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    Macbook screen quality?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by LeoLibby1982, May 31, 2015.

  1. LeoLibby1982

    LeoLibby1982 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have a Samsung now and the screen quality is bad... the colors are not vibrant, it is not crisp, and it sucks compared to my old Dell. based on what i've read, Apple AND Sony have the best screens. is this true? Retina displaY?
     
  2. mmoy

    mmoy Notebook Deity

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    I'd suggest going to an Apple Store and looking for yourself. I don't think that the MacBook Air screens are particularly good but I'm happy with my Retina MacBook Pro.
    The best way to determine for me is working on one for an hour. The pixel densities can help in clarity but everyone has different vision and what may be good enough for me may not be good enough for you.
     
  3. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    it depends on what you are looking for. as for color accuracy the rMBP it is decent but in with a huge cluster of 90-95% sRGB range panels in many laptops. yes there are far better screens yet as there are far worse as well. as where the Air is actually a fairly mediocre screen in this aspect by todays standards.

    Dell still has a very good screen in the M4800 and M3800 which is a bit higher gamut and resolution than the rMBP that I really like. Sony no longer makes computers at all and Viao is now a subset of a whole new company so I have very little information on them but you can ask over in the Sony forums.

    there are also some gaming laptops and portable workstations with 120 hz screens, and 100-115% sRGB gamut, as well as a couple 1080 screens with 160% sRGB Gamut ( 100% aRGB ) and 10 bit color which has to be seen to be believed. but in the end it comes to what you are looking for specifically.

    mmoy is right it never hurts to go look at them hands on if you can. sadly many of what I call the good models can not be seen retail.
     
    Algus likes this.
  4. roadracer247

    roadracer247 Notebook Consultant

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    Happy with my Mbpr's screen.
     
  5. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    The retina displays in the rMPBs are pretty good, you can do better, but you could do a lot worse. It won't look like some of the horrors certain OEMS cram into cheap Windows notebooks.

    Also, KCETech1 is right, some of the laptops/configs with good displays are hard to see physically since they aren't available in stores.

    From personal experience, anything with 85%+ sRGB will look ok. My Elitebook on the other hand has a 50~ish% sRGB display and it definitely looks washed out. It's ok to work on and all, but don't put it besides a good display or it will reek of disappointment.
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2015
  6. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Apple's Retina Display is definitely above average among all notebooks. It's superior to most of the screens found in typical consumer notebooks but inferior to the high color gamut displays in Sager/Clevo and professional workstation models.
     
  7. SeagateBoy

    SeagateBoy Notebook Consultant

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    retina has the best viewing angles from my experience and the color/birghtness/contrast are very good, you can find better of course but retina is above average, especially for viewing angles, though have to warn you that it does have lightbleed, my first retina MBP has severe lightbleed, my third and current one is OK.