macbook pro retina, scroll lag issues when browsing websites?

I'm having the same issues. Not only that, sometimes the screen flicker and the only way to fix it was to reboot the computer. I'm hoping Mountain Lion will fix this issues.

This issue has stopped me from buying the new MacBook Pro Retina. I was 5 seconds away from buying one at Best Buy when I realized how laggy/choppy scrolling is in websites. Comparing it with the non-retina display MBP right next to it was night and day.

An Apple rep even came over, and said that's about all that 2.6ghz CPU / graphics card can do with such a high resolution.

Now, there's a good chance that this is because it's Safari and Safari has always been a CPU hog compared to Firefox or Chrome. I'm willing to bet that Firefox / Chrome would handle page scrolling much better than Safari (and IMO, they're better browsers overall).

Im going to take a stab at using Firefox rather than Safari and see if the same issues persist.

This may sound spoiled, but I expect every motion / movement on an Apple device to be 45 FPS at a minimum (60, ideally). After using my iPhone and comparing it with my friends' Androids, the lag, choppiness, and shuttering when they flick through menus drives me insane. Apple's insistence on those subtle qualities is why I prefer Apple devices over competitors, so this browser lag on the MBPR is a little surprising to me.

I have the 2.3ghz, 16gb, 256gb model and will be returning it tomorrow because of the scroll lag. I took the computer to the Genius Bar and they said it just couldn't do any better given the hardware. The problem is not just scrolling on websites, it's the whole UI. Changing between full screen apps is laggy and causes screen tearing, minimizing windows is laggy, and viewing a large pdf in preview even causes lag. It just doesn't seem polished enough to have costed $2500.

For what it's worth this critique is coming from a huge Apple fan. Typically I can't say enough good things about Apple products, but the Retina MacBook Pro falls short of my personal expectations.

I have a 2.7 GHz Retina MBP running Lion (10.7.4). There is an annoying amount of lag in scrolling, not just in Safari (Version 6.0 7536.25), but also in Firefox (14.0.1) and Chrome (21.0.1180.89). I also encounter lag when swiping between full-screen apps and with the animation of entering/exiting Mission Control.

I'm running at the "Scaled: More Space" display setting, which seems to be a bit slower than the "Best (Retina)" setting. But given that it's this setting that offers me the most "virtual pixels", I use it.

I suspect that the lag has not much to do with the web page content, but it's really the hardware+OS that's not fast enough for that many pixels. Maybe Apple was able to somewhat improve performance with Mountain Lion, but I suspect they can't do much. It might just be too many pixels for the hardware.

I had a 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo MBP before, with Leopard, and never encountered so much lag. It's truly painful to upgrade to a brand new Mac after about 3 years and get a much worse perceptible performance than before.

That said, the Retina display looks awesome. But, I'd wait buying a Retina MBP until they release a new MBP that is powerful enough to drive it at an acceptable speed.

Also: I truly hope Apple will soon allow setting the display resolution directly (1:1 scaling, giving applications all 2880x1800 pixels): this would probably be faster (the OS wouldn't have to scale, not even at the currently "best" 1:2 factor) and would allow me to fit even more text/GUI on the screen (of course the text and GUI elements would become rather small, but that's ok).

My screen also flickers sometimes. I think it's usually after waking up from sleep mode.

Workaround:

Once it starts flickering, I go to System Preferences: Displays, and I change the resolution. This makes the flickering go away without reboot. (Of course then I change the resolution back to what it was before.)

I suspect the flickering has to do with OS X's handling of Retina. I have Lion (10.7.4), and I hope Mountain Lion will fix this bug.

Just upgraded to Mavericks on my 13" 2.5ghz, 8gb (purchased June 2013) and I've noticed that scrolling is much improved and screen flickering when waking from sleep (using more space setting for the display) is gone. Battery life has a small improvement from 7 to almost 8 hrs. Overall, after just 3 days of use, I would recommend Mavericks upgrade if you still have the flickering and scrolling lag issues.