It’s not merely a question of a registry adjustment or a driver. I don’t design OSs for a living, but I can imagine there are quite a few things involved in making the experience a smooth one. Apple has had that capability in place for quite some time, I doubt MS could just release a patch and everything will work hunky dory.
ETA: And like I said, there is a retina-capable laptop out there that will run Windows - the MBP Retina. AFAIK, Microsoft has not yet released a Windows update to fully support its capabilities.
Even Desktop resolution stalled and then retreated a few years ago. I bought my 2048x1152 monitor on clearance a few years ago. Last year I was looking for a second monitor and could not find one higher than 1080p.
There is some improvement, I just looked on a big online retailer and they had 14 monitors (7 at 16x9 aspect ratio) over 1080p. That is out of an inventory of over 333 monitors. As monitors have gotten bigger pixel density has shrunk a lot though even integrated graphics hardware has grown much more powerful.
I think the reasoning is evident in your statement - some very large part of the market doesn’t want some arbitrary vertical resolution, they want HD. Or have been told they do; I’ve never done a comparison of fullscreen HD on a 1080 vs an 1152 or 1200 vertical rez monitor.
Not to dispute anything you said, but IMHO computer screens and TVs are two completely different animals. Maybe I’m different than most people, but I would never watch a movie on my 21" computer monitor when I’ve got a perfectly good 40" TV in the living room. I don’t see why my computer screen should be defined by a resolution that, for the purposes I use it for, is just as arbitrary as any other. You are probably correct, though.
The number of people who use a computer for all media seems to be growing exponentially, especially in the last few generations of the college crowd that lived curled around a laptop for four years. So that market is there, and I think the 1080 resolution might be both a convenient mass-manufacturing point (for laptops, monitors and TVs), and a trendy sell point (oh, look, it’s TEN EIGHTY!)
For myself, I watch a lot of movies on my iPhone even when I have a projection screen used for TV that gets me the equivalent of about a 70" TV. Why? Because I can lie down on either side, roll around to my back or stomach, stand up and walk around, etc. When I’m watching on the projection screen, I pretty much have to sit.
demand. the demand for a high-res screen isn’t big. most people were fine with their 1033x768 res laptop screens before they heard about the “retina” display. and the portion of people that even knows what “retina” display actually refers to is quite small.
new manufacturing processes. when new screen technologies are developed, they start off with the large screens that attract the uber-wealthy early adopters. such is the case for $30,000 4k TVs. these early adopters help finance the technology and make it more widely known.
we’ll see a 4k desktop monitor this year…at an out-of-reach for most consumers price point. if you’re looking for 4k res laptop monitors, i’d predict we’re still 3-4 years out for affordable, but the technology is being used this year for high-end products.
To answer the OP, the main reason is cost. People don’t want better laptops, they want cheaper. When I was shopping for a laptop, most were <$1500. The only ones >$2000 I could find were Alienware, Sony or 17" models. Using a high resolution screen not only costs more, it makes the laptop appear worse - “slower”, shorter battery life. In a time when manufacturers are cutting costs like crazy (of the 4 new computers from Dell, Acer, Sony and Lenovo I’ve handled in the past 13 months, only 1 came with a DVD, and none came with OS DVDs), a high resolution screen is a huge expense.
It’s like why packaging sizes decrease instead of increasing prices.
It’s not ALL screen. Cards and processing count too. We run Megapixel cameras on lightweight laptops and I carry both a MacPro Retina and an Asus Zenbook. Some people prefer the Asus. Don’t know the numbers offhand.
Super hi rez laptop monitors are rare because the only widespread need for a screen that has higher resolution than HD video is high-end gaming, CAD, or visual arts. And in those cases, the laptop is usually underpowered for those applications with regard to graphics chip and RAM and power.
Dell does this on at least some laptop models - the 1920 x 1080 Studio 1558s are set to 125% font scaling by default. However, in addition to the simple font size change, there’s a registry change to change the size of the login box, and all of the pre-installed bloatware has been either qualified or modified to work properly at the higher resolution.
But they have no control over software they don’t pre-install. A lot of software makes incorrect assumptions about the size of text vs. dialog boxes / buttons. This can cause things ranging from simply visually unappealing (text that overflows buttons) to stuff that makes an application unusable (if an essential dialog box falls outside the area the app is using for the window, you simply won’t be able to use that dialog).
For a recent example where something is incorrect even on 100% screens, look at recent Adobe Flash updaters - one of the dialog buttons is misaligned and lands on top of the progress bar.
Have you ever seen a retina screen? The difference in photo editing, word processing and internet browsing is staggering. It is clearly visible to the average user and adds to the experience. The letters seem like they are printed, photos are extremely crisp. The only downside is that every app has to be adjusted to the higher resolution.
it’s high res lcd, and in most cases on a screen of that resolution, you’re going to want something better than LCD, like an IPS panel. my computer monitor is a 27" 2560x1440 pixel IPS. This type of monitor costs more than what a joe everyman that buys screens en masse want to spend on their entire computer.
also you need a lot of graphics muscle to push those kinds of resolutions. the market that only uses a laptop/desktop for browsing the web, email, and watching youtube videos isn’t the market that would benefit from a higher resolution.
IPS is a type of LCD. It’s a bit more expensive than TN LCD (which is still the mainstream for budget computer displays), but it’s hardly bleeding-edge technology. iMacs have used IPS displays since 2007, and iPads since the beginning. And prices are coming down - my new 23" 1080p IPS monitor cost me $170.