Apple just released the new MBP retina 15 which has even higher resolution than the Dell 30 inchers.....Is it good for playing poker on it?From the specs, it's got at least 256gb of SSD (which is good for running poker client and HEM) seems really good but what do you guys think?

You can't really build a better laptop than that as far as specs go. The price is borderline obscene but factoring in the retina display, it makes a pretty good argument for itself.

They have the Ultrabook type i7s in there which should be good on battery life and heat, but then they also stuffed a 650m video card in it for the opposite effect. They do have to push that high resolution so it's understandable why. 8GB 1600 memory, check.... 256GB SSD, check... I mean you can do poker or whatever else you want on it.

Provided they don't turn out to have some display fault or horrible overheating issue it's a pretty nice machine - the latter is something I'd check reviews for given how thin it is (0.71 inches).

Otherwise it actually seems reasonable, even for the price. The MBPs had a history of being somewhat behind the curve with hardware but that's not the case with this generation. It's still a few weeks from shipping so hopefully some tech sites with get their hands on it and put it through the paces a bit.

Talking about the $2,200 version. The $2,800 one is ass, basically the same processor at a slightly higher clock speed and a 512GB SSD instead of 256GB, not worth the markup.

You can't just increase resolution to compensate for shrinking screen size. A lot of poker players used the MBP for its 1920:1080 17" model. It is a significant drop down to 15". Yes, the resolution will enable you to fit more on the screen, but the tables could become tiny and a huge pain to have to read. Just because the resolution enables putting up 16 tables, doesn't mean they will be big enough to really use. Am I wrong here?

I dont know, I think you would have to see the screen in action to decide on that.

Apple are bigging up the real estate, I dont think they would release if the large res was useless because everything is too small.

as apple intends right now, it won't work that way:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5996/h...andles-scaling

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5998/m...splay-analysis

I mean the rest of the hardware is still nice and all, but the retina display is really what's supposed to set this apart. You can run out to two 30s but lots of new notebooks can do that. Right off their site:

But based on what I'm reading it doesn't do that res out of the box and is noticeably scaled at 1920 x 1200, from what AnandT article suggests anyway. If the that's the case... yikes. I guess see how it shakes out. It may be fine but obviously it's got to look good beyond standard res to make sense.

can somebody explain to me what "scaling" is? I'm confused...

It means they enlarge or shrink resolution. Displays look best at their native resolution and tend not to fare as well when operating outside of that.

Apparently this laptop is 2880x1800 capable, but you can't set it to that... so it's not really 2880x1800. They scale down to those other resolutions listed. It's native resolution is 1440x900 which should look great because each pixel is actually being generated by four pixels.

In other words, this looks like a really nice display, but it's 1440x900. It can go a bit bigger with some loss of clarity relative to native. How much, don't know.

^^still don't quite understand, but sounds bad?

If I wanted to install windows through bootcamp, would I need to pick up the external SuperDrive?

Are you sure? The article says

The scaling thing is only an option, as far as I understand. But I am a noob and maybe confusing things.

Also would very like to know how it is playable with 4-8 tables at this resolution, so maybe someone already can report his experiences?

from the first anandtech article:

If i install windows on this machine will it support retina resolution? Will i run into any other problems?

My guess is mountain lion will take a step towards resolution independence so everything will scale automatically and a hi res monitor will be sharper rather than just more pixels. Saw on in the store today and the body is basically as thick as a USB port. Amazing.

Not wrong, but not right. Certain Applications can be run in 2880x1800, like diablo 3. But you're right as far as the desktop is concerned.

Yeah I saw you could run Diablo 3 and Portal 2 at that res... but my thinking is this: If a person's going to lay out $2,200 for a MBP with a retina display, would they really want to run it at a res where it's effectively no longer a retina display? At least more than a small percentage of the time? x10 when you're talking about situations where you'd often run Windows on it, because there are nice IPS 1080s out there, same specs at half the cost. The distinguishing feature of this is the retina display imo.

It just seems like a missed opportunity. You can make these panels clear as day and very easy on the eyes, and yet you're not going to parlay that into more screen space? I know Apple is kind of committed with 16:10... even 1680 x 1050 would have been better though. Maybe they just couldn't get the panels made or something, who knows.

Then to compound that, and maybe suggest there is a problem getting larger retina type displays made, they apparently dumped the 17" MBP from the lineup. There has to be a fair number of mobile Apple users who need more real estate, but can't always out to a display. My notebook is an x900 res and it's tough to work with when I have to.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6008/w...ay-macbook-pro

The screen really is gorgeous. I am buying one to run Windows as soon as they get the drivers working.

im gonna have to go to apple store some time and see what it looks like in real life.

I'm thinking about getting one of these MBP's and run Windows from time to time. Are you saying the new MBP's just released (with retina display) won't run Windows well?

I'm sure it'll be just fine, it's just a couple of drivers to knock out. So apparently they're in retail stores already on display? I know the Apple site says a few weeks but are they actually for sale somewhere? If not some of these minor fixes might be in by the time you can actually purchase one.

I've been hitting the local Apple store at opening every morning this week with no luck. On Tuesday they got 4 in and I'm not sure if they've received any more. They have display models out though. Haven't spent much time with them though what with needing to get back to work and all...

Anyone got one yet? Estimated shipping time from the website is four weeks...

I ordered one after going finding out our big Apple store didn't get any shipped to it last week. I'll try calling them again and see if any are getting delivered before trying to get to the store at opening. Try to get one before my mid July delivery date.

sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread, but I was wondering if the the markup for the retina isn't worth it, what about the MBP 15'' 2,3gHz vs 2.6 (the 2.3 only has 4gb ram which seems kind of little...). Ill be using it almost exclusively for poker and like surfing web and uni. I don't really see the point in getting the retina. Also: if im using 2 monitors at home (for poker) anyways is the 15'' or the 13'' one better? I travel quite a bit so size matters, but performance for poker is very important too. I also dont want to buy a new computer in like 1,5 years...