Anandtech: Macbook Pro with Retina Display Review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review

by zdw • 14 years ago

130 111 14 years ago

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?

jaems33• 14 years ago

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

fabiandesimone2• 14 years ago

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.

mrcapers• 14 years ago

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

rfrey• 14 years ago

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.

phren0logy• 14 years ago

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.

arihant• 14 years ago

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"

brisance3• 14 years ago

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.

mitchty• 14 years ago

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.

batista• 14 years ago

>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.

sliverstorm5• 14 years ago

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?

rhizome4• 14 years ago

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.

tvon• 14 years ago

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

mikelbring• 14 years ago

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

mwhawkins4• 14 years ago

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.

Ogre2• 14 years ago

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.

ZoFreX• 14 years ago

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)

phamilton• 14 years ago

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.

Historiopode• 14 years ago

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.

kingnothing2• 14 years ago

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

schwabacher• 14 years ago

Textmate and terminal look amazing.

untog• 14 years ago

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

rhizome4• 14 years ago

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

pvidler• 14 years ago

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.

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

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.

lawnchair_larry• 14 years ago

Have you heard of the iPad?

Andys• 14 years ago

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.

sliverstorm5• 14 years ago

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...

axxl2• 14 years ago

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.

mtgx• 14 years ago

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.

axxl2• 14 years ago

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.

kenrikm2• 14 years ago

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

pooriaazimi2• 14 years ago

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.

rhizome4• 14 years ago

if Mountain Lion will optimize it as claimed...

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

pooriaazimi2• 14 years ago

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.

wolf550e• 14 years ago

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

npalli• 14 years ago

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.

superdude• 14 years ago

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.

Gring• 14 years ago

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.

tedunangst2• 14 years ago

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

graeme• 14 years ago

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.

wmf• 14 years ago

Glossy displays do have better contrast and lower black levels.

scott_s• 14 years ago

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

astrange• 14 years ago

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.)

majormajor• 14 years ago

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.

dhughes• 14 years ago

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.

sliverstorm5• 14 years ago

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

Synaesthesia• 14 years ago

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

DanBC• 14 years ago

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)

Kerrick• 14 years ago

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.

albertzeyer• 14 years ago

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.

efraim• 14 years ago

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

tzs• 14 years ago

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

sounds2• 14 years ago

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...

bgentry• 14 years ago

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

radley• 14 years ago

The ethernet port is also critical for a fast migration.

ghshephard3• 14 years ago

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)

nextstep• 14 years ago

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

stephen_g2• 14 years ago

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...

thoughtsimple• 14 years ago

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

Tichy6• 14 years ago

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".

rayiner• 14 years ago

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

Tichy6• 14 years ago

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.

mwhawkins4• 14 years ago

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.

Tichy6• 14 years ago

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.

ghshephard3• 14 years ago

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.

chime• 14 years ago

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.

achompas2• 14 years ago

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.

Tichy6• 14 years ago

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).

eli• 14 years ago

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.

tftmon• 14 years ago

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

zokier• 14 years ago

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.

forgetcolor• 14 years ago

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.

Anandtech: Macbook Pro with Retina Display Review

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