I want to buy a Macbook Pro retina and also an external display for when I'm at home. I could of course buy Apple's thunderbolt display, but I'm looking for alternatives. Will every screen be good or do I need to look out for specific specifications because of the retina display? I guess when you are used to a high-res retina screen, the resolution of the external display should also be very high to match the Macbook retina screen?
MacBook – External display for Macbook Pro retina
displaymacbook pro
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Best Answer
The external monitor is completely independent of the retina screen. Any monitor would work (via HDMI or Thunderbolt to DVI/VGA adapters).
OS X more or less seamlessly transitions between the two monitors (retina vs. non-retina).
You will not be able to find an external display that matches the "retina" quality. Not even Apple makes a non-laptop display that is retina. Even if you bought a 4k display, it would still be 1x pixels as opposed to retina's 2x.
It won't be as nice as your retina display, but buy a high quality external monitor and you'll be happy with the quality. You generally sit a bit further back from an external display (verses a laptop) so it isn't as bad using a retina/non-retina combo as you'd imagine.