Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 (Early 2015) First Impressions

[Redaktion]

Encore une fois. Apple's workhorse in a compact 13-inch size goes in the next round. An overview of the most important modifications: New Force Touch touchpad, update to Intel's Broadwell CPU including an Iris Graphics 6100, faster PCIe-based SSD, and a bigger battery. We are putting the 2015 model through its paces, and present our first results to bridge the time until publishing our complete test report.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-13-Early-2015-First-Impressions.139364.0.html

[mrright]

So WTF?

I called you out on that "sRGB space is completely covered" claim in the previous review of Air. Now you say how this is the same display and obviously the sRGB color space is not even close to being completely covered.

And how come when Asus or Clevo get almost 90% illumination uniformity you call it poor, but these Macs are always around only 80% and still they are great according to you?

Seriously, you should just put up a permanent sign that says "sponsored by Apple"

And pixels per inch is a totally meaningless measurement. On anything that's 15'6" or smaller no resolution will ever look better than 1920 x 1080.

You either have to use non nativer resolutions so things don't look to small, or you have to scale everything to about 200%. The end result is the same as using non native resolution. It just does not look better than native 1920 x 1080. Stop bullshiting everybody with this nonsense.

[Andrey Konstantinov]

mrright, you are wrong about resolutions past FHD on 15.6" not making a difference. I own a 15.6" FHD laptop (Asus N550JV) and I regularly assist MBP Retina 13/15 owners. The difference is easily noticeable, and not just in a side-by-side comparison - MBPR is sometimes the first screen I see after not touching my laptop for hours and I'm immediately aware of how much sharper the content is compared to what I'm used to. Perhaps you can't see it. That's fine - that means you can save money when buying your next laptop! For me the difference is not also big enough to invest extra cash, but it's definitely present. Naturally, you have to scale things, but the higher the DPI is, the more pleasant they look.

[Klaus Hinum]

@mrright
This is not the same display as the Air, but as the previous MBPr13. The size of the coverage is automatically included in the display rating. Same as the illumination uniformity. How the reviewer describes it, depends also on the visual look (like light leaks that are not captured by our measurements).

"sponsored by Apple", always funny, we didn't even got the review sample from Apple as I guess our reviews are not enthusiastic enough for their PR.

And High-Res screens under OS X works better than using windows. Look at our original Retina reviews and other sources on the web to get an idea. Except from the performance penalty it pretty much is the ideal solution (unlike the Windows way).

[mrright]

That is what I meant. I followed the link to the same display ( mac book pro )

And yes I am 100% right. I have a laptop with those new 4K sharp igzo panel, and I have one of those high gamut AUO screens with 1920 x 1080 native resolution. I also see retinas my friends have.

The native 1920 x 1080 looks sharpest. I'm not saying that the IGZO 4K is not sharp, but it's not any better than AUO just because it has more pixels per inch. Once you scale things advantage is lost.

Mac also looks just like any other decent panel, nothing special about it.

People who say that retina looks sharper or better than native 1920 x 1080 on a 15' 6" windows display are using crap displays to compare it with.

By the way you just reviewed a Dell XPS and say that it's not suitable for professional use because it covers only 81% of sRGB. That is exactly the same as your Mac, yet Mac is suitable for pro use.

I can't be the only person seeing the inconsistencies here.

In any case my 4 year old laptop with 95% Adobe RGB coverage is better than any of those, ultra high res., IPS or not. The only reason my newer laptop has that 4K igzo panel is because that one has the best overall brightness/contrast and color coverage so I was forced to go with that.

It's unfortunate that manufacturers are trying to outdo each other with higher than HD panels. It's all just marketing. Anything over 1920 x 1080 on 15'6" or smaller displays is just marketing bullshit.

[Andrey Konstantinov]

mrright, what sort of a 4-year-old laptop with 95% AdobeRGB coverage do you have? :o Genuinely curious...

Anyhow, this:

The native 1920 x 1080 looks sharpest. I'm not saying that the IGZO 4K is not sharp, but it's not any better than AUO just because it has more pixels per inch. Once you scale things advantage is lost.

does not make any sense. Why is the advantage lost once you scale things? Klaus is right: scaling on Mac OS (and Ubuntu, in my experience) works differently from Windows, you don't lose anything: objects are the same size but much sharper. The whole point of high-resolution screens is not to provide you with "more screen estate" (that's ridiculous, things get tiny) but to make things sharper and thus easier on your eyes.

Then again, I also have clients who claim they can't see a difference between 1080p and 768p...

[mrright]

No, the only purpose of higher resolutions is marketing.

You don't need anything higher than 1920 x 1080 on a 15'6" screen.

You know that things never look quite as good if you use non native resolution. Upscaling is basically the same thing. You are using native resolution but you are upscaling everything so it doesn't look tiny. In the end the best you can hope for is that it looks about the same as if you had a good 1920 x 1080 panel in the first place.

AUO B156HW01 v4 is the 95% adobeRGB gamut screen, matte, also very accurate and very bright. Unfortunately they don't make it any more. Retina display looks like s*** next to it. The only advantage to having a retina display is that you can see your reflection well enough to shave in front of it, you know in case of some kind of emergency.

Dreamcolor is the best display you can have. That AUO is the second best. The rest is just marketing s***, IPS, 4K and so on. The Sharp IGZO 4K is good, but I prefer the AUO.

[ghest]

You have mentioned in your review that you used Safari for battery life testing. On the recently unveiled Dell XPS review you haven't specified if you used native IE or non-native Chrome for web browsing test. Chrome has battery bug in Windows and the browser choice makes a big difference. I ask that you be more transparent and disclose the used browser.

[Andrey Konstantinov]

You don't need anything higher than 1920 x 1080 on a 15'6" screen.

You know that things never look quite as good if you use non native resolution. Upscaling is basically the same thing. You are using native resolution but you are upscaling everything so it doesn't look tiny. In the end the best you can hope for is that it looks about the same as if you had a good 1920 x 1080 panel in the first place.

Again, maybe you don't need it. And you are completely wrong, perhaps upscaling works the way you say it does in Windows, but not in Mac OS. It definitely doesn't look the same as when you have native FHD, it looks better.

The rest is just marketing s***, IPS, 4K and so on.

Oh so now IPS is also "marketing s***"? Right... let's enjoy horrible viewing angles... you do realize that most people don't need even 60% AdobeRGB while viewing angles and resolution make a massive difference for non-graphic-design work comfort?

[mrright]

Obviously you are used to crap displays on the windows side.

I am talking about a really good 1920 x 1080 display like dreamcolor or the AUO I have. They look better than retina at any resolution. It's not even close.

I'm sure I would see the difference too if I had some s*** display, but I don't.

Yes IPS is s*** too. The AUO I have is fine with viewing angles. They aren't much worse than a really good IPS panel.  IPS is mostly just marketing too. People assume IPS is better which is far from the truth. IPS does not automatically mean good color coverage and accuracy, nor does it mean you get deep blacks. In reality most of the time you get a s*** panel with better viewing angles and slower response. That's about it.

[Leven]

You're clearly in denial.

I do have a 1920x1080 AU Optronics made highly praised screen on my L502X. It covers all the Adobe RGB spectre, has a fine contrast ratio and yada yada. I also happen to have a rMBP. You can't compare the two of them. You simply can't. Simply because a difference of nearly 50% more pixels per inch in the MBP makes everything sharper.

The AUO display on my XPS looks great, but the rMBP's is just on another league when it comes to sharpness.

If you happen to see no difference between a 141 PPI 15.6" screen and a 220 PPI one, I'd honestly recommend paying a visit to the ophthalmologist.

[Andrey Konstantinov]

mrright, as I said, I'm using an Asus N550JV, and its LG Philips screen is just as good as the NBC review shows - matte, 0.2 cd/m² black level, 1410:1 contrast. And like Leven said, the difference we're talking about here is sharpness. Imagine an AMOLED panel like on the Galaxy Note 4 - infinitely high contrast, perfect black, precise colors, nearly 100% AdobeRGB. Imagine it's FHD and 15.6". Now, get this: it will still lose to QHD, QHD+ and UHD screens of the same size on sharpness. And if the competing screens will have even remotely decent contrast and color accuracy, they'll be more pleasant to use, excluding graphics design tasks. That is the difference I notice between my screen and those on MBP Retinas - not contrast, brightness, colors or anything else.

As for response time, not everyone is a gamer. Besides, below a certain point (which most modern IPS panels are) most people just can't tell a difference between 5 and 10 ms. I certainly can't (same games on my laptop and a desktop with VA screen).

I'm aware that panel type doesn't necessarily reflect its true qualities. (Someone who reads NBC isn't? :D) However, in most cases you do not get good non-IPS panels. At all. If it's TN, it's almost guaranteed to be low-contrast garbage with narrow viewing angles and mediocre to horrible color accuracy. Even an average IPS panel easily beats that in routine use. And you don't get Dreamcolor (which is also IPS, FYI...) in the price range MBPr sells for (excluding maxed out configurations).

Dreamcolor and screens like your AUO with full AdobeRGB coverage certainly have their place, but for most users, a simple high-PPI IPS panel is more useful. They don't need fast response time or 95-100% AdobeRGB. Sharp text and good (slightly better than Dreamcolor, in case of this MBPr) colors, though? Any day.

[DreofheBay]

This is a whole lot of talk regarding a laptop display. The retina look great. If you are sitting in a normal position using a 13" display it works great, 
Balanced color....good screen
4 K is bull and only for people who like to brag about numbers. Looking at lower res images on a 4K makes it look much worse .