What can you use the Retina display for besides looking at high rez photos?

your right but my point still stands that judging a screens color gamut should really only been done with ntsc standard as that is pretty much the norm for modern monitors

and macbook pro retina's ntsc color gamut leaves much to be desired

 

This is a matter of opinion of course and personal preferences or work requirements. I wanted this machine for work and play. It promises a decent portability and great screen real estate, I could fit 4 full screen Virtual Machines without touching and still see the task bar. But then I realized that I can't do that. My work stuff (which absolutely has to stay on the internal ssd) is over 500GB. Second, running 4-5 windows servers (with all the extras like SQL, Exchange, IIS, etc) parallel takes about 15GB RAM and I still need more. Which means, I absolutely need the option to have 32GB memory.

And the personal stuff. I love high gamut + matte screens and retina provides neither of those.

Exactly. If you're into photo editing you need to be able to cover 100% AdobeRGB, sometimes even more.

 

This isn't a fair assessment. You don't need 100% Adobe RGB just because you're into photo editing.

 

Well, if you're into developing a web content and need it to look good on average displays, - you're right. But if you are into pro photography - you need color depth.

Personal example, I don't do any color critical work but still desperately want a RGBLED screen. Why, because I was lucky to have one and quickly learned to appreciate its PROs. Every picture, photo and most games look so much more alive. I used to play King's Bounty for hours just because of the way it looked on a 30-bit IPS RGBLED. Can I use a regular screen? - 100%. Would I pay 500$ extra for IPS RGBLED matte panel? - 100%. But again, it's very personal.

 

You can't blame Apple though for restricting such restrictions. :| They probably didn't find the extra costs, for anything and everything, worth it if they catered to such professionals who require such specifications. They also probably assumed the MBP would be for the times when such professionals need to be on the move, and not be the main workstation. Since its main consumer pool is the average joe...

 

No it isn't. sRGB is the one and only relevant color space for 99% of users. For the remaining 1%, sRGB is still more important than NTSC. The problem with quoting gamut as a percentage of NTSC is that it doesn't tell you how well the important color spaces are covered. You can have impressive sounding numbers like 85% NTSC which don't provide 100% sRGB. It's specmanship.

Your current machine satisfies none of the above criteria except high gamut

Kidding aside, I agree there are people whose needs aren't satisfied by the MBP 15. But your previous point was about upgradeability. I still think upgradeability is over-rated, unless you're a gamer with a desktop rig. As long as you make a wise choice when buying and give yourself a little headroom (i.e. don't buy a MBA with 2GB and 64GB SSD) you're likely to replace the machine before you really need that memory or SSD upgrade.

No offense intended, but it sounds like you prefer over-saturated, hyper-realistic colors over accurate colors. That's a valid personal preference (and one that I share for gaming), but pros and serious amateur photographers will care more about accuracy because they are producing output for print or for viewing on other people's computers.

 

You can edit photos just fine on 99% sRGB. It is when you use pro CMYK printing that you need the extra gamut, and for that, it is not unreasonable to use an external, and probably larger display.

Even most consumer printers and scanners use sRGB.

And yes, I know of several displays that cover a lot of NTSC and even almost all of Adobe RGB, but they can not reproduce some key colors of sRGB, and thus, for 99% of people, make it a bad display.

And for someone to say that no one uses sRGB anymore is just flat out spreading misinformation.

 

That's why I'm looking for a new beast. I've been temporarily using our dev lab servers (remotely) but it's not super convenient as am not the only person in our company who needs access to those. But we do a lot virtualization on a daily basis, so I absolutely need all my dev environment to be on my laptop.

BTW, my current machine has 2TB of space and 32GB RAM but it's bulky and heavy (~7kg).

guess I'm in the 1% of those who need and want that upgradeability.

No offense, but it sound like you never owned a 30-bit IPS RGBLED screen You would then stop talking about oversaturation of colors. There's a huge difference between oversaturation and color depth (think of a significantly higher number of hues for every color). Take a Lenovo RGBLED TN panel (before calibration) and yes - the color look extremely oversaturated. But calibrate it properly and it will shine. Take a HP 8740W-8770W RGBLED IPS and pick sRGB/AdobeRGB - you will see
the difference. It's like looking at a highest quality photo from magazine cover. My M18x has a bumped saturation on it's screen but it can't substitute the lack of colors with higher temps, period.

Well, never mind.

We are talking about the Retina display here...

 

To answer OP's question: looking at high res ; or retina if you want to be technical.

 

All I see from this post...

>engineering
>considering Mac

Whaaa?

Sent from my HTC PH39100 using Tapatalk 2

 

Who makes the DreamColor panels for HP?

 

When you view content that was produced for the sRGB color space (the primary standard) on your wide gamut 30-bit IPS RGBLED monitor without first going through hardware calibration, configuring the OS to use the resulting color profile, and using properly color managed applications to view it, the result will be distorted oversaturated colors that don't look the way the content creator intended. But even if you properly calibrate the display and use the color profile in Windows correctly, the vast majority of what you see isn't color managed.

Most of Windows is not color managed, including the Windows Explorer shell, native UI elements, icons, the Windows desktop background, and Windows Media Player. Games are not color managed. Even web browsers are generally not color managed. Firefox is the only one with working support, and even then it only works for images tagged with an ICC profile unless you install an add-on. And HTML and Flash video in a browser will not be color managed. The default Windows image viewer IS color managed, along with Office, the Adobe suite and similar image processing apps. But that's about it.

The bottom line is that if you use a wide gamut display in Windows, most of what you see is objectively wrong. It may be subjectively pleasing in some cases if you like vivid oversaturated colors, but it's not accurate unless you're in a properly color managed app like Photoshop.

Starting in Snow Leopard, OS X applies color management to the UI, including the desktop, Dock, icons, etc. And Quicktime is color managed. So the situation is better than in Windows. But Safari still only provides color management for images tagged with an ICC profile.

Aside from the small number of users who are doing professional or serious amateur image work specifically for print output, the rest of us will enjoy objectively better color reproduction using a screen designed or configured for sRGB coverage than a wider gamut screen aiming at AdobeRGB coverage or greater. This is a case where bigger numbers aren't necessarily better.

 

Several people in this thread just got schooled.

 

Does anyone know whether VLC or Movist is color managed? If not, do you know which video player, that supports mkv and several other formats, have color management?

Thanks

 

Quicktime is color managed, and movist is based on Quicktime & ffmpeg. So if you choose Quicktime playback in movist, any format Quicktime supports should be color managed. I don't think playback using ffmpeg under movist is color managed. And pretty sure VLC is not color managed either.

Addendum: if you're using an Apple notebook, you shouldn't have to worry about this too much because Apple's displays are standard gamut.

Under Windows, the only one I know of is MPC-HC, which is an open source player based on mplayer2 (itself a fork of mplayer). It's basically mplayer2 with a Windows GUI that looks like the "classic" Windows Media Player. MPC-HC has optional GPU accelerated color management. Get it here:

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema

Notes on MPC-HC color management here:

ICC color management in Media Player Classic Home Cinema « Voxelium

 

watching porns at 2880x1800

 

I was waiting for that one

 

does it work? all the videos seem too low res...

 

dmk2, could you recommend a couple of LCD panels you have experience with? I have some Dell UltraSharp panels now and like the U2711 quite a lot.

I know I'll eventually need to replace the 24" panels I have so I am trying to think about what is next.

I don't need a professional grade panel. I do however like something above average.

Thanks!

 

you can watch several! muhahahahah

 

It seems .mkv doesn't work with Quicktime.

 

No AFAIK it doesn't unless you install perian. MplayerX (FREE - and I'm pretty sure its on app store) or VLC is the way to go on mac... although I recently purchased MOVIST (which is something I do very rarely i.e. purchase a software when valid free alternatives exist) due to its ability to run multiple subtitles at the same time in an easy to arrange manner. Performance seems to be better in Movist as well.

 

Depends on budget and usage. I'm assuming you want something with good image quality and color and not a gaming monitor.

An accurate sRGB mode is more important than a wide gamut. NEC PA241W and PA271W are very good in this respect and they have 10-bit internal processing. They go for about $800 and $1200 respectively. That's a lot to spend for personal use, but you get something almost as good as Eizo CG for 1/3 less money. The PA241W looks great to me without calibration and I assume the PA271W will be similar. These are good enthusiast monitors and are on my wish list.

On the more budget end, I'm familiar with the HP LP2475W, ZR24W and ZR2740W and the Dell U2410 and U2711 (also the 2408WFP but that's no longer available). HP improved the color accuracy a lot from the old LP2475W to the ZR24W, and the ZR24W is pretty good in sRGB mode right out of the box. Unless you're doing serious photo work, I think you can get away without calibrating it. I have an uncalibrated one at work and the only area where it's weak is dark shadow detail. The Dell U2410 looks bad to me out of the box and remains warm & reddish even after calibration. The U2711 has better color temp and the reviews say it's spot-on when calibrated, but I haven't seen one in person. FWIW, I read that the Apple 27" Thunderbolt display uses the same panel but with a different backlight and glassy front. Asus PA246Q also seems to be a popular choice but I don't know much about it.

Avoid e-IPS monitors like the NEC EA231WM, HP ZR2440w, and Dell U2412M. I'd rather have a TN, even with the limited vertical viewing angles.

Also, consider the ambient lighting level in the room. The NEC and Dell monitors are on the dim side and will look best in a dark room. When calibrated they are almost unusable in a bright room. HP are opposite, too bright in a dark room. Eizo's professional offerings are right on the standard.

Last but not least, it's worth noting that IPS panels don't provide the deepest blacks and have a sparkly, crystalline sheen that can worsen eyestrain in some people (myself included). So if color accuracy isn't the priority then you might be better off with PVA panel, or a TN for gaming.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to offer some suggestions. I will start investigating some of the suggestions soon.