&gt; Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15&quot; retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life<p>Because &quot;retina&quot; in the context of displays is an Apple-trademarked marketing term, which is why Apple is the only one who can build a &quot;retina laptop&quot;, irrespective of size or battery life.<p>More to the point, another manufacturing aping Apple&#x27;s tradeoffs means the two end up competing on price, which neither wants to. So, naturally, other competitors who are interested in claiming some segment of the price-insensitive market by competing on something other than price make different trade-offs -- in this case, better DPI and shorter battery life. For lots of laptop usage patterns, this is a superior tradeoff; for others, its not.