I think Apple is doing a great thing by pushing up display resolutions. I can't believe that PC manufacturers still REFUSE to produce laptops (at least consumer grade) with any resolutions higher than 1366x768.
I've been watching consumer laptop sales for a year and the only one I've seen with a higher resolutions is a 17" beast. Luckily I got a 15" Macbook Pro from work with a 1680x1050.
Everyone's known since the iPhone 4 that Apple would do a hi-res Tablet display, but PC manufacturers still refuse to innovate and put in hi-res displays in their laptops.
I refuse to try to write code with only 768 vertical lines.
I think the opposite is true--Apple's laptops actually have much lower resolutions than some other options. The 13" laptop I'm currently using (which is even lighter than an Air) has a 1600x900 resolution; if I had been willing to order online they would have upgraded it to 1920x1080 for free (but I am not a patient man and at 13" that's a bit of overkill).
If Apple releases a retina screen Air, I would seriously consider getting it. If they make one about as heavy with a high resolution and a 15" screen, I'm definitely getting one unless it has a slow SSD or is really incompatible with Linux.
Personally, I would prefer to be able to still buy laptops (or any monitor for that matter) with a more "square" ratio.
I have a new laptop with a 1366x768 resolution but my older P4 laptop with 1280x1024 (or thereabouts) is much more pleasant to write code (or write anything) on. Those extra 266 vertical pixels just make all the difference especially when you have so many toolbars etc.
I don't understand why everything has to be widescreen now, it may be preferable for movies but that's surely not the main use case for a computer. That's what a TV is for.
My year-old Dell XPS-15 has a 1920x1080 display (15") and is fairly "consumer grade". Granted it was an option, but still. Actually I have a problem with this screen - the font is too small (windows doesn't rescale automatically).
That's interesting to know. Still, considering the hundreds of models of laptops available, it's a very very small percentage that offer anything other than 1366x768. The Macbook's minimum resolutions is 1440x900 and they offer 1680x1050 as an option.
I've been watching consumer laptop sales for a year and the only one I've seen with a higher resolutions is a 17" beast. Luckily I got a 15" Macbook Pro from work with a 1680x1050.
Everyone's known since the iPhone 4 that Apple would do a hi-res Tablet display, but PC manufacturers still refuse to innovate and put in hi-res displays in their laptops.
I refuse to try to write code with only 768 vertical lines.