Macbook retina display gaming review

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Performance across both versions of the chip is absolutely fantastic and a huge leap over the already rather incredible M1. This will be a huge boon to anyone who has to get edits done on a plane, where a power outlet is annoyingly lacking. Gaming has never been a strong point for MacOS computers and that remains the case here. You can see the respective benchmark scores of both the models on offer below.

I did a test on a Intel MacBook Pro as a comparison and the fans revved up almost immediately in the same task. I did get the fans to kick into gear when playing Football Manager for an extended period. Battery life has impressed me throughout my time with both the inch and inch versions of the MacBook Pro. In short, the inch model mine had the M1 Pro performed better than the inch M1 Max. Apple claims the inch can last for around 21 hours of offline video playback; I was able to match this, if not beat it, on multiple occasions.

Again, sticking with the more basic tasks such as web browsing in both Chrome and Safari , word processing and the like, both models easily lasted a typical working day 9am to 6pm with plenty of battery life to spare. I rarely bothered taking my charger into the office, and never worried about checking I had it with me in the morning. Coming from an intel Mac, this is very much a change. I killed the battery of the inch MacBook Pro with around six hours of the processor-intensive Football Manager When it comes to recharging, you have two options.

Included in the box is a MagSafe charger, which will be familiar to those who used MacBook Pros before the redesign. Accidentally trip over it and it comes free. By default, the base inch comes with a 67W charger, while the specced-up versions up that to a 96W charger. The inch models all come with W plugs. The MacBook Pro is a wonderful, expensive and hard-to-ignore laptop. From the reintroduction of some vital ports to the stunning Mini LED display and the wide array of powerful internals on offer, this is a fantastic machine for all those who are willing to part with the cash.

For those who want a laptop for word processing, browsing, Netflix and emailing, this machine is overkill; the MacBook Air M1 is far better choice. Simply put, this is the best laptop I have ever used. Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.

These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real-world checks, such as how well it runs the most frequently used apps. We also make sure to use every laptop we review as our primary device to ensure our review is as accurate as possible.

Honestly, no. The notch hides a much-improved webcam and blends into the background in most instances. We reviewed both the M1 Max and M1 Pro chipsets. See below for the benchmark results. Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct. We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work.

Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. Founded in , Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy. Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1, products a year. In this article… 1. Verdict 2. Availability 3. Key Features 4. Introduction 5. Design and Keyboard 6. Screen 7. Performance 8. Battery Life 9. Latest deals Should you buy it? Final Thoughts How we test You might like FAQs Trusted Reviews test data Full specs Jargon buster Share:.

Cons RAM upgrades are expensive. Key Features. Size Dimensions. MacBook Pro inch Cinebench R Geekbench 5 single core. Geekbench 5 multi core. CrystalDiskMark Read speed. CrystalMarkDisk Write Speed. Apple M1 Max. Apple M1 Pro. Sign up for the Trusted Reviews Newsletter News, competitions and exclusive offers direct to your inbox. Sign up Terms and conditions.

How we test Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life. I used both inch and inch versions of the laptop. Tested both M1 Pro and M1 Max versions with real-world and synthetic tests. Used as main laptop for over a month. Gemma Ryles 2 days ago.

BT Hybrid Connect Review. David Ludlow 2 days ago. Razer Kaira for PlayStation Review. Tom Regan 1 week ago. Tom Regan 2 weeks ago. Roccat Burst Core Review. Rosario Blue 2 weeks ago. What's hot: Slim, light, fast and that Retina display! What's not: Expensive, parts not upgradable. Editor's Note, Oct. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display has only been out a few days, yet it hardly needs an introduction. It's put together as perfectly as you'd expect from an Apple product and it looks stunning in a quiet and tasteful way.

Still, it's as close as we'll get to a 15" MacBook Air at the moment, and the MacBook Pro with Retina display is more than twice as fast, placing it squarely in the Pro class among MacBooks. But the biggest change is the Retina Display, a term we're familiar with on the iPhone 4S and new iPad. What exactly does Retina mean on a computer where resolution is tied to how much you see on screen spreadsheet cells, words per page in a document or web page?

Mac OS X now increases pixel density for the Retina, so you're getting ppi rather than the usual ppi. Regardless of the resolution you select under display scaling, it's rendered with 4x the pixels per inch of other notebook screens. That makes for noticeably sharper text and images that pop. In usable desktop workspace terms, the resolution setting works as it does on any other Mac or Windows PC.

OS X refers to anything other than "Best, Retina" workspace equivalent to x with high dpi rendering that uses x pixels as scaled resolutions. Select scaled resolutions to change your workspace resolution. What I really like are the display options for various higher scaled resolutions rather than being stuck with the lowly x standard 15" MacBook Pro resolution. You can run it at x an optional upgrade resolution for the standard 15" MacBook Pro or x and it looks great.

Yes it is because no one has ever done this with computer displays. It might make more sense to describe it as x at ppi vs. But the display itself isn't just marketing fluff. Thanks to Apple's high dpi technology, you'll get more pixels so things look sharper at any resolution. Even x runs at hidpi: if you use the Grab app to take a screenshot of the entire display, it will be x even if the assigned scaled resolution is x The sharper bit only holds true if the app supports the Retina display.

Otherwise text will look like its old fuzzier self and images won't have that extra bit of detail. Likely more apps will follow and we'll see Retina display optimization for a wider selection of software. At the right we have two screen shots taken of the Chrome web browser not Retina enabled and Chrome Canary Google's beta browser with Retina support so you can see the difference.

On the actual Retina display, it's not as distinct a difference, but it's still noticeable. The Retina optimized app has sharper fonts with no jaggies while the non-optimized app looks fuzzy on close inspection. The longer you use the Retina display, the more non-Retina displays and apps look sub-par.

It's not the Emperor's New Clothes: it's for real. In the end, I think the x option will attract high res 15" MacBook Pro shoppers, as will the x option attract former 17" MacBook Pro shoppers Apple didn't refresh the 17" laptop and it's on the way out since relatively few folks bought it.

There's more good news. IPS means wide viewing angles and Apple claims significant glare reduction since they use two rather than 3 glass panels in the display assembly. I hate glossy screens, and didn't expect I'd like the Retina's still glossy panel, but when I started using it in normal room lighting, I completely forgot it had a gloss panel. It's no mirror and reflections aren't a distraction. Above: Chrome web browser, below Chrome Canary that's Retina optimized.

Mac OS X does an excellent job of automatically switching to dedicated graphics, unlike some Windows notebooks, and will always use dedicated graphics if you connect an external monitor. You can override graphics switching by unchecking the graphics switching option in settings the machine will then only use dedicated graphics. The base model comes with 8 gigs of RAM and you can order it with 16 gigs of RAM, but you can't upgrade the memory yourself because it's soldered to the motherboard.

In terms of do it yourself upgrades, the Retina Mac is similar to the MacBook Air: pretty much nothing is upgradable. The notebook has Broadcom dual band WiFi The base 2. You can order it with a 2. We suspect that Apple wants customers to move to the Retina model, and will likely offer the Retina display in other Mac notebooks in the future.

This is a fast workstation. Even if you go with the base 2. Web pages render instantly it helps if you have a fast Internet connection to download web pages quickly too. Apple's iMovie, not the fastest at exporting and converting video among apps due to the slow Quicktime engine, can export AVCHD video to MPEG4 at the rate of 2 minutes per each minute of actual video footage a 10 minute video exports in 18 minutes. Diablo III runs at fps at x resolution x is broken in Diablo III as of this writing and current demanding 3D Windows titles run well at x and x under Bootcamp.

As you'd expect, this is one of the fastest Mac notebooks yet. Processor: 7. Want to see how the laptop handles serious gaming? Diablo III is optimized for the Retina display, so you'll see x resolution options in-game here.

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In terms of do it yourself upgrades, the Retina Mac is similar to the MacBook Air: pretty much nothing is upgradable. The notebook has Broadcom dual band WiFi The base 2. You can order it with a 2. We suspect that Apple wants customers to move to the Retina model, and will likely offer the Retina display in other Mac notebooks in the future.

This is a fast workstation. Even if you go with the base 2. Web pages render instantly it helps if you have a fast Internet connection to download web pages quickly too. Apple's iMovie, not the fastest at exporting and converting video among apps due to the slow Quicktime engine, can export AVCHD video to MPEG4 at the rate of 2 minutes per each minute of actual video footage a 10 minute video exports in 18 minutes. Diablo III runs at fps at x resolution x is broken in Diablo III as of this writing and current demanding 3D Windows titles run well at x and x under Bootcamp.

As you'd expect, this is one of the fastest Mac notebooks yet. Processor: 7. Want to see how the laptop handles serious gaming? Diablo III is optimized for the Retina display, so you'll see x resolution options in-game here. Note the game audio and the audio when playing video in our general video review: it's full and loud. Great for gaming! You can run Windows on the Mac using Bootcamp for a dual boot setup, or you can use virtual machines there are several or the popular Parallels.

When running Bootcamp, you'll have the full Windows experience in a dual boot scenario. Apple has a driver pack for Windows 7 that takes care of everything you'll need with one exception: as with prior Macs, Windows doesn't get access to Intel integrated graphics. That means shorter runtimes under Windows. Heat and fan noise weren't an issue when running Windows relative to other high-powered 15" laptops, and it plays current 3D titles fluently.

The Retina has the processing power of the HP Envy 15 a star What's the display situation in Windows? You'll get standard resolution options without pixel doubling. After you install Windows 7 and Apple's driver pack, the machine boots up at x Check out our video below. Though the Mac does admirably in Windows 7 and the clean install makes for even better speeds, I'm not convinced this is the ideal machine for those of you who want to run Windows all the time.

The drivers are quite good but the lack of Intel HD graphics support means shorter runtimes and more heat Apple blocks Windows from accessing Intel graphics. As a Mac user who laments the narrow selection of pricey notebooks Apple offers us, I'd pick one of the many fine Windows notebooks in a heartbeat if Windows were my only OS.

The selection of sizes, prices and designs is simply tantalizing to a Mac user. The Retina Mac's battery is sealed inside and it's a bear to replace because Apple has glued it in. Retina displays use more power, and just as with the new iPad, the MacBook Pro with Retina display has a bigger battery to ensure runtimes don't decrease from the outgoing model and updated Pro notebooks.

Manufacturers are highly optimistic about their products runtimes, but in the case of the MacBook Pro Retina model, Apple's not far off. In a mix of productivity uses, we averaged 6 to 6. If you're editing and exporting video, expect noticeably shorter runtimes. If you're running Windows, you'll be stuck with dedicated graphics and runtimes will decrease by 2 hours. This is Apple's first machine with a MagSafe 2 charging connector.

Apple claims they had to redesign the connector to fit this skinny Mac, but I'm not convinced since the MacBook Air with MagSafe 1 is even thinner. I do miss the right angle connector that takes up less space. A Pro workstation that weighs 4. A laptop that walks circles around the 13" MacBook Air also refreshed with third generation Intel processors? A more portable 15" MacBook Pro. One of the most portable 15" notebooks on the planet, regardless of operating system? For those of you deciding between the MacBook Air and the Retina Mac, keep in mind that the Retina is significantly larger and heavier.

It's certainly more portable than the standard 5. MacBook Pro, but it's no Ultrabook. If you need a powerful computer on the road, it's hard to beat the MacBook Pro with Retina display assuming you can stomach the price. If you want huge processing power and insanely extreme portability, it's hard to match the Sony Vaio Z model that has a Display: Switchable graphics. Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable, sealed inside.

Performance: 2. Some legacy applications that don't use fonts built in to OS X look downright horrible on the new Retina display, with jaggy text often accompanies by low-resolution images. Two applications in particular are sorely in need of an update for the Retina display are the Google Chrome browser and Steam, Valve's digital storefront and launch center for games.

Presumably, this and most other software will get the necessary update in due time. But for professional users, particularly those who work in graphic design, the lack of Retina support for third-party applications is a glaring problem. Another downside to the Retina display is many sites on the Web look worse because they do not push enough pixels in their images.

Any low-resolution content on the new MacBook Pro immediately stands out as an eyesore. But these issues are temporary matters that will be forgotten quickly as Retina display support becomes the norm. Just as native iPad applications appeared blurry and poor on the third-generation iPad, in just a matter of weeks Retina display support had come to many of the most popular applications on the App Store.

Here's hoping the same will happen with the Mac. Apple says the new MacBook Pro gets up to 7 hours of wireless Web browsing, while with the lid closed in sleep mode, it offers up to 30 days of standby time, with its built-in watt-hour lithium polymer battery. For our own battery test, we looped p high-definition video through iTunes on the machine in fullscreen mode with Wi-Fi enabled and connected, brightness at the default setting, and no other applications running in the background.

Under this scenario, we achieved battery life of about 6 hours and 15 minutes. In this test, the machine ran quietly and its internal fans never engaged to run the high-definition movies. Remaining cool and silent, the MacBook Pro performed well in the battery stress test, and the numbers suggest that Apple's own estimate of 7 hours of less-strenuous Web browsing is probably accurate.

It's also worth noting that the new MacBook Pro also has a new, thinner MagSafe 2 power port, which means users with devices like a Thunderbolt display will need to buy an adapter to allow compatibility with older MagSafe accessories. With the new MagSafe 2 port, the power cable sticks out of the MacBook Pro at a right angle, rather than the previous design that was flush with the machine.

We found this design change to be a minor annoyance. This is the same Lion most users already know and love, but Apple's patchwork updates to the system, adding higher resolution application icons and updating native apps to higher resolutions, are merely a stopgap update to the operating system until the release of OS X Luckily, users who buy the new MacBook Pro or any new Mac, for that matter will receive a free upgrade to Mountain Lion when it launches this summer.

The new MacBook Pro launches at an awkward time when Apple's notebook lineup was sorely in need of an overdue hardware refresh, but Mountain Lion is oh so close to launching. While Retina display support is not a new feature in Mountain Lion, the next-generation version of OS X will add new functionality, improvements and refinements that will help take this next-generation MacBook Pro to the next level.

Lion's performance on the new MacBook Pro is greatly aided by the inclusion of solid-state flash storage standard. This gives the next-generation notebook an Air-like lightning fast startup time, as well as instant-on capabilities when returning from sleep. Once you become accustomed to flash storage, there is no going back to a traditional, slower spinning hard-disk drive.

One strange change with Lion on the new MacBook Pro is users cannot select a specific resolution. Whereas before the amount of pixels displayed by OS X could be selected, now users are just given the options of "Best for Retina display," or "Scaled. By default, the middle option for "Best Retina " is selected. This change is understandable, as Apple obviously wants to move away from confusing resolution settings that might bewilder the average user. But having said that, this is a notebook with the word "Pro" in its name, and it's fair to assume that some professionals who work with a machine like this might want a greater degree of control over the display resolution.

Aside from this, Lion has been sufficiently modified to support the new MacBook Pro's Retina display. The system fonts, dock icons and native applications will immediately stand out and show off the improvements that the Retina display can provide.

The new MacBook Pro is the best notebook Apple has ever built to date. Its Achilles' heel, if it could be called such a thing, is its price. That day isn't here yet, which is why there is only one inch model for the new Retina MacBook Pro. But if you want that future today, you're going to pay the price.

While the entry-level next-generation MacBook Pro has gigabytes of flash storage, the inch legacy model has a slower but larger gigabyte RPM hard drive. In our view, the additional cost and the concessions made for the new design are worth it. The only question that remains is: Can you afford it? AppleInsider , through its sponsor MacMall, is offering the lowest prices anywhere on new MacBook Pros with the coupon code. A man has pleaded guilty to reselling almost 1, MacBooks stolen by employees from Tesla, and major universities, and will be sentenced to up to 10 years in jail.

A second report from analysts has confirmed Apple has enjoyed a growth in Mac shipments in the first quarter of , with Gartner reckoning U. Here's how the identically-priced workstations compare to each other. What desktop Mac you buy is an incredibly personal decision, driven by workflow as much as it is by financial considerations. Fortunately, there are wide varieties of machines you can buy at any price point.

Here's how to pick. Whether you're an avid crafter or starting your own small business and want to handle the merchandising yourself, Cricut machines can help create some truly impressive projects. Here's how each model compares to the next, and which one you should check out. We pulled our Thunderbolt Display out of storage to compare it against Apple's all-new Studio Display. Latest 'Shot on iPhone 13 Pro' video highlights Singapore's chicken rice war.

New iMac Pro and M3 iMac coming, but not in Apple warns developers it will pull apps without recent updates from the App Store. Crime blotter: Amsterdam mayor honors survivors of Apple Store hostage standoff. Playdate is a new gaming console from the beloved Mac development studio Panic.

It's small, has a metal crank, and is unlike any console we've played to date — and we love it. Apple is expected to release a new Mac mini in the fall of with a complete redesign, M2 or M2 Pro processors, and more ports. Here's everything that's been rumored so far, and what it may look like. Even though Apple doesn't include a coffee maker category within HomeKit, there are still ways to automate your daily brewing process. Here's how to create a smart coffee maker with Apple HomeKit.

Amidst all the other updates in the last year, Apple has forgotten some of the products in its portfolio. Here are five things that we think Apple should show some love. Siri Shortcuts enabled verbose voice control so this robot can mop and vacuum your home before cleaning itself after.

Satechi's Magnetic Wireless Car Charger is a great piece of kit to add to your ride and is a perfect iPhone companion when paired with wireless CarPlay. Mujjo has historically produced some of the finest leather cases around. Its latest lineup for iPhone 13 is as good as ever but still lacks support for Apple's Magsafe — which may be a dealbreaker. Casetify has just opened the waitlist for its first-ever Star Wars collection, set to drop on May 4. We got to test a few of the products early, including a pair of iPhone cases.

Toggle navigation. AAPL: Overview and design. Retina display. Above: Text as seen in Google Chrome. Below: Text optimized for Retina display in Safari. Battery life. Wrap up. Score: 4. How to Save When Buying.

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Nyx honey dew me up primer	However, the new MacBook Pros have Liquid Retina XDR displays that can achieve variable refresh rates of up to Hz, so you'll need a monitor with at least a Hz refresh rate if you want it to be as good as your MacBook's display. There's minimal throttling under load, and while the keyboard can get a little uncomfortable due to heat, the fans don't get very loud. It looks nearly identical to its bigger brother, the Apple MacBook Pro 16and it feels equally well-built with a full aluminum chassis. Replaceable Battery. That's impressive, although it does come with a corresponding increase to power consumption, so running the macbook retina display gaming review at over nits all the time isn't advisable on battery. There's a notch at the top of the display to house the camera, but it isn't noticeable if you have a dark background. It also has a wide color gamut, making it suitable for content creators.
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The MacBook Pro's audio prowess extends to the dual microphones, which employ beam-forming technology to cut down on ambient noise. We confirmed that this feature works as advertised by recording a video in Photo Booth on both this notebook and the MacBook Air with a noisy air conditioner fan running in the background.

On the Pro, we only heard our voice but on the Air we heard the constant droning of the fan. This feature will not only make FaceTime calls more pleasant but voice dictation more accurate in Mountain Lion. Click to Enlarge Springy feedback, plenty of travel and evenly backlit keys. That's pretty much what we look for in a great laptop keyboard, and the MacBook Pro's shines.

We typed this review in complete comfort, thanks in part to the large palm rest, even if the Return and Delete keys are on the small side. As with other MacBooks, direct action keys line the top row for doing everything from adjusting the brightness and volume to activating Launchpad or Mission Control. More advanced users will appreciate firing up Launchpad pinch with thumb and three fingers and Mission Control four fingers up via gestures on the high-quality glass 4.

Not surprisingly, we also found two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom to be smooth and responsive. Once Mountain Lion rolls out, you'll be able to launch Notification Center with a two-finger swipe from the right edge.

Click to Enlarge Apple has kicked older technologies to the curb in favor of more forward-looking connections on the MacBook Pro. No more DVD drive here. For those who still require an optical drive, Apple updated its non-Retina MacBook Pros as well Instead, you'll find two high-speed Thunderbolt ports on the left of the chassis to accommodate blazing peripherals, as well as two USB 3. The left side also houses a trimmer new MagSafe 2.

A SDXC Card slot also lines the right side, though we're not a fan of the card protruding from the side of the notebook. Click to Enlarge The built-in p FaceTime HD camera on the MacBook Pro fared well in our testing, delivering a much sharper picture than the Air's standard-def camera under the same conditions.

In our hotel room with fluorescent lights, the Pro's footage looked somewhat dim but clear. The Air's recording was downright fuzzy. When we introduced natural light we could easily make out the dark circles under our eyes bummer. You barely notice them at first, but the bottom of the new MacBook Pro has airflow vents on either side to keep the new MacBook Pro running cool.

Do they work? One thing's for sure: Apple has paid great attention to noise; asymmetrical blades spread out the frequency of the whirring to keep the notebook quiet. During our testing we could barely hear the system working while editing an HD video clip in iMovie. Unfortunately, during our standard heat tests playing a Hulu video at full screen , the space between the G and H keys reached degrees Fahrenheit.

That's well above what we consider uncomfortable. The center of the bottom was borderline, at 95 degrees, while the touchpad was a cool 82 degrees. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display literally gets off to a good start with its higher-speed flash memory. The system booted in just 15 seconds, compared with 17 for the Air, and resumed from sleep in 1.

In other words, you can get back to work almost as soon as you lift the lid. But how hard will this laptop work for you once it's on? Apple stuffs the MacBook Pro with a 2. When you don't need the extra oomph, the Pro uses automatic graphics switching to drop down to Intel HD Graphics All of these components translated to a blazing benchmark performance.

On Cinebench The inch MacBook Air scored just 2. The last-generation inch MacBook Pro scored 5. So you know it's a good sign when this notebook is surpassing full-fledged gaming rigs. The flash memory is no slouch, either. We transferred 4.

The inch Air took 8. For a real-world test, we batch opened 13 images in the Pixelmator photo-editing app. The MacBook Pro took 5. In the GPU portion of the Cinebench Even better, the Nvidia GPU was able to provide strong framerates at the full x pixels. With everything maxed out, we averaged 41 fps. Knocking effects down to low--but still keeping the screen Retina resolution--we averaged 84 fps. By ditching a mechanical hard drive in favor of flash memory, Apple's engineers squeezed a larger watt hour battery inside the MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

The other inch model sports a As a result, this notebook offers impressive endurance for its size. This runtime is an hour longer than Apple's 7-hour claim. The non-Retina MacBook Pro from lasted a longer , but that notebook isn't nearly as powerful. The Acer Timeline M3 turned in a shorter runtime of , and the average thin-and-light notebook lasts Only then will you be able to enjoy handy new features such as Notification Center, deeper iCloud integration with apps such as Messages and documents in the cloud, and the ability to share content via Facebook and Twitter from multiple apps.

In the meantime, this OS X notebook delivers on Lion, including intuitive multi-touch gestures and Mission Control for quickly switching between apps. We're talking about a mammoth fill-rate requirement here from what we have established is a mid-range part. However, as it happens, we came away pleasantly surprised. With both OS X and Windows 7 installed, we could finally put the display tech through its paces with a fairly decent cross-section of titles. It's safe to say that full Retina support is still somewhat thin on the ground, but there are some interesting native resolution titles out there, with Blizzard leading the way.

Diablo 3 is a bit of a disappointment though: the intricately detailed visuals are a perfect match for the display, but frame-rate is poor - operating around 20 frames per second, but varying considerably. We were pleasantly surprised with StarCraft 2, however. On default settings at Retina resolution, we played through several campaign missions and came away impressed; the game was perfectly playable and truly shined at full resolution.

There did appear to be a little disparity in quality levels between terrain textures and the units, however. Other titles we tested in the OS X arena were not so impressive however. Aspyr has patched many of its titles to support the x resolution, but games like Duke Nukem Forever and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare required substantial cutbacks on visual quality settings to get decent performance.

Games like this also present further issues in that they were never designed to run at such a high resolution in the first place - the net result is that the sheer precision of the Retina display brutally highlights low polygon counts and poor quality textures, even with all the settings at their maximum level. Actually having to pare these back in order to make the games reasonably playable doesn't do the games any favours making them interesting, but disappointing demos for the machine.

One interesting element to note is that these low-poly titles still reveal noticeable jaggies in high contrast areas, so some form of anti-aliasing is still required, even on a display designed so that individual pixels cannot be discerned by the human eye. However, further testing on new titles threw up an interesting observation: cheaper post-process AA in combination with the extreme pixel count appears to be up to the task of eliminating aliasing in a very pleasing manner, with the sub-pixel artifacting associated with the technique very difficult to pick up on.

Moving onto our Windows test subjects, we met with rather more success. With Batman: Arkham City, we dropped down quality settings to DX9 medium, invoked a touch of FXAA we used the low quality setting and found that the game is eminently playable at full Retina resolution with frame-rates hovering around the 30FPS area. This quality setting retains dynamic shadows while turning off most of the other graphical bling, but the generally high detail level in the core artwork shines through at the Retina level.

Gradually turning on the settings doesn't seem to impact overall frame-rate that much, but appearances are deceptive: continue gameplay and consistency in the experience takes a massive hit - sudden lurches down to 8FPS definitely aren't helpful and overall we found the global medium preset to be the best bet. Skyrim also proved pleasantly surprising. We tweaked the medium quality setting to remove multi-sample anti-aliasing, utilising FXAA instead, and upped anisotropic filtering up to 4x.

This allows you to enjoy full Retina resolution with a 30FPS update: better than console performance and with far superior visuals. The real issue to consider about Retina gaming is whether the trade-offs in frame-rate and quality settings warrant the undoubted benefits of the x display. In this series of comparison shots, we take our medium setting Retina games and compare them to the same title running at x with quality bumps.

We've left the FRAPS counter active on the top-left too to give you some general idea of performance. We also tested Ubisoft's Rayman Origins. The game is based on beautifully rendered 2D artwork with some lovely animation, meaning that it's one of the few games to run at p60 on both Xbox and PlayStation 3. Bearing in mind the leap in processing power the Retina Macbook Pro represents, it's no surprise that we were able to run the same game locked to 60FPS at the full x pixel count.

We aren't pushing the state-of-the-art here in terms of game technology, but on the Retina display, the game looked simply phenomenal. While we got more performance at the Retina level than we expected, there were some unmitigated disasters too. We gave Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 a run-out, both running at the absolute lowest quality settings we could muster. While Crytek's epic showed some signs of being able to reach 30FPS in isolated areas, the experience was a subFPS disaster for the most part, and BF3 proved equally non-cooperative.

The Retina display also did a great job in highlighting the visual compromises DICE has made on its poverty-spec settings, and dialling back resolution in favour of higher quality is obviously the way to go in playing this game the way the developers intended.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. While the ultra-high resolution of the screen is obviously a major selling point of the new hardware, it's worth pointing out that the screen has many positive points over and above its pixel-count. Colour reproduction and viewing angles are simply stunning - and that remains the case if you're operating at native resolution or below. Also, the machine appears to scale imagery remarkably well.

Initially we thought that running at quarter resolution - x - with 4x multi-sampling enabled may be the best way to use the Retina MacBook Pro for gaming. It's certainly a viable option, but we also found that the scaler was more versatile than we imagined, and to our eyes x with FXAA was the sweet spot for performance, visual options and overall image quality.

So is this truly the best computer Apple has ever made? We think so, and as an all-round performer, it's probably the best laptop on the market right now - as you would hope for what is an extremely expensive piece of kit. While we feel that the In terms of the core interfaces between man and machine - keyboard, trackpad and display - this is the best experience we've had with any laptop we've tested. It's a phenomenal achievement and it's the first and only machine we've tested that could potentially work as a mobile replacement for our in-house workstations.

However, when it comes to gameplay, there is a slight sense of imbalance to the machine: the quad-core i7 in this unit offers something close to premium desktop performance but due to the thermal limitations of the thin unibody chassis, the graphics core is a mid-range component offering exactly the kind of power you'd expect: decent enough, but a little lacking for a machine this expensive.

The choice of GPU pitches the Retina MacBook Pro very much as a device geared to home computing and productivity tasks, rather than a state-of-the-art games machine. However, as long as you're realistic about quality settings, you can play any game on this machine, but you'll be relying on lower resolutions and upscaling to achieve playable frame-rates. That said, the fact that we can play games like Skyrim, StarCraft 2 and Batman: Arkham City at the extreme resolutions this laptop offers is a very pleasant surprise - and there are times when the whole package comes together with a sense that you truly are getting a taste of the future of gaming on cutting-edge display technology.

The only real disappointments we have with the new Retina MacBook come from the complete lack of upgradability. Proprietary screws stop you from getting inside the machine, but once you do get inside you quickly discover that the RAM modules are soldered into the mainboard and the SSD form factor is unique not just to Apple, but to this particular model. This means you need to get your parts choice right at the purchasing stage, where upgrades cost a small fortune.

That's incredibly expensive, but if you're buying this with content creation in mind, it's the one upgrade you probably shouldn't skimp on. Overall then, the next generation MacBook Pro with Retina display is a stunning piece of technology and the best all-round performer we've tested - and while it's fine for gaming, at this price there are much stronger products out there.

At this price-point, its appeal will be limited - specifically to those who require desktop power and productivity on the move - but going forward, the future of Apple's laptop line-up looks bright. The combination of a Digital Foundry specialises in technical analysis of gaming hardware and software, using state-of-the-art capture systems and bespoke software to show you how well games and hardware run, visualising precisely what they're capable of.

In order to show you what 4K gaming actually looks like we needed to build our own platform to supply high quality 4K video for offline viewing. So we did. Our videos are multi-gigabyte files and we've chosen a high quality provider to ensure fast downloads. We think it's a small price to pay for unlimited access to top-tier quality encodes of our content. Thank you. Find out more about the benefits of our Patreon. Despite some flaws, unique options and solid emulation earns this tiny retro console a DF recommendation.

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