How are Macs' screen resolutions going (or “Why wouldn't I buy the 11-inch Air”)

One thing many people must think about, but few externalize, is how confusing computer screen resolutions can be. Dr. Drang highlighted the chaos of Mac displays, whether they are portable or desktop, and thanks to him I can now explain mathematically why I wouldn’t buy the 11-inch MacBook Air (although it’s very, very tempting).

Mac resolution table - Dr. Drang

Look at the table above and see the trouble: seven different pixel densities, ranging from 102 to 135 pixels per inch. And what does Mac OS X do to deal with this? Nothing! The real problem then arises: you never know the actual size of a font displayed on the screen, and the higher the density, the smaller the interface objects get. I run away from the 11-inch MacBook Air, because its screen too good for my short eyes.

Apple was very concerned with the display of interface elements in the transition to the Retina screens of iPhones and iPods touch, so that text and images were the same size as they were in the "old" resolution. Just that, on the Mac, things are a bit messy: the interface of an iMac 21.5 ″ looks ~ 30% bigger than that of a MacBook Air 11.6 ″, and that makes a lot of difference when reading a document or website .

Do we only have to use the zoom or accessibility options of Mac OS X?

(via Daring Fireball)