Tag Archives: Retina

Samsung WQXGA+ Laptops with Higher Resolution than Retina MacBooks?

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The competition between Samsung and Apple is heating up again with the launch of Samsung’s new 13” WQXGA+ laptop. The South Korean giant has brought the big guns at this year’s Society for Information Display’s Vancouver convention. Samsung is quite keen on showing off the laptop’s 3200 x 1800 resolution display screen which is more than a match to Apple’s current Retina displays which are pegged at just 2880 x 1800.

e7605 Samsung WQXGA Laptops Samsung WQXGA+ Laptops with Higher Resolution than Retina MacBooks?

The 13.3” laptop that Samsung currently has on display has a WQXGA+ LCD screen with the aforementioned pixel resolution, has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and boasts of 276 pixels-per-inch. That’s more pixels per inch than Apple’s Macbook Pro 13 which has 227 PPI and Google’s Chromebook Pixel’s 239 PPI. The company was quick to point out that despite the high-res display, it’s more energy efficient and uses 30% less power than the panels currently out in the market. Samsung further explained that it was able to achieve this by using less “driver circuits” and making the “LED BLU” more efficient.

Aside from the information on the screen resolution, Samsung didn’t discuss anything else about this new laptop. But Samsung did mention that it also has a 10.1” WQXGA LCD for tablets, an 85” Ultra HD LCD TV panel and a Full HD 1080p AMOLED display in the works.

Kuo: New MacBooks at WWDC, Lower-Priced iPad mini, No Retina mini Production Until October

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bbf2f MacBook Pro Retina Thumb Kuo: New MacBooks at WWDC, Lower-Priced iPad mini, No Retina mini Production Until October

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that Apple will introduce new models across the entire MacBook lineup at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Previously he has stated he didn’t expect Apple to continue offering non-Retina display machines, but has changed that outlook.

75029 macbook retina Kuo: New MacBooks at WWDC, Lower-Priced iPad mini, No Retina mini Production Until October

9to5Mac:

Kuo expects all the new models to be bumped up to Haswell processors, expected to give a modest performance bump in the 7-13 percent range, with likely a much better boost to battery-life, though we don’t expect this to be anywhere close to the 24-hour life theoretically achievable …

Kuo is sticking to his earlier prediction of no Retina display version of the MacBook Air, saying Apple cannot as yet achieve a Retina version at the MacBook Pro’s price point and size.

Kuo also suggests a new lower-cost iPad Mini priced in the $ 199 to $ 249 range, which would allow Apple to compete against the numerous cheaper Android tablets.

“Prior to iPad mini 2 launch, Apple might roll out a more affordable iPad mini to compete with Android products. To cut costs, Apple might push for lower component prices, use a more advanced process to produce the A5 processor, simplify metal casing production, remove the rear camera, cut storage to 8GB and find more component suppliers to lower costs. We think this cheaper iPad mini retail for US$ 199~249.”

AppleInsider reports that Kuo is also saying screen yield issues will prevent Apple fro producing a Retina display iPad mini any time before October.

Kuo says that he doesn’t believe an “iPad mini 2″ would go into mass production before October. Apparent production issues associated with packing enough pixels into the device’s 7.9-inch display to qualify it as a “Retina” screen are cited.

“We think Apple will stay competitive in the tablet market over the long term as it releases new and exciting products,” he said. “But with product launches pushed back and competition getting fiercer, Apple and the iPad supply chain will have to wait until (the fourth quarter of calendar 2013) for significant growth.”

Twitter for Mac Updated With Retina Support, Improved Photo Sharing, and More

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Twitter Mac Thumb

After nearly two years without an update, Twitter has finally released a significant update to their official Mac app, adding Retina display support, significantly improved photo sharing, support for additional languages, a newly redesigned compose window, and more.

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From the Twitter blog:

Today we’re announcing a few improvements to Twitter for Mac:

  • Photos: It’s easier than ever to share photos. Simply click the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the Tweet compose box, and choose a photo to share. If you prefer, you can still drag and drop photos from the desktop.
  • Retina display support: Now Twitter is even more vibrant and detailed on the highest resolution Mac notebooks. With this update, Tweets will be clearer and sharper, creating a more vivid experience.
  • 14 more languages: In addition to English, Twitter for Mac now supports Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.

Along with these updates, Twitter for Mac offers keyboard shortcuts, support for multiple accounts and timelines, and other features that you’ve come to love.

In addition, Twitter notes that there are more improvements to the app in the works, and Twitter for Mac tech lead Ben Sandofsky notes that he will be taking a break from Twitter’s iOS app to put more focus on Twitter for Mac. That’s great news for fans of the app – and a sure sign that it won’t take another two years to see the next update!

Twitter for Mac is available now for free from the Mac App Store.

Twitter for Mac (direct link)

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iPad’s Retina LCD Can Connect To A PC With This Cool Hack

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63b47 Retina Thumb iPad’s Retina LCD Can Connect To A PC With This Cool Hack

This might just be the best quality screen that a PC can run on. Hacker emeryth managed to hook up a PC to the panel of a Retina display iPad, creating one heck of a nice image (via Macgasm). Wowzers!

Be warned, it is a complicated process reserved for only some of us, as you’ll see below.

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emeryth:

What is great about this panel (except its resolution) is that it has an eDisplayPort interface (which is supposed to replace LVDS in the near future), and as this hack proves it is compatible  with traditional DisplayPort outputs found on all modern video cards.

The panel is also surprisingly cheap – I got mine on ebay for $ 55, shipped from China. 

Hoping that eDisplayPort is compatible with regular DisplayPort (I couldn’t find conclusive proof of this), I went on to interface the panel with a DP cable. 

Creating the PCB was fairly straightforward, I just had to route all the FPC connector pins out to pads where I would solder DP cable wires. It was possible on a single-sided home-made board.
I tried to make the traces for DP lanes to be of the same length (that’s very important for high speed differential signals), and as it turns out, either my PCB design is pretty good, or DisplayPort is very forgiving. :)

Soldering everything was a little difficult, the FPC connector has tiny pins, but they stick out a little bit, so it’s doable with a regular soldering iron.

After the PCB was done, I cut open a DP cable and soldered all the wires in their places.

Unfortunately there is no standard for wire colors, so I had to open up the DP plug to trace them to the correct pins.

The full diagram of the circuit board is available on github, and if you know what you’re doing, this could be pretty cool and cheap.

2a981 7QOXLr4FaHk iPad’s Retina LCD Can Connect To A PC With This Cool Hack

Retina MacBook Pro Battery Life Increases 20+ Minutes With OS X 10.8.3

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060b4 Mountain Lion Thumb 100x100 Retina MacBook Pro Battery Life Increases 20+ Minutes With OS X 10.8.3

As a refreshing change of pace, we have news of an Apple update actually ADDING battery life to one of their devices. The Mac Observer has performed extensive tests on the final build of the recent OS X 10.8.3 update and has found that it adds 20+ minutes of battery life for Retina display MacBook users.

ae725 10 8 3 batterylife retina Retina MacBook Pro Battery Life Increases 20+ Minutes With OS X 10.8.3

The Mac Observer:

We decided to also run tests on our 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display (rMBP). We privately tested each beta build of 10.8.3 on both MacBooks as they were released and, starting with build 12D76, we saw a noticeable jump in battery life on the rMBP. Running time went from 398 minutes, which was roughly the same as the public release of 10.8.2, to 421 minutes, a change that persisted with the final build.

Other MacBook models, such as an 2011 MacBook Pro, and a 2011 13-inch MacBook Air didn’t show a similar increase, so the joy seems to be restricted to those lucky owners of Retina display MacBook Pros.

Sure, 23 minutes might not seem like a big deal, but it could be just enough juice for you to get a project finished while away from an AC outlet. Or yes, more than enough extra power to post numerous tweets about your MBPro’s longer battery life.

More details are available at The Mac Observer website.