Rumor has it that Apple’s next generation MacBook Pros will receive a considerable makeover in the display department. It certainly wouldn’t hurt if other manufacturers followed the lead.When even tiny new ultrabooks and tablets are getting better quality displays with IPS (In-Plane Switching) and other high-end panels, many regular laptops are still shipping with low quality displays. This is of course most common in cheap laptops, but even a few otherwise high-end gaming laptops are getting the same treatment. At resolutions above 1366 x 768 this is rarely a problem, but this has become the standard, entry-level resolution and quite a few manufacturers are using 2nd-rate panels even for their more expensive laptops.
An educated guess is that the average consumer won’t stand for this much longer. Monitors with IPS, PLS and other high quality panel technologies are no longer only used by professionals and photographers, even gamers have started to keep an eye out for high-end monitors, as their old Achilles heel–the response time–has come down to completely playable levels.
Now DigiTimes reports that Apple might be shipping parts of their next MacBook Pro lineup with “retina” displays–in this case with resolutions as high as 2880 x 1800 pixels. This is a higher resolution that what you find in most large, high-end desktop monitors. Even the next iPad is expected to come with a high-res display.
If this is the case, Apple is once again leading the way in terms of bringing improved designs to consumer laptops. This will hopefully spur PC manufacturers to follow and hopefully at least dump the 1366 x 768 standard for laptops bigger than 14 inches. For those with more expensive gaming laptops with 1080p resolutions, this is not a big deal, but it would certainly improve things in the mainstream segment.
