Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

[Update] Want 4K at 60Hz from a 13-inch MacBook? Now you can have it – and from the Air, too!

Matthew S. Smith
By

MacBook Pro 13 2013 screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Updated 3/25/2015: Ars Technica picked up a MacBook Air for testing, and is reporting that the Air is also able to handle 4K at 60Hz via a DisplayPort 1.2 connection. The Air still does not appear on Apple’s website as officially supporting 4k at 60Hz.

Apple’s MacBook Pro 13 with Retina display has long been the laptop of choice for mobile professionals, but it’s recently suffered from a noticeable oversight; lack of support for the latest 4K resolution. Due to its older Intel HD graphics solution, it was not able to output 4K resolution at full 60Hz resolution.

Recommended Videos

Now that has changed. The 13-inch Pro with Retina, which has received a graphics upgrade and Thunderbolt 2 support for additional bandwidth, is fully capable of driving a 4K monitor over Thunderbolt/Mini-DisplayPort. It’s now listed on Apple’s support page, but that page claims that Mac systems will only work with certain monitors.

Related

We went one better and purchased the new system to test for ourselves, and we can confirm it works without issue alongside several 4K monitors not listed on Apple’s official support page. In other words, it should be able to handle any current 4K display with a DisplayPort input (which is all of them, to our knowledge).

Interestingly, the early 2015 MacBook Air is not listed. That strikes us as odd because the graphics solution in the refreshed Air should have no trouble handling the resolution. We reached out to Apple to ask if the Air did support 4K, and were told that the support page is accurate (meaning it does not). Ars Technica, on the other hand, claims that the Airs do support UltraHD.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Matthew S. Smith
Matthew S. Smith
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Matthew S. Smith is the former Lead Editor, Reviews at Digital Trends. He previously guided the Products Team, which dives…
The MacBook Air M3 has one change that fixes its biggest flaw
The screen of the MacBook Air M2.

With surprisingly little fanfare — no spring event this time — Apple has dropped an update to the MacBook Air a bit sooner than expected. The incredibly thin MacBook Air 13- and 15-inch models both received updates to the Apple Silicon M3 chipsets, but that's not all.

There's one surprising new feature in the mix that could make a big difference in purchasing decisions: support for multiple monitors with the display closed. As this was the major complaint of the previous MacBook Air, this change is a pretty big deal. While it still supports only a total of two screens, it's a positive change for those that want to connect to two large, external monitors for work.

Read more
Whatever you do, don’t buy a MacBook Air right now
Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air placed on a desk with its lid closed.

Got your eye on a shiny new MacBook Air? We can’t blame you, they're fantastic laptops. But before you pull the trigger, you should consider holding off for a few more weeks.

At some point in March, Apple is expected to unveil a new generation of the MacBook Air, either at an event or via a press release. This forthcoming laptop will reportedly come loaded with Apple’s new M3 chip, giving the MacBook Air a notable performance boost.

Read more
A YouTuber created a truly bezel-less MacBook
This MacBook has no bezels, thanks to Luke Miani's screen removal and Vision Pro replacement.

We've all seen the concept art of futuristic MacBooks that completely eliminate the bezels around the screen. Those are pure fantasy, even though Apple has significantly reduced bezel thickness on its most recent MacBooks.

However, those millimeters of wasted screen space on a MacBook can be infuriating, especially compared to the concepts out there.

Read more