[quote name='samoth' timestamp='1343998145' post='4965828']
Now, a quick Google on Retina tells me that there is for example a program called "Firefox", and another one called "Chrome" which both need to be rewritten to be "native" (excuse me? do they run under an emulator or something?), so they render at the same quality as their competiting program "Safari".

[sup][citation needed][/sup]?
[/quote]

I'm not sure what you want a citation for, but this is what the two browsers look like under the default display settings (you may need to expand the image to see the difference). OS X is weird.

EDIT: Well, that didn't work. Let's try this instead:

[citation needed]?[/quote]
It was some article on some "Apple hype" page... typical, type in the same search keywords a day later, and you couldn't find the same page again if your life depended on it...

Found another one though, which I think shows it very well: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shakataganai/7488671526/sizes/o/

Yeah, that's weird. Why isn't it treated the same as any other resolution display?
i.e. add more pixels to the screen, pixel-sized elements get smaller, number of pixels to a 'screen unit' (points, em's, etc) gets larger?

Yeah, that's weird. Why isn't it treated the same as any other resolution display?
i.e. add more pixels to the screen, pixel-sized elements get smaller, number of pixels to a 'screen unit' (points, em's, etc) gets larger?

Probably because pretty much everything is pixel-sized in practice. Even if you run Safari in the "retina" mode, the fonts do what they're supposed to, but the images, flash, etc. all need to scale up too to stop from breaking stylesheets and such, and this is pretty ugly.

I've found the most satisfying way to use it on both Windows and OS X is not to use any kind of scaling at all (which can't be done by default on OS X), although I imagine for people who can't read the text this is not really an option.

[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1344153384' post='4966295']
Yeah, that's weird. Why isn't it treated the same as any other resolution display?
i.e. add more pixels to the screen, pixel-sized elements get smaller, number of pixels to a 'screen unit' (points, em's, etc) gets larger?

Probably because pretty much everything is pixel-sized in practice. Even if you run Safari in the "retina" mode, the fonts do what they're supposed to, but the images, flash, etc. all need to scale up too to stop from breaking stylesheets and such, and this is pretty ugly.

I've found the most satisfying way to use it on both Windows and OS X is not to use any kind of scaling at all (which can't be done by default on OS X), although I imagine for people who can't read the text this is not really an option.
[/quote]

Hey cows; good to hear you have experience using it under windows too. Im considering getting one, mainly for programming purposes and fermi development, under windows.

Ive heard very mixed and strong opinions about the experience. My eyes are only so-so, so running without scaling does not seem like an option to me. Ive tried using win7 dpi scaling on my current macbook, and that looks fine to me though; sure, especially if you pick weird scalings, your text will look a tad fuzzy; but even on my current meagre resolution that does not really bother me, and I doubt my eye would notice at all with pixels more than twice as small.

Generally speaking, I do worry that this retina display is kindof in the uncanny valley of retina-ness. You can not really go scale independent with a pixel size that you 'just cant see'. Findamentally, if you want to go fully scale independent, you need to supersample your eyes resolution at least a few times to avoid aliasing. A UI border that was hardcoded as one pixel is going to look funny remapped on 1.5 pixels, there is no way around that. To truely make the leap to from a world where one pixel is the smallest thing you can see, to one where pixels dont matter, you dont need another factor two, but another factor 8 or so.

Thats all theory though, and I think ill be one of the people who like the retina just fine in practice. Worst come to worst, ill pay the same as for the new macbook, run it in half res, and do not have to carry around a optical drive i havnt used in a decade anyway.

I think id rather have the new dell, if it didnt have such shitty thermal design, but if you want a kepler and you are allergic to alienware-type aesthetics, it seems macbook is the only viable option at the moment.

If youve got any more thoughts on the matter, please let me know!

If youve got any more thoughts on the matter, please let me know!

I feel the same way you do on pretty much every point which is why I have a MBP. To be honest I'm a little disappointed with the screen, but that is because I was caught up in the hype. Is it a great screen? Yes, absolutely. But quality wise it's in line with what I'm used to seeing on top end Windows laptops. As far as the resolution on windows goes, it depends. I'm not running bootcamp because I had issues with Windows 8 crashing, but it runs great in a VM. When using a VM, it's best if the guest and host have the same resolution selected and I find that 1920x1200 works great on both the OSX side and under Windows 8.

[quote name='Eelco' timestamp='1345719525' post='4972538']
If youve got any more thoughts on the matter, please let me know!

I feel the same way you do on pretty much every point which is why I have a MBP. To be honest I'm a little disappointed with the screen, but that is because I was caught up in the hype. Is it a great screen? Yes, absolutely. But quality wise it's in line with what I'm used to seeing on top end Windows laptops. As far as the resolution on windows goes, it depends. I'm not running bootcamp because I had issues with Windows 8 crashing, but it runs great in a VM. When using a VM, it's best if the guest and host have the same resolution selected and I find that 1920x1200 works great on both the OSX side and under Windows 8.
[/quote]

Perhaps I am missing some restriction of the VM; but wouldnt DPI scaling be superior to non-native resolution? Or do you find that the resolution of the retina makes non-native feasible? I suppose there is something to be said for it; at least some elements on your screen will get remapped anyway, so having the same look applied consistently looks easier on the eye?

I heard someone say that remote desktop is basically useless on the retina, since it does not do DPI scaling. Do you have any info on that? Might be a bit of a hyperbole, considering cows says the native res is ok for everyday use.

Native res is ok, but you can feel the squeeze in apps with a lot of toolbars like VS. As far as DPI scaling goes, it really depends on what you mean by native. We went over this earlier in the thread, but by default it renders everything as 1440x900, and as long as the VM uses 1440x900 it looks great. If your OSX uses 1440x900 and you try to use the VM at 1920x1200 the text looks like garbage, but you can go all the way up to 2880x1800 in the VM and it looks fine.

Remote desktop from the VM works like normal, but I'm not sure what it looks like if you use the OSX version of remote desktop. I did find that some applications simply don't work on retina yet. I used Jing to take screenshots / create videos, but the area you select on screen isn't what shows up in the video. This is due to the was OSX renders the display. When you're 1440x900 it renders the screen at 2880x1800. When you're at 1920x1200 it will render at 3840x2400. When you take a screenshot you get the higher res image and most 3rd party screen grabbing applications simply don't know how to handle it yet.

I am using bootcamp rather than VM at the moment, but as a matter of fact I do not remember why I chose that over a VM. Is your choice of bootcamp/VM influenced by the retina?

I am using bootcamp rather than VM at the moment, but as a matter of fact I do not remember why I chose that over a VM. Is your choice of bootcamp/VM influenced by the retina?

I would be using bootcamp, but Windows 8 RTM had issues and was not stable under bootcamp.