DailyTech - Quick Note: Apple May Sell 13-Inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display

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Gadgets Quick Note: Apple May Sell 13-Inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display
Tiffany Kaiser - June 15, 2012 9:16 AM

28 comment(s) - last by Apone.. on Jun 18 at 12:48 PM

Apple is looking to launch the 13-inch Retina MacBook either this September or early October

Apple is expected to release a 13-inch next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display this fall.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI, who provided the tip to Apple Insider, Apple is looking to launch the 13-inch Retina MacBook either this September or early October. Kuo has already correctly predicted that Apple would axe the 17-inch MacBook Pro and instead sell the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display along with a previous-generation without Retina.

The 13-inch next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display is expected to feature 2560 x 1600 resolution, a thinner body than the 15-inch version, no optical disc drive (solid-state flash memory storage only), Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, and an Intel Ivy Bridge processor with speeds over 2 GHz.

^{Apple's 15.4" MacBook Pro with Retina Display}

Kuo said Apple didn't reveal the new product at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week because "of a low yield rate" as well as challenges with assembly.

Apple unveiled a number of new MacBooks at WWDC, including new 11- and 13-inch MacBook Airs, new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros (without Retina display) and a 15.4-inch 2880 x 1800 display high-end laptop.

Source: Apple Insider

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Super High Resolutions?

By OnyxNite on 6/15/12, Rating: 0

RE: Super High Resolutions?

By Spoelie on 6/15/2012 10:41:33 AM , Rating: 4

You're looking at it the wrong way. Higher resolutions on the same size screen increases the DPI, allowing for much finer details on icons, sharper looking text, ... .

These things don't necessarily have to be smaller on a larger resolution display, people's view on resolutions have been skewed in the past by keeping the DPI more or less constant and using the increased resolution to up the display size.

Another example: try opening a picture from a modern camera at 100% on your current laptop/desktop. Chances are you only see about quarter of the picture. A much higher DPI display would be able to show the entire picture and still resolve all the detail in it.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By amanojaku on 6/15/2012 11:04:55 AM , Rating: 2

You're not telling the whole story. Increasing resolution while maintaining display size makes everything smaller, if the number of pixels in an object remain the same. A 50-pixel wide image on a 100-pixel wide display takes up 50% of the width. Double the display resolution and the image takes up 25% (50/200).

What you said only makes sense if the number of pixels in window elements scale with changes in resolution. For example, a taskbar that goes from 72 pixels in height at 1280x720 to 108 pixels in height at 1920x1080. The taskbar would take up 10% of the screen in both cases, but a JPG would take up less screen percentage on 1920x1080.

It's not always practical, or possible, to change DPI. Usually, you can only optimize text, but window elements (panels, buttons, scroll bars, etc...) don't always change.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By tayb on 6/15/2012 11:18:04 AM , Rating: 2

In the case of this particular notebooks, the DPI does scale OS wide. You can't even expose the full resolution, just a super crisp 1080p.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By FaaR on 6/16/2012 1:12:31 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
It's not always practical, or possible, to change DPI. Usually, you can only optimize text, but window elements (panels, buttons, scroll bars, etc...) don't always change.

Yes, that is the case if you run good ol' MS Windows. OSX is of course adapted to scale with higher monitor DPI values, since it is the native OS of this computer. Win 8 is also taking further steps in this direction (as had previous Win versions, but they didn't go nearly far enough and they still handle high-DPI screens very poorly.)

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By TakinYourPoints on 6/17/2012 4:24:25 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
What you said only makes sense if the number of pixels in window elements scale with changes in resolution. For example, a taskbar that goes from 72 pixels in height at 1280x720 to 108 pixels in height at 1920x1080. The taskbar would take up 10% of the screen in both cases, but a JPG would take up less screen percentage on 1920x1080.

Incorrect. Elements in OS X scale up with resolution in the rMBP. It works like iOS with the iPhone 4 and iPad, graphical assets and text remain the same size as with the prior lower res models but the number of pixels for those elements quadruples.

It isn't like everything on the retina MBP is tiny all of a sudden. Windows does have this issue at the moment though. Microsoft should get this functionality in eventually since PC notebook displays will catch up at some point: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6008/windows-8-on-th...

http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/2080/metro.p...
http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/2080/DSC_742...

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By tayb on 6/15/2012 11:02:14 AM , Rating: 2

Graphic design work is the only thing that really comes to mind for me. Outside of that it just makes everything looks nice and extremely sharp. I have to see one of these in person but these ultra high resolution displays are usually quite impressive.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By StevoLincolnite on 6/15/2012 12:37:07 PM , Rating: 2

Don't forget gaming benefits greatly. :)
But being a Mac... That wouldn't be the main use for the machine anyway...

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By Solandri on 6/15/2012 3:00:26 PM , Rating: 3

Actually, gaming is the best benefit I can think of. The dpi is so high at typical laptop viewing distance, it's overkill. It's not like a tablet or a phone which you can easily pull up to your eyes to get a closer look.

The problem with 1920x1080 for gaming (in general, but mostly on a laptop) is that it's too many pixels. Unless you have a high-end video card, you're going to suffer from poor framerates. The obvious solution is to lower the resolution to say 1280x720, but that leads to resampling and a blurry image since it still needs to be displayed on a 1920x1080 screen. Unless you can cut the resolution exactly in half. But half of 1920x1080 is 960x540. Way too low for any modern game.

Half of 2560x1600 is 1280x800. That's adequate for a game. So you get the best of both worlds - high resolution 2D display, and decent gaming performance with a typical 3D video card without a blurry resampled image in games.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By inperfectdarkness on 6/16/2012 3:49:44 AM , Rating: 2

i game on max settings all the time on my 15.6" MSI in 1080p. are you using integrated graphics or something?

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By fredgiblet on 6/15/2012 6:50:04 PM , Rating: 2

Not really. Your framerate will drop horrendously and on a screen that size you won't be able to tell the difference on action games and non-action games graphics aren't usually the point anyway. I'd rather max out the settings at 1920x1080 on a 19" monitor than play at low settings at 2560x1440 on a 15" monitor.

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RE: Super High Resolutions?

By retrospooty on 6/15/2012 12:18:52 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed that high on a laptop is overkill, but better than 1366x768 underkill. To the small text, you are looking at it from a Windows point of view, which was never designed to scale very well like modern smaprtphone OS's. Once things are out and scaled properly you will just see everything with better clarity.

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Higher Resolutions

By 440sixpack on 6/15/2012 2:28:31 PM , Rating: 2

I'm a resolution whore, and I've hated it the last few years as resolutions have gone backwards in the whole trend to "HD" resolutions. The constant loss of vertical space has driven me nuts. So I am thrilled that there may finally be a trend heading back to higher resolutions. I just hate that it's Apple that will drive it and probably get the credit. :-)

RE: Higher Resolutions

By fredgiblet on 6/15/2012 6:56:11 PM , Rating: 2

I want more monitors that will let me flip from landscape to portrait, then the horizontal space becomes vertical space

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RE: Higher Resolutions

By inperfectdarkness on 6/16/2012 3:53:50 AM , Rating: 2

i second this. i've wanted to force-choke the execs who have conspired to keep such pitifully low resolutions on the "high-end" laptops. i mean, there's even 17"+ laptops with LOWER than 1080p screens--which i can only assume are intended to be sold to the same people who subscribe to reader's digest: large format.

i've even had one idiot tell me that i'd be happy with a lower resolution screen if i didn't wear my glasses while using it.

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RE: Higher Resolutions

By TakinYourPoints on 6/17/2012 12:40:26 AM , Rating: 1

They deserve the credit. While everyone else is cutting corners, Apple is pushing quality on displays, keyboards, trackpads, battery life, customer service, etc etc. This is why competition is good, even if you hate the company for whatever random reasons. :)

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RE: Higher Resolutions

By inaphasia on 6/17/2012 9:24:04 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
They deserve the credit.

Maybe. Or maybe they're just a one-trick pony:

Get ahold of and hog a resource you consider to be a killer spec. Sign deals that guarantee no-one else can get their paws on it for a couple of years. Proceed to market the hell out of it.

Sure it's a ballsy move, and of course you can give Apple credit for taking (a huge) gamble... But I kinda disagree that the screen res decision falls in the same category with all the other stuff you mentioned (and with which I agree and add the unibody:)

Maybe I'm over-suspicious, but I view this as a "tactic" they learned from the iPod.

Go to Toshiba.
Sign a deal for a bucket-load of hard-drives.
Make sure the same contract says Toshiba is not allowed to sell to rival mp3 makers.
Monopolize the high-capacity mp3 market for years.

A lot of you may not know this, but yes: not only was there a mechanical hard-drive in those iPods, Toshiba was the only company on the planet making them that small.

Clever undoubtedly, but hardly a move that would (or could) spark competition.

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RE: Higher Resolutions

By Apone on 6/18/2012 12:48:02 PM , Rating: 2

@ TakinYourPoints

- Hate to burst your bubble there but Apple (on the flip side) is continuing to rip people off despite their "quality". $200+ for 8GB RAM upgrade? (it's about $35-$55 on Newegg) Nevermind that DDR3 RAM is dirt-cheap right now, also what's up with two generation old graphics cards (Radeon 5xxx series) on the current Mac Pro line? And USB 3.0 started mass-adoption in 2011-ish so why is it now going to start appearing on the next Macbook line refresh? Sorry to say it but Apple is also guilty of cutting corners....

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Thinner than the 15"?

By tayb on 6/15/2012 10:09:19 AM , Rating: 2

The 15" is just a few millimeters thicker than the Macbook Air at its thickest point. I will be very impressed if this thing is thinner than the 15" model because the 15" model is already incredibly thin.

I'm glad Apple is pushing the envelope on displays. I'm so tired of crap 720p displays on 15" LCDs.

RE: Thinner than the 15"?

By retrospooty on 6/15/2012 10:38:13 AM , Rating: 2

Yup, we all owe Apple a great big than you for raising the bar on this, for phones, tablets, now laptops too. This one looks nice, I love a 13 inch laptop. Not too big to easily carry, not to small to get serious work done. 13 is just right.

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RE: Thinner than the 15"?

By tubieso on 6/17/2012 1:49:20 PM , Rating: 2

related news

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sure..

By jmke on 6/15/2012 9:31:07 AM , Rating: 4

why not release a 11" and 9" too;
please don't consider a 17" laptop... that would be too useful to work on.

RE: sure..

By quiksilvr on 6/15/12, Rating: -1

RE: sure..

By mellomonk on 6/15/2012 11:04:56 AM , Rating: 2

Killing it makes sense. The 17"laptop market has been marginal at best. The retina 15" would easily cover 90% of the uses with it's desktop real estate. With more and more of the world going to Ultrabook class laptops and tablets, the giant laptops just became more and more a evolutionary dead end.

Had the misfortune of having to deal with a 17" HP a few years back. You could actually grab the corner and flex the keyboard an inch or two. The last 17" MBPro I handled was far stiffer, but nowhere near the solidity of the unibody 15.

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Still non-upgradeable RAM and special order SSD

By XZerg on 6/15/2012 12:48:03 PM , Rating: 1

RAM will be soldered on the mainboard and so you need to decide how much memory you want from the day one and forget about ever upgrading. The base model will start at 4GB and will cost arm and a leg to up to 8GB, and forget about 16 even if it is possible as it may cost you soul and more.

SSD - same story but may have some upgrade choice in future.

RE: Still non-upgradeable RAM and special order SSD

By XZerg on 6/15/2012 12:53:13 PM , Rating: 2

on a second thought - i might be being too harsh on Apple. This essentially is a tablet but in a notebook form. How many people expect option and get to upgrade their memory or SSD in tablet? Possibly none. So this may be just a change from how much options people will have in the future in terms of upgrade to allow a "better" form factor, or a mid-step until the PC world comes up with a new form-factor for RAM and SSDs that allow for upgradeability.

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Not so sure...

By TakinYourPoints on 6/17/2012 12:47:41 AM , Rating: 2

I'm not so sure 13" MBPs will get 2x res displays. The Ivy Bridge IGP is decent, good enough to drive a 27" 2560x1440 display and doubling the 13" MBP would bring it to 2560x1600, but still...

It just seems to make more sense to wait for Haswell and its much improved IGP. If there is a 13" model with retina display released before then, it'll be like the original Macbook Air, a good concept that is a bit ahead of available technology. If they do release an Ivy Bridge model this year, waiting on the Haswell refresh would be the smart thing to do.

integrated graphics???

By Rzp on 6/15/2012 3:00:19 PM , Rating: 1

good lucky running that res without a discrete vram...lol

waiting on apple fanboys with that "isnt for gaming" excuse...

3,5 million d3 sold in one day, 12 million wow subscriptions, etc, and for sure they make macbook PROS for Aperture users ...riiiiiiight....