Can Lion support resolutions higher than 1920 by 1200 on the retina MBP main display?

The new retina display MacBook Pro is advertised to have a native display resolution of 2880 by 1800. On the Lion 10.7.4 build, the system preferences limits the highhest resolution at 1920 by 1200.

Can this be raised easily in Lion? (and are there any undesirable side effects to changing this?)

Solution 1:

Yes, with a little help you can get to the native resolution and a few others as well.

Have a look at: http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/18/3-ways-to-run-a-retina-macbook-pro-at-2880x1800-native-resolution/

The article mentions 4 software products that allow easy setting of the resolution without using Apple's display pane.

• SwitchResX
• SetResX
• scrutil
• ChangeResolution

Good luck reading small type, though ;)

Solution 2:

On new hardware, this is displayed differently than the traditional Display preferences pane. So yes, but you won't see the traditional n x n resolution listed. Here's what it will look like on a retina-enabled MacBook Pro:

Solution 3:

What gives you the idea that Lion is restricted to 1920x1200?