Can someone please help me understand the Macbook resolution?

[t.n.d.]

Hello,

I've recently purchased a 16" Macbook M3 Pro.

Can someone please help me understand these resolutions:

If I go up, some of them are even unbearable to see. What's the point? I'm speaking only for the Macbook's display perspective, not an external monitor.

(coming from a Windows laptop where switching between 1080p and 4k wasn't such a big deal)

 

[DKenn]

You might want a higher resolution!

Some people use high resolutions but with a increased text and app sizing. For example a many people have a resolution of 1920x1080 with bigger text and apps scaled to 150%.

 

[leman]

Uncheck "show all resolutions" and you'll only get the ones that make sense for most people. Different folks prefer different things.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Look up Retina screen explanations and you'll get a sense of actual display resolution vs. retina choices.

Windows readily scales its UI to any screen resolution. Macs are more finicky in terms of target resolutions for ideal viewing of the UI elements. Macs scale too but very specific choices tend to look best on Macs and the in-between options have visual compromises.

Some of this drives while 5K is slung around so much as ideal resolution for Macs vs. 4K which is abundantly available in many monitors. The "retina" targets generally require oddball resolutions, so we Apple people get to pay up for that instead of getting to take advantage of commodity-priced monitors at mainstream resolutions. 4K monitors will work but there are visual compromises per retina "ideals."

In general as you step upon resolution choices on Macs, UI interface elements will become smaller but you'll have more screen R.E. because everything is smaller. As you step resolution down, UI interface elements & text becomes bigger at the cost of more screen R.E. Choose a resolution that balances what your own eyes can comfortably see while getting as much screen R.E. too.

As #3 offers, do that and you'll have 5 simple choices for such options, instead of the many you show in your screenshot.

 

[arfung]

And, to make things a little more confusing for laptop people, Apple changed the "default" resolution in 2016, as explained here: https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/02/15-inch-macbook-pro-screen-resolution-blurry/

The old resolution is still the "default" setting for external (5k, at least) monitors - while the new default for laptop displays makes text and interface elements smaller than on the external screen.

I made this table of various laptops a while back:

12” MacBook (2015 on): 1280x800 (default is same number of pixels on screen as 13” MacBook Pro pre-2016, 217 DPI; pixel doubled would be 1152 x 720)

13” 2016: 1280 x 800 (114 dpi) [old default]
14” bigger: 1352 x 878 (~114 dpi) [old scaling and closest to external monitor]
13” 2020: 1440 x 900 (130 dpi) [new default]
14” 2022 default: 1512 x 982 (~127 dpi) [new default]

15” MacBook Pro Retina (2012 - 2015): 1440 x 900
15” MacBook Pro 2019: 1680 x 1050





27” iMac: 109 dpi (default scale) (218 dpi native resolution);

 

[Beau10]

Also to further confuse things, it appears that the higher than max resolutions are not HiDPI, which means they don't go through an upscaling and downscaling step that improves clarity and makes those resolutions actually useful in the cases where you need to increase your desktop in a pinch.

I'm able to do this with an app called BetterDisplay2, where it gives you a very fine grained step-up in multiple resolutions, as well as the ability to increase your screen brightness up to 1000 nits. Not an ad, just pleasantly surprised as this was functionality that seemed difficult if not impossible on Apple silicon that many of us used to w/ RDM (free) or SwitchResX (paid) back in the day on retina intel machines.

GitHub - waydabber/BetterDisplay: Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more!

Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more! - waydabber/BetterDisplay

github.com

 

[t.n.d.]

So supposedly I want to watch a 4k movie on my MacBook and I have the default resolution. Is there some downscaling happening there?

 

[bk125]

So supposedly I want to watch a 4k movie on my MacBook and I have the default resolution. Is there some downscaling happening there?

Not because you have the default resolution enabled. Your situation is a bit simpler than @arfung was describing above. One perk of the post-2021 MacBooks pro is that they display true 2x retina resolution (as opposed to the MacBooks Air, which still have slightly-less-than-2x resolutions and their content is resized. It's not easy to tell the difference, but your content at default is slightly sharper than on the 15" MacBook Air).

So your screen is 3456 x 2234, and a 4k movie will be resized to that resolution, pretty much regardless of whether you select a higher resolution than that or not.

But also, if you're burdened by that huge list, which I am by just looking at your screenshot, I'd encourage you to toggle off "show all resolutions," it doesn't help you, unless there's something very specific you're looking to do.