Is a Retina Screen Worth Having?

merv

merv

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I am thinking of buying an Apple Macbook Pro 15" and am wondering if the Retina screen is worth the extra money?
merv:bang:
 
My boss at work has got one. He is very impressed with it but imho I couldn't tell the difference. If you search the internet you will get similar opinions (yes and no). Best thing to do is to go to an apple store and try it out yourself. If you already own an apple product with a standard display then just take it with you for compassion
 
Presume you have had a good go with a retina and non-retina Macbook in an Apple store and if so only you can really say whether it is worth it to you.

I am a MAC users but I don't think a Macbook is worth it full stop...
 
You can definitely tell the difference, but only if you truly BELIEVE you can. Since the point of the retina technology is that the resolution is imperceivable by the human eye, you shouldn't be able to see a difference from a usable viewing distance. If you think you can.. well.. you're probably also an audiophile
 
Yes. The programs I use (Scrivener, MS Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Lightroom) fully support it, they're an absolute pleasure to work with - photographs and graphics look like print, plus the way images are treated means you have all the benefits of having a normal high res (more space to place an image/graphic within a document window) without the need to scale down the UI accordingly. It's one of the few laptops I've used that doesn't skimp on portability, performance and screen quality. Of course, the regular MBP is a fine machine in its own right, especially once you add in the matte screen, extra RAM and replace the optical drive with an SSD.

SimonH said:
You can definitely tell the difference, but only if you truly BELIEVE you can. Since the point of the retina technology is that the resolution is imperceivable by the human eye, you shouldn't be able to see a difference from a usable viewing distance. If you think you can.. well.. you're probably also an audiophile
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At normal viewing distances you can easily tell the difference between 1680x1050 on a custom MBP and the 2880x1800 on a retina MBP. Even more so with the standard (and under-specced) 1440x900 on the 15". It's apparent even with the 1920x1200 of a 17" MBP, since I have both models sitting next to each other. So no, it isn't the same as buying an overpriced extension lead.
 
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I had an rMBP 15.4" for a few hours and the screen was gorgeous. Set to native resolution instead of scaled it was superb and Lightroom (pre retina version), at least, looked just dandy at native res.

Unfortunately, as a non "Apple" person, there were a few issues which caused me to return it, but the screen was absolutely not one of them.

My replacement is a Dell Precision M6700, which also has a gorgeous screen - 17.3" 1920x1080, IPS, RGB backlight, gamut exceeds Adobe RGB. Against the rMBP it is bigger, heavier and uglier, but more upgradeable, faster, has vastly greater on board storage and was around £400 cheaper. Since portability is very much not a priority for me the Dell is a good fit to my needs and the extra £400 in my pocket does no harm. :)

If I hadn't gone for the Dell I would have stuck with the rMBP, despite its shortcomings (for me), simply for that screen.
 
I think it is worth the extra, as the text becomes much smoother and it is possible to increase res to HD and still retain the crispiness, and more importantly they are IPS, so actually suitable for proper work.
On the other hand I think the price will come down in the next year or so which is why I held out for now
 
neil_g said:
subjective. if you like working on a 15" glossy screen then yes. :)
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far less glossy than the old ones at least, but yeah, the gloss is a horror
 
they are very nice, but IMO not worth the extra.

I have a MBP and I installed more memory and a crucial SSD and this thing flies and its still less than what I would have paid for a retina version.
 
Compared the 15" regular and retina versions in an Apple Store side by side, with the same selection of photos on each and viewing from a bit further away than typical usable distance and the difference was still quite clearly apparent (and I had previously been very cynical about anything Apple). Out of the box the retina display needs no calibration either. And for a machine that is, spec-wise, essentially a desktop replacement it's more like an ultrabook in the portability stakes. If you don't need to move around with it then get an iMac, otherwise I think it's worth it. Lovely machine to use.
 
neil_g said:
every screen should be calibrated at least monthly. it will slip out after time even if it is close to your prints out the box.
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Yes. I have a calibration tool to do just that. But the fact that it didn't need calibrating in the first instance is impressive. I've calibrated a lot of IPS displays out of the box and they all have been noticeably in need of correction.
 
Nifkin said:
Yes. I have a calibration tool to do just that. But the fact that it didn't need calibrating in the first instance is impressive. I've calibrated a lot of IPS displays out of the box and they all have been noticeably in need of correction.
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I'd say its more of a fluke, unless anyone knows if apple pre calibrate in the factory?
 
neil_g said:
I'd say its more of a fluke, unless anyone knows if apple pre calibrate in the factory?
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I don't think it's a fluke at all. A lot of IPS screen manufacturers do factory calibrate their displays (Dell stick a calibration report in with their Ultrasharp range, for example), yet they can usually do with a bit of correcting. I have a friend with a 13" rMBP and his didn't need calibrating out of the box either. On the other hand I've never seen a ordinary laptop screen that is anything but way off, and most (not all, as covered by tdodd's post earlier) can't handle a wide colour gamut. The fact that the Retina models are colour managed out of the box is reassuring, especially as that's what you buy it for.

I wouldn't go near Apple products if it weren't for the fact that I do photo and graphics stuff. A plain old PC is good enough for virtually everything else these days. My rMBP is very lovely and I'm totally happy with it, but Apple are simply a triumph of marketing and are grossly overrated in most areas.
 
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Take ipad 3 for example. Mine is just as accurate as a calibrated Dell monitor, and they get very good reviews.
It has to be said that the older non-retina non-IPS displays were anything but accurate.
 
Merv

I've got a rMBP and the screen is one of the best I've used. It calibrates well and is a joy to use. I get an excellent match to my iMac, which I didn't get with my 2008 MBP ( The screen on the MBP was a bit to warm).

The SSD drives boots the MBP up in seconds and it has good battery life. I find I get 6 hrs+ running Lightroom on tethered shoots.

Is it worth it. Well I obviously thought so but you need to decide yourself. You do really need to get to an Apple shop or Authorised reseller and see for yourself.

One other thing to bear in mind when choosing a laptop is the residual value. Mac's have a significantly better resale value than most other machines. could make upgrading in a few years less expensive :)
 
I'm using a 15" retina Macbook Pro and would suggest you install SetResX This allows you to set the resolution to the actual resolution of the screen...

This means that every program works with it with no fuzzyness in anything at all. The only downside is that some icons and text are a bit small but that isn't a major issue because in a lot of packages you can increase the text size etc anyway. The utility is free and certainly worth giving it a go.

Top quality pictures displayed at native 2880x1800 is remarkable :D
 
neil_g said:
On the above, not all software versions support it. Adobe suites for example.


Worth checking before hand.
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The native support in CS is imminent apparently but SetResX is a good alternative and something Apple could quite easily have included in another tab!
 
cowasaki said:
I'm using a 15" retina Macbook Pro and would suggest you install SetResX This allows you to set the resolution to the actual resolution of the screen...

This means that every program works with it with no fuzzyness in anything at all. The only downside is that some icons and text are a bit small but that isn't a major issue because in a lot of packages you can increase the text size etc anyway. The utility is free and certainly worth giving it a go.

Top quality pictures displayed at native 2880x1800 is remarkable :D
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Just tried it; wow! There really are a lot of pixels in that screen! But not too much use if you need a magnifying glass to use the tools in LR 4.3, heheh..
 
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