Rep: 35
1
1
Howdy!
I've done a fair bit of research the last few days, as it turns out both the 2012 non-retina and the 2013 Retina MacBook pro seems to share the same 30-pin connector for the display in roughly the same place on the motherboard.
My questions is, if I were to do this would the higher res retina screen work and be able to run in native res?
Is this a good question?
Rep: 478.8k
35
329
970
Sorry no, not doable! The pinouts are very different.
Besides all you'll see is a smaller image as it will down scale to the 1280x800 not the native 2560x1600 retina size.
Was this answer helpful?
Is there any either apple or after market display with a higher res that would work with MBP 2012 13"?
unfortunately not i agree with Dan ;) this would probably not even work anyway as the 2012 model's GPU would not be able to handle retina, and if it could it would be sketchy, and unreliable. now if you plug into an external monitor you could get a better, bigger picture
Past 24 Hours: 0
Past 7 Days: 0
Past 30 Days: 5
All Time: 1,992
15 Comments
@danj - Sorry to Re-open this question, But is it possible to get a 3rd party -display cable that makes it to where you can upgrade the display? (NOT to a retina)
by Ben Capehart
Wishful thinking!the cable in the unibody systems is the exact same pin outs (LVDS) . The displays connector pinouts (T-CON board) is different! I can’t explain why Apple contracted the display makers to use a differed setup. It’s also at a time point the physical connection was not firm only the signaling going down the cable not which physical wire it travels.
I also posted a deeper dialog on why you can’t use a Retina display on a Unibody or the reverse putting a LVDS display on one that needs a retina class display in Marti Bravo Navarro entry.
There is no room to install a pin converter nor does anyone produce a pin converted LVDS cable
by Dan
@danj - I may be trying to make it soon!
Can you post the pinouts on the retina and the unibody connectors?
Also what gauge wire should I use?
by Ben Capehart
@beanman56 - just grab the schematics for the give system. Remember uni to uni is only possible.
The retinas are a bit more complex as the standard was changed between iDP to eDP these are not directly interchangeable.
There really is no benefit as you can get the raw LCD’s still for most systems. But it is not easy to open up a Retina display Vs the older unibody displays.
This is not an upgrade in any case! As the screens resolution doesn’t change.
by Dan
@danj - Is there any upgrade screen panel that I could wire up?
by Ben Capehart
Show 10 more comments