The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2012 4:14 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
The Retina Display in Numbers
I already published preliminary analysis of the Retina MacBook Pro’s display. In short brightness is down a bit, black levels are considerably improved and contrast as a result takes a huge step forward compared to previous models. My personal MacBook Pro used the anti-glare matte screen and the improvement in contrast ratio compared to that reference is over 50%.
Apple made no mention of impact to color accuracy or color gamut. It turns out that the omission was for good reason, the Retina Display offers no improvement along either vector. The numbers show a slight regression compared to last year’s panel but the difference is imperceivable.
Technically Apple’s use of the word Retina in reference to a display only refers to the inability for the human eye to resolve individual pixels at a specified distance (18-inches for the MacBook Pro). In practice however Apple has delivered tightly integrated IPS panels with wonderful performance characteristics as a part of the Retina brand. I do hope that for the years to come Apple does not compromise on these fronts.
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blackmagnum - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
New super resolutions are coming to notebook/ laptop computers. Thanks to Apple and their forward looking business sense. Wonder when it comes to PCs..... with Windows 8?Fleeb - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
I don't get it, I mean, what if another manufacturer thought of the idea first. I guess it wouldn't sell then.KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
It probably wouldn't happen since other manufacturers are more focused on cutting corners and driving costs down as much as possible. Great for making their products more accessible but not so good for putting in bleeding edge technology.Johnmcl7 - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Rubbish, there are plenty of other companies who are far more innovative than Apple whose machines look basic in comparison - Sony's older Z series had a very high resolution 13.1in 1080p screen, blu-ray writer, quad SSDs in RAID 0, integrated and discrete graphics card and the fastest of te dual core i7's while still smaller and lighter than Apple's 13in machines and that was a couple of years ago. Apple aren't even close to touching most of its technology and probably never will.John
tayb - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Link to prove the existence of that product? It does not seem possible to put all of that into a 13" chassis that is thinner than the incredibly thin MB. Honestly, it doesn't possible to fit all of that into a 13" model in general.DeciusStrabo - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Ca...and that's the third iteration of it, 1080p 13.3" - they did it 4 years ago already.
tayb - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
That doesn't have 4 SSDs, which was the biggest red flag in my eyes.Turbobusa311Hp - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
I remember that laptop. It didn't have 4 separate SSD's like you are thinking, but individual chips in a RAID 0. The Signature model was like $4700 though.DJTryHard - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
It had quad Raid 0, 4 separate chips.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-vaio-z-quad-...
To summarize:
Core i7 620M
13.3inch 1080p matte panel
256gb ssd in quad raid 0
6gb ram
geforce GT 330M w/ 1gb vram
optical drive
and all this was in 2010...
extide - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
i7 620M is Dualcore Arrandale, not Quad.Anyways, yeah, that laptop is pretty sweet for it's day.