![]() (Image courtesy Haotian0905, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) The big benefit to this increased pixel density is that text looks smoother, images look crisper, and edges no longer look stair-stepped.Īn example of Retina (top) vs. NOTE: You can view a similar report for your system by choosing Apple menu > About this Mac, then click System Report and look at the Display section. ViewSonic VP2776: A 2.5K monitor running at full (non-retina) resolution.LG HDR 4K: A 5K monitor running at 50% (“Retina”) resolution.Color LCD: The internal laptop monitor running in retina mode.Traditionally, monitors display 72 ppi.Īs an example, I have three monitors connected to my MacBook Pro (M1): MacBook Pro monitors (at least on my M1 MacBook Pro) display 144 pixels per inch. Some iPhones cram up to 458 pixels to the inch. The specific pixel density varies by monitor. Digital billboards that you view from your car have a very low pixel density because they are viewed from a great distance. The closer your eyes are to the screen, the closer the pixels need to pack together. When scaled to 1280 x 720 (50%), text and image quality matched that of a retina display though, obviously, the total resolution was much less.Ĭompare the fuzziness of the text in the Favorites bar – Retina (top) non-retina (bottom).īoth monitors are set to their default resolution. (Click to see a larger image.)īut, a hidden criteria in addition to pixel density is viewing distance. I proved this with the ViewSonic monitor which has a native resolution of 2560 x 1440. NOTE: While retina display monitors are generally thought of as 4K or larger, any monitor that can scale to 50% of its maximum resolution will look like a retina display. In other words, he defined a retina display in terms of pixel density which is measured in pixels per inch (ppi). He described the screen as packed with so many pixels that you could no longer see individual pixels when viewing the screen at a distance of 12 inches (30 cm). Retina display was introduced by Steve Jobs when he launched the iPhone 4. What I learned is that Retina is a registered Apple trademark, “ for which there’s no concrete definition: put simply, a Retina display is any screen Apple has decided to call that. But, what makes a monitor a “Retina display?” As I was writing my review of the ViewSonic VP2776 Color Pro monitor, I realized that there was a big difference in the quality of the display of monitors labeled “Retina display” compared to those that aren’t.
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