Retina Macbook Pro 15" official

[USER8000]

Had a look at one in the Apple Store and for its weight it is impressive how much has been crammed into the laptop! At where I work a fair number of people use Macs,so hopefully I will get to play around with one a bit more.

However,looking at the test figures,how can the MBP RD display be the "king of displays" if the 11.6" IPS UX21 display has better colour accuracy and is as good or better in all other non- pixel density metrics?? It has a much higher colour accuracy than any laptop display on the market for example:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/5

The UX21A has around a 63% improvement in the score although the MBP RD has a 16% improvement in PPI. Of course the RD MBP has a larger diagonal display,so maybe this is the reason??

I really hoped the colour accuracy would have improved over the previous MBP,as it would have made the RD MBP the ultimate laptop for photographic work IMHO. I wonder if the next revision would have improved in this metric?? Together with a matt screen option,it would be awesome!! :awe:

I wonder what display the MBA will get next year? RD MBA!

I mentioned this in the comments field of the review,and was accused of being worried about E-PEEN,and clueless which I thought was rather arrogant.

 

[Pia]

You forgot that LCD panels turn into a blurry muddled mess at non native resolutions.

Very high PPI panels do not, which is a part of why they are a good idea.

 

[MrX8503]

Had a look at one in the Apple Store and for its weight it is impressive how much has been crammed into the laptop! At where I work a fair number of people use Macs,so hopefully I will get to play around with one a bit more.

However,looking at the test figures,how can the MBP RD display be the "king of displays" if the 11.6" IPS UX21 display has better colour accuracy and is as good or better in all other non- pixel density metrics?? It has a much higher colour accuracy than any laptop display on the market for example:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/5

The UX21A has around a 63% improvement in the score although the MBP RD has a 16% improvement in PPI. Of course the RD MBP has a larger diagonal display,so maybe this is the reason??

I really hoped the colour accuracy would have improved over the previous MBP,as it would have made the RD MBP the ultimate laptop for photographic work IMHO. I wonder if the next revision would have improved in this metric?? Together with a matt screen option,it would be awesome!! :awe:

I wonder what display the MBA will get next year? RD MBA!

I mentioned this in the comments field of the review,and was accused of being worried about E-PEEN,and clueless which I thought was rather arrogant.

The retina mbp has:

A larger panel
Higher ppi
Retina scaling (4x sizing of assets)
Better scaling at non native res
Removed cover glass for painted on look

 

[weevilone]

The retina MBP has proved to be a significant distraction for me. Most of the time I need a small portable that I can keep with me in case work issues arise when I'm not in the office. A 13" is good for this, and I had planned to pick up a new Air.

The rest of my (portable) time, I'm on a jobsite to do project based work and the 15" is a bit more convenient. I was prepared to sacrifice the additional size in favor of portability, but it's very difficult to ignore the new display and lay down money for the Air.

 

[JavaMomma]

Setup a MBPr last night for my mom - it's pretty darn nice. You get used to the retina after a while and it just feels normal. Not everything is optimized for it though - Microsoft needs to update Office 2011 for example. Font's in a Word doc, the ribbon, splash screen look like garbage - or at least they retina display makes you realize they look like garbage.

I have a fall 17" 2011 MBP with 1920x1200 native - I really don't think it would be worth the money for me to upgrade. Now if they come out 27"+ retina thunderbolt monitor I'll get one, if they fix multi-monitor support, I'll take two.

 

[dagamer34]

Setup a MBPr last night for my mom - it's pretty darn nice. You get used to the retina after a while and it just feels normal. Not everything is optimized for it though - Microsoft needs to update Office 2011 for example. Font's in a Word doc, the ribbon, splash screen look like garbage - or at least they retina display makes you realize they look like garbage.

I have a fall 17" 2011 MBP with 1920x1200 native - I really don't think it would be worth the money for me to upgrade. Now if they come out 27"+ retina thunderbolt monitor I'll get one, if they fix multi-monitor support, I'll take two.

Multi-mon support is supposedly fixed in Lion where you can make an app fullscreen and still use another monitor. Totally broken and laughable how it behaves in Lion (puts up a linen background on other monitors).

 

[TheStu]

Multi-mon support is supposedly fixed in Lion where you can make an app fullscreen and still use another monitor. Totally broken and laughable how it behaves in Lion (puts up a linen background on other monitors).

In Mountain Lion DP3, you cannot fullscreen an app and use the other monitor

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I kinda wish they dropped the prices on the old MBPs. In order to match the 8gb and 256gb SSD, it costs a LOT to upgrade even the $1800 MBP.

Quite absurd.

As beautiful as this is, I think there might be more changes to come next generation. Haswell might be key. Plus waiting will allow for apps to adapt to this retina resolution.

 

[Pia]

Multi-mon support is supposedly fixed in Lion where you can make an app fullscreen and still use another monitor. Totally broken and laughable how it behaves in Lion (puts up a linen background on other monitors).

I would actually want virtual desktops, but could not stand Spaces. Input-blocking, excruciatingly slow slide animations which cannot be disabled; peeking into another space and coming back may shift your focus in an entirely different app in a way that is impossible to anticipate in practice. Multimonitor support might have been bad, but if so, it was the least of Spaces' problems. I think there actually was a hidden option (via Terminal) to disable the transitions in Leopard, but Apple deemed it too user-friendly and removed it altogether.

Now that they added Mission Control and fullscreen mode, and killed off the capital-S Spaces, things are a lot worse. Probably 99% of multimon setups are side-by-side. In that case having spaces in a vertical column makes for the least jarring transition possible. A horizontal slide across, say, 2x30" displays is really jarring at least to me. So what does Apple do? Removes the vertical option, makes Lion spaces horizontal 24/7.

The absolute shit design award goes to Full Screen Mode. No universal keyboard shortcut to get in/out. All the retardedness of the new spaces. Can't disable the transition. Worst of all, many apps which previously had a usable fullscreen mode will now probably end up ditching theirs in favor of Lion's unusable one because it's "standard".

Apple could mitigate the fallout of this shitshow with some very simple actions. Most importantly, a checkbox in SysPrefs which makes space/fullscreen transitions instant so that there is never an eyeblink when the computer is not taking your input.

 

[TheStu]

I kinda wish they dropped the prices on the old MBPs. In order to match the 8gb and 256gb SSD, it costs a LOT to upgrade even the $1800 MBP.

Quite absurd.

As beautiful as this is, I think there might be more changes to come next generation. Haswell might be key. Plus waiting will allow for apps to adapt to this retina resolution.

They want people on the rMBP, the same way as how when they rolled out the redesign on the Air, that included an 11" model at a new low starting price. They wanted people to start using them.

*They sold the iPhone so that people would get used to iOS and multitouch, so when they released what they had started working on, the iPad, everyone already knew how to use it, and devs were primed and ready to go. They dropped the price on MacBook Air so that way, when they release a 15" rMBP, people are already used to the pros/cons of thin & light, and so won't be as hot and bothered when they pull the optical drive.

They make the rMBP set up as a 'reasonable' price, at least when compared to the existing MBP, with a BIG hook so that people will get used to, and start releasing Retina compatible apps.

*This is a theory

 

[TheStu]

I would actually want virtual desktops, but could not stand Spaces. Input-blocking, excruciatingly slow slide animations which cannot be disabled; peeking into another space and coming back may shift your focus in an entirely different app in a way that is impossible to anticipate in practice. Multimonitor support might have been bad, but if so, it was the least of Spaces' problems. I think there actually was a hidden option (via Terminal) to disable the transitions in Leopard, but Apple deemed it too user-friendly and removed it altogether.

Now that they added Mission Control and fullscreen mode, and killed off the capital-S Spaces, things are a lot worse. Probably 99% of multimon setups are side-by-side. In that case having spaces in a vertical column makes for the least jarring transition possible. A horizontal slide across, say, 2x30" displays is really jarring at least to me. So what does Apple do? Removes the vertical option, makes Lion spaces horizontal 24/7.

The absolute shit design award goes to Full Screen Mode. No universal keyboard shortcut to get in/out. All the retardedness of the new spaces. Can't disable the transition. Worst of all, many apps which previously had a usable fullscreen mode will now probably end up ditching theirs in favor of Lion's unusable one because it's "standard".

Apple could mitigate the fallout of this shitshow with some very simple actions. Most importantly, a checkbox in SysPrefs which makes space/fullscreen transitions instant so that there is never an eyeblink when the computer is not taking your input.

Is there a .plist file that you can edit somewhere that would disable the animation? There are usually things like that scattered around the OS.

 

[Pia]

Is there a .plist file that you can edit somewhere that would disable the animation? There are usually things like that scattered around the OS.

A while back I tried to give Spaces a fair shot. Searched for hours for possible fixes, and/or indications that I'm failing to use it correctly (PEBKAC). Tried the Terminal stuff that was reported to work before. While writing the above post, I again googled for at least half an hour. Pretty sure there is no fix.

There's no way there is a single person on the team responsible for Spaces who uses keyboard to switch between apps and windows in OS X. If there was, they couldn't possibly have failed this hard.

 

[Steelbom]

In Mountain Lion DP3, you cannot fullscreen an app and use the other monitor

One of the features in Mountain Lion is that you can use the second screen, or did I read this wrong:

Go full screen on any display
If you have a secondary display connected to your Mac, you can take an app full screen on either display. Drag the window to the desired display and click the full-screen button.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Can't wait for Mountain Lion. The scrolling lag is unbearable on Retina.

 

[TheStu]

One of the features in Mountain Lion is that you can use the second screen, or did I read this wrong:

Lion intro'd Full Screen apps, where you pressed a button, and all the UI chrome disappeared, leaving you with just the content. HOWEVER, if you had 2 displays, the other one would become unusable, covered in linen, and you could put anything there.

You could do exactly what that blurb describes, move the windows between monitors and full screen on either monitor 1 or monitor 2, but then the other monitor is just a paperweight until you get out of full screen.

What I am saying is that persists, at least in DP3.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Lion intro'd Full Screen apps, where you pressed a button, and all the UI chrome disappeared, leaving you with just the content. HOWEVER, if you had 2 displays, the other one would become unusable, covered in linen, and you could put anything there.

You could do exactly what that blurb describes, move the windows between monitors and full screen on either monitor 1 or monitor 2, but then the other monitor is just a paperweight until you get out of full screen.

What I am saying is that persists, at least in DP3.

That's without question the worst approach to full screen apps on a multi monitor system I have ever heard of.

 

[TheStu]

That's without question the worst approach to full screen apps on a multi monitor system I have ever heard of.

Yea, it is awful. The only thing that I can say about it is that this is only applicable to Full Screen mode. That is the official thing where it takes over the whole display. You can still expand the window to take up all the available space (sans menubar) and that lets you use both monitors.

This is part and parcel with the differences between how Windows and OS X handle the 'make the window bigger' button. In Windows, it makes the window expand to occupy all the available space sans the taskbar, in OS X it does what is referred to as a Smart Zoom, where the window resizes to fit all the content. This behavior I think is on a application by application basis, so some of them will mirror the Windows functionality and simply fill the screen.

 

[Andrmgic]

Can't wait for Mountain Lion. The scrolling lag is unbearable on Retina.

Mountain Lion helps.. but it doesn't eliminate it completely.

 

[Steelbom]

Lion intro'd Full Screen apps, where you pressed a button, and all the UI chrome disappeared, leaving you with just the content. HOWEVER, if you had 2 displays, the other one would become unusable, covered in linen, and you could put anything there.

You could do exactly what that blurb describes, move the windows between monitors and full screen on either monitor 1 or monitor 2, but then the other monitor is just a paperweight until you get out of full screen.

What I am saying is that persists, at least in DP3.

Yeah I'm aware of that, and I hope that isn't what that little quote means. I don't think it does though, because it's in the "200 new features" section it can't already be a feature in Lion, I hope it lets you use the other monitor.

Yea, it is awful. The only thing that I can say about it is that this is only applicable to Full Screen mode. That is the official thing where it takes over the whole display. You can still expand the window to take up all the available space (sans menubar) and that lets you use both monitors.

This is part and parcel with the differences between how Windows and OS X handle the 'make the window bigger' button. In Windows, it makes the window expand to occupy all the available space sans the taskbar, in OS X it does what is referred to as a Smart Zoom, where the window resizes to fit all the content. This behavior I think is on a application by application basis, so some of them will mirror the Windows functionality and simply fill the screen.

An application has to be updated to support the full screen mode, and they can code what happens when it's activated. So you can be presented with a different UI, etc., as it transitions, I think anyway.

 

[Dumac]

That is a really nice sounding screen.

I have to go see one in store...

 

[effowe]

I had to take mine into the Apple Store today because the SD Card slot wasn't working properly. I only got it to work once, and it went away after a reboot. They verified it wasn't working, and replaced it right then and there. I was in and out of the store in under a half hour, good stuff.

 

[joshhedge]

The question is guys, 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Obviously, more is usually better... I'd have the option of going for the base 256GB model with 16GB of RAM or the 512GB model with the faster processor but with only 8GB RAM, that is stretching my budget to it's limits though. What do you guys think?

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

The question is guys, 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Obviously, more is usually better... I'd have the option of going for the base 256GB model with 16GB of RAM or the 512GB model with the faster processor but with only 8GB RAM, that is stretching my budget to it's limits though. What do you guys think?

I was in the exact same boat. I ended up going for the base model with 16gb because I figured it wasn't worth it to pay the extra to get the higher end model and then upgrade again to 16gb. Plus I'm hoping someone will sell sticks to upgrade the ssd like for the MacBook airs.

 

[effowe]

I was in the exact same boat. I ended up going for the base model with 16gb because I figured it wasn't worth it to pay the extra to get the higher end model and then upgrade again to 16gb. Plus I'm hoping someone will sell sticks to upgrade the ssd like for the MacBook airs.

There is no upgrading anything, all the chips are soldered to the motherboard.

 

[TheStu]

There is no upgrading anything, all the chips are soldered to the motherboard.

That isn't true. The SSD is removable, as is the wireless card. Everything else is soldered.