No Crappy TV Screens on Apple Notebooks: MacBook Pro
Just before I jot this down I just want to record that I don’t own anything Apple. Nothing. Not an iPhone, iPad, MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air. It’s mainly just that I work in the corporate environment and big companies don’t, and have never, used Mac computers. Certainly not in the mining industry anyway. They use Windows-based PCs.
Having got that out of the way . . .
Almost all of the Windows PC manufacturers are now fitting what are basically 16:9 TV screens to their domestic market notebook computers. Even the screens being sold with desktop computers these days by names such as HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, and Asus are the cheaper lower-resolution 16:9 TV screens. They do this to keep the price down. A 15” 16:9 HD TV screen is about half the price of a similar resolution 15” 16:10 screen.
It helps that about 95 percent of people buying Windows-based PCs—notebooks and desktops—have no idea whatsoever about screen quality, usage, and resolution. They see that sticker on the notebook that says Full High Definition screen and that is good enough for them, even though that so-called Full High Definition screen actually has a lower definition than a basic 16:10 computer monitor would have. But, technically, it really is a Full High Definition screen—it is just that it is a Full High Definition TV screen; not a High Definition computer monitor.
I see adverts in catalogues for 27” Full High Definition computer screens and I shake my head. These are just your normal crappy 1920 x 1080 16:9 TV screens tarted up to look like they are a computer monitor; but they aren’t.
Well Apple don’t do this shit!
As far as I know, but I am NOT an Apple expert, all the screens on all Apple computers are actual-factual computer monitors and if it is a wide-screen monitor it will be 16:10 and it will have a respectable computer monitor resolution. Ever heard a Mac owner say something like “I just love the screen on my Apple notebook?”. Well there is a very good reason for this.
Take, for example, the recently released MacBook Pro. This new MacBook Pro has, yep, you guessed it, a 16:10 2800x1800 monitor.
The thing with Apple is that they know that 95 percent of buyers don’t know what they should be buying to get the best experience, so they work it out for you. The screen on the MacBook Pro is 15.4” so they could have easily got away with slapping a 16:9 Full High Definition screen on there. But did they. No! No way! They put a proper computer monitor on it and to hell with the extra $400 or whatever it adds to the price.
It is okay for people like me who understand this stuff. When I bought my Toshiba Tecra A11 notebook about two years ago I was careful to pick that model because it had a 16:10 computer monitor for the screen. But about 90 percent of all the other Toshiba models don’t. Ditto when I buy screens for my office. I pay double the price and I get actual 16:10 computer monitors—and it is worth every extra dollar.
When people see my Tecra A11 or my office screen and they remark how amazing the screen looks it is not because of the make it is because I made sure I bought a 16:10 computer monitor and not a 16:9 Full High Definition pretend computer screen that is really a TV screen. When you buy Apple you don’t have to worry about working this out because Apple have done it for you. They are working to give you the best experience without you having to know all the metrics and dynamics yourself to make sure you buy the right equipment.
So I just want to say, even though I don’t own one, good on Apple for maintaining the standard and not building to a price.
