> All those pixels make for a luxuriously sharp picture. Text sparkles and images pop, and when you to switch back to a computer with a normal screen, your eyes beg you to reconsider. At least, mine did. Years of staring at bad screens has turned my eyes into ruined orbs, but now, finally, I’d encountered a computer display that was good to them.
I've been told by an optometrist that higher resolution may cause eye-strain and it makes some sense although I read that many prefer higher resolution displays. I can't find any reliable resources either confirming or rejecting my suspicions. Is this question settled yet?
Given a retina display aims to copy the sharpness we see in our every day lives from real objects, I would suggest it doesn't intrinsically carry a risk of tiring your eyes, in the same way as we don't get tired seeing all day long even though the edges of everything we look at are generally sharp. Rather in the sense of drawing on a drawing board, or reading books, ones eyes do get tired.
Given that OSes are in their infancy when it comes to giving us the tools to properly manage size and resolution, it could be that some tasks are more tiring than they used to be.
I would imagine he's comparing to the typical resolution changes on Windows where everything is significantly smaller. OS X scaling does much better at replicating a normal image, and personally I find it much more comfortable of an image to stare at for extended periods.
This speaks to something I predicted a few years ago: professional workstation machines will go up in price substantially as the economies of scale start to disappear for the major manufacturers producing them. The only way for them to build them sustainably will be to increase margins by raising prices. By 2016, we may be paying close to $4K for such machines.
First, the 5K iMac isn't a "professional workstation" by most measures. In particular, it doesn't include ECC RAM or a "pro level" GPU. I wish ECC would become ubiquitous across all PCs, but it looks like the industry is stubbornly leaving that as one of the few real "pro" differences.
That's not to say you can't do serious work with a regular PC, just that it's not considered sufficient for high-end engineering and science tasks, where a flipped bit could mean disaster. The specs of the Mac Pro fit the bill for that, along with workstations from other manufacturers like Dell and HP. Since all but the "pro" GPU are also server components, prices shouldn't go up appreciably, and in fact will probably continue to slide as manufacturing techniques improve.
High-end PCs will remain affordable, the components used for them have many uses and will be mass-produced in large quantity for the foreseeable future. One interesting area is displays, where it's hard to see smallish (48" or less) 4K TVs not encroaching on the computer display market heavily.
Maybe, maybe not. Economies of scale for many of the parts will increase dramatically, not to mention all the other economic factors (i.e. change in cost of transporation, manufacturing, etc) that you're not considering.
According to Amazons top 20 best selling laptops, Chromebooks do quite well. A Chromebook is in the second position and Chromebooks take up 6 spots in this list.
[+] [-] bko|11 years ago|reply
I've been told by an optometrist that higher resolution may cause eye-strain and it makes some sense although I read that many prefer higher resolution displays. I can't find any reliable resources either confirming or rejecting my suspicions. Is this question settled yet?
[+] [-] g_lined|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dippyskoodlez|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmagin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkarthik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElectronCharge|11 years ago|reply
First, the 5K iMac isn't a "professional workstation" by most measures. In particular, it doesn't include ECC RAM or a "pro level" GPU. I wish ECC would become ubiquitous across all PCs, but it looks like the industry is stubbornly leaving that as one of the few real "pro" differences.
That's not to say you can't do serious work with a regular PC, just that it's not considered sufficient for high-end engineering and science tasks, where a flipped bit could mean disaster. The specs of the Mac Pro fit the bill for that, along with workstations from other manufacturers like Dell and HP. Since all but the "pro" GPU are also server components, prices shouldn't go up appreciably, and in fact will probably continue to slide as manufacturing techniques improve.
High-end PCs will remain affordable, the components used for them have many uses and will be mass-produced in large quantity for the foreseeable future. One interesting area is displays, where it's hard to see smallish (48" or less) 4K TVs not encroaching on the computer display market heavily.
[+] [-] omarforgotpwd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _almosnow|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DominikR|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Comput...
[+] [-] ddoolin|11 years ago|reply
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2855768/why-chromebooks-are-s...
[+] [-] dippyskoodlez|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Elementchapter|11 years ago|reply
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