1600x1200 notebook TFTs

RolyL

Senior member
Jul 14, 2001
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Most notebooks have 1024x768 displays it seems. The top of the range Toshiba, the Tecra 9000, has a 14" display at this resolution. (It's a lovely machine in every other respect I hasten to add.) The top Dells have 1600x1200 (or so they claim) though. How well does it work? Aren't the pixels absolutely tiny? Surely fixed-point text is too difficult to read at such a resolution on a 15" display? 1600x1200 isn't available on most 17" desktop panels!
 

jamesbond007

Diamond Member
Dec 21, 2000
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I have no problems with my Dell 8000 running 1600x1200 on the UXGA display. It's confined, of course, but the desktop space is lucious in size and the graphics are stunning. The beauty is there is no refresh rate to bother your eyes.

I can easily see someone with bad eyesight having problems with the display running this resolution. However, this is why they have the laptops that are customizable.

My $0.02
 

RolyL

Senior member
Jul 14, 2001
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Are the individual pixels clearly visible? How well does it handle 1024x768 / 1152x864 / 1280x960?
 

zsouthboy

Platinum Member
Aug 14, 2001
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It scales those resolutions up to full screen, but kinda has a " blurring" effect.

Other than that 1600 x 1200 is da bomb for 14 and 15 inch laptop screens.....drool....

zs
 

Menacer

Member
Feb 4, 2001
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Individual pixels aren't visible at all unless you pretty much jam your face right in the laptop screen. Choosing large icons or large system fonts will get rid of the "Everything being WAY too tiny" factor.. and besides, most people keep laptop monitors a lot close to their face that regular monitors, so a 15" laptop will look larger than a 15" desktop.

Everything is sharp and clear, though the Inspiron screen isn't as bright as I'd like it to be, and the viewing angle is a little worse than my desktop LCD. It does bright desktops better than dark (and I usually run a black 3d-image background with dark menus.. that doesn't go well with my laptop)

The only resolutions it can scale to (for me, using a 32meg GeForce2Go and 15" UXGA screen.. dunno about the new Radeon 7500 mobility ones) are the native 1600x1200, 1400x1050, 1280x1024, 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480

If you run in resolutions that aren't native, things get a little fuzzy and some things can become mis-shapen (because the screen physical resolution is 4:3, while say 1280x1024 is 5:4, so a circle wouldn't be a perfect circle anymore) The only time I find myself running less than 1600x1200 is in 3d games and then things are moving fast enough I don't notice the fuzzyness. You can ALSO have it put a black box around the images and keep the entire monitor at 1600x1200, though I don't like that much. With the new Radeon 7500 you'll be able to run a LOT of games in 1600x1200 natively.. pretty powerful card, it is.

And no, text is quite easy to read. While it's better on my desktop 18.1" TFT, I'll hasten to say that my laptop is sharper, clearer, and easier to use than almost every CRT I've ever had contact with.
 

jschuk

Senior member
Jun 29, 2001
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Just so you know, some of the Toshiba 9000's (and 8200's) also have a SXGA LCD that runs at 1420x1050 (I think that is the right res).