot. It's gonna look the same as any 15" 1080p laptop out there. So what's the point.

I think it's a step in the right direction. Is it worth it? Not really. Unless you want the fastest laptop currently available in a slick package. Then it does make sense.

It's not though really because you've still got 960 extra horizontal pixels and 680 vertical pixels to make that 1920x1200 effective resolution sharper than a real 1920x1200 display. And to be honest I even noticed the different in the shop for that too. It wasn't as night and day as the 1440x900 comparison but I could still see a difference.

Personally I think the retina upgrade is worth it. I mean you're saying that it would be something really special if it was double 1920x1200 aka 3840x2400 but at the same time you're saying it will look the same as a 1920x1200 display even though it still has 652,800 extra pixels to enhance that resolutions sharpness. If your argument is you can't tell the difference between the Retina display at 1920x1200 effective resolution and a real 1920x1200 display then what would doubling the Retinas resolution to 3840x2400 change?

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Boz

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It's not though really because you've still got 960 extra horizontal pixels and 680 vertical pixels to make that 1920x1200 effective resolution sharper than a real 1920x1200 display. And to be honest I even noticed the different in the shop for that too. It wasn't as night and day as the 1440x900 comparison but I could still see a difference.

Personally I think the retina upgrade is worth it. I mean you're saying that it would be something really special if it was double 1920x1200 aka 3840x2400 but at the same time you're saying it will look the same as a 1920x1200 display even though it still has 652,800 extra pixels to enhance that resolutions sharpness.

Purely from the workspace size. I still wouldn't buy a laptop with this resolution because I think it's pointless when there's no content for it so it's like buying a Ferrari to drive in a 15 mph zone.

I like new MBP retina.. I think it does look great.. but I think the improvement is not as much as people claim it is, especially when you compare it to 1920x1080 laptops on a 15" which is pretty standard these days.

Maybe when 90% of the content out there is made to accomodate this super high density, but I don't see that happening for at least next 10 years due to many other issues.

So to me, argument to get MBP Retina mostly relies on the fact that it has crazy fast specs. I would still use it at 1920x1080 non retina, but then, when you weigh it against other laptops with same resolution of the screen at half the price it kind of makes it less appealing. MBP Retina is NOT cheap.

I guess that's why I said.. save the money, get a great fast PC laptop that's slick (and yes, they are getting very slick these days) and just install OSX. It's a smarter decision and you won't miss out on "the retina" hype at all.

But then again, installing OSX on a PC laptop is not a solution for many.. so I'm just looking purely from financial aspect here. I personally will probably get a MBP Retina :) though I do have $2500-$3000 to spend on it.

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Razorwing

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So I"m installing Diablo 3.. is the center of the keyboard supposed to run hot? Well it's warm atm.. just wondering.

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Stetson

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The Retina MBP in "1920x1200" mode is actually running at 3840x2400 scaled down to 2880x1800. You get much more effective detail than a 1920x1200 display, since it's still using the double-resolution resources when available rather than the standard resolution resources.

Anyway, putting the screen aside, is there any Windows Ultrabook at all with the same or better CPU, GPU, and SSD specs as the RMBP? For less money? With a trackpad that works as well?

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BetaAddict

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So I"m installing Diablo 3.. is the center of the keyboard supposed to run hot? Well it's warm atm.. just wondering.

What do you think happens when you crank every bit of juice the hardware can squeeze out? It's going to get hot, but in the case of rMBP, it only gets warm thanks to the ventilation flow and dual fans. I've never seen mine go above 31C in OSX, even while playing Dota in Parallels. Running Windows in bootcamp is an entirely different matter, can easily get to 35C, which can be most harmful to the batteries in the long run.

macbook-pro-retina-display-innards-labelled-640x440.jpg

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vhane

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and that one is more expensive than the one I poster on the last page :rofl:

I've had good luck using Paragon NTFS, they have one for HFS in bootcamp too :)

Woops. Sorry, my bad. I admit I only skimmed the thread.

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