Given that 1080P is basically the minimum standard for desktops, why not laptops?

[Mike64]

That's part of why Apple is doing relatively well.

Maybe in the sense that that's their general pricing strategy, but while I don't mean to derail the thread, would Apple be selling enough machines to stay in business (at all like the present version), if they were still even primarily a "computer company"?

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

I know plenty of people that deliberately didn't buy a 1080p laptop because they found the text too small to read.

this.

and scaling through windows or hardware has its own issues.

if I want 1080 Ill buy 1080.

 

[Commodus]

Maybe in the sense that that's their general pricing strategy, but while I don't mean to derail the thread, would Apple be selling enough machines to stay in business (at all like the present version), if they were still even primarily a "computer company"?

It'd be much smaller, to be sure. However, I don't think Apple would mind much. One of the biggest frustrations for the Anything But Apple crowd is that Apple refuses to play their game -- it doesn't see company size or market share as a measure of its self-worth. I suspect that it'd rather be a tiny but profitable computer vendor than go on the financial roller coaster rides of its larger rivals. Just ask Lenovo, whose PC business is still bleeding profusely despite the company returning to profit.

To tie this back to the thread: Apple is the sort of company that would rather price itself out of a given market than compromise on display quality (the Air's screens are dated, but it's being phased out anyway). We need more companies like that on the Windows side... Microsoft is one of them.

 

[IntelUser2000]

yeah, the windows Laptop market is flooded with race-to-the-bottom products. Just pointing out a niche market that avoids that race for the most part.

Changing that mentality is easier said than done.

One thing going for Apple is the focus that no one has. That's why even in Smartphones they absolutely refuse to budge from 3 models.

It may just be the unfortunate realities of capitalism. Someone will always do better than you so that continues to fuel your advantage. Also that applies for the consumers that buy your products. What if every manufacturer adopted the Apple way? Still just one manufacturer and model would stand out. You'd still have the people who wants the cheapest computers or those that really stick to their budget.

That means eventually the companies that aren't top roster HAVE to resort to price-focused machines.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

It's easier on the IGP than 1080 panels. I prefer it actually in a gaming notebook.

I also bought the Toshiba Chromebook 2 for my wife that has a gorgeous 13" 1080 IPS panel, but that's for content consumption only.

 

[Sir Arun]

Well I got a Full HD 15.4" laptop, an IPS panel to boot, for €599 which is around $680 from a site as mainstream as amazon, compared to cheaper electronics-only places like newegg.

 

[nerp]

Enjoying my tiny text on my FHD 12.5" ThinkPad x260. Scaling in Windows 10 works great when I'm not working with lots of windows and reading in bed or something. It was a $150 option over the lower resolution screen but worth it to me. Most people would struggle with this but it's perfect for me. It's the better display available for this unit, too. I think along with people struggling with small text, price is a factor. When building a machine with Dell, Lenovo or whichever company, clicking the better screen can push an $869 laptop into $1,000 plus territory and that's psychologically harder for some people. Not everyone is happy to pay more for the option.

 

[Mike64]

It'd be much smaller, to be sure. However, I don't think Apple would mind much. One of the biggest frustrations for the Anything But Apple crowd is that Apple refuses to play their game -- it doesn't see company size or market share as a measure of its self-worth. I suspect that it'd rather be a tiny but profitable computer vendor than go on the financial roller coaster rides of its larger rivals.

Well, you may so suspect, but with no offense intended, I think you're fantasizing. They're in it to make money, not to spread Happiness and a Positive Computing iExperience throughout the iLand... They clearly created/found their niche with the iPhone, but they failed pretty miserably - despite what seemed like such a good start at the time - to do that with personal, and more importantly, business-oriented computers even in the "creative" and academic fields they were initially so strong in...

 

[Voxata]

For gaming laptops resolution plays a big part. Heck, my 980Ti struggled Gsync 1440p with modern games (with strong settings, of course).

 

[Harry_Wild]

The notebook manufacturers are now putting their money into building a very nice looking chassis but everything else is cheapo and outdated even the display! They just go and try to copy the Apple MacBook series with plastic instead of aluminum. Very nice looking notebook with nothing worth components inside the chassis!

 

[CSMR]

Why, is 1366x768 still the standard for laptops? It really doesn't make much sense, does it?

The PC market is dysfunctional. Apple works because they know what customers will want; customers find out later they have a good experience and associate it with the brand. In the PC market there is little brand loyalty and customers, who don't know what makes a good computer, base their decisions on the things they understand - price and form factor.

What the PC market needs is Microsoft to step in with some updated minimum standards for running Windows. Not allowing preinstallations of Windows on <1080p laptops. Displaying a warning when an installation is attempted at a lower resolution.

 

[Commodus]

Well, you may so suspect, but with no offense intended, I think you're fantasizing. They're in it to make money, not to spread Happiness and a Positive Computing iExperience throughout the iLand... They clearly created/found their niche with the iPhone, but they failed pretty miserably - despite what seemed like such a good start at the time - to do that with personal, and more importantly, business-oriented computers even in the "creative" and academic fields they were initially so strong in...

Can't believe I missed this, but better late than never.

For sure, Apple is in it to make money -- I'm not denying that. The difference is that it doesn't treat market share as the be-all, end-all way to accomplishing that goal. While it certainly wants lots of sales, it's fine with a smaller, stable but very profitable chunk of the market.

Consider what has happened among its market share uber alles rivals in the PC space over the past few years. Acer was once number 2 on the market share rankings; now, it's out of the top 5 and still hurting. Toshiba shifted most of its attention away from PCs. Sony quit the PC business entirely. Dell went private with the help of $2 billion in Microsoft "bailout" money. ASUS and Lenovo have seen better days, too.

Apple hasn't been completely immune to the PC market's contraction, but it frequently comes across as a "last man standing" thanks to a high-end focus that keeps it relatively safe from the industry's usual volatility. While Apple's competitors are doing their best to kill themselves in the name of a few percentage points of market share, it's sitting quietly in the corner.

 

[giantpandaman2]

The notebook manufacturers are now putting their money into building a very nice looking chassis but everything else is cheapo and outdated even the display! They just go and try to copy the Apple MacBook series with plastic instead of aluminum. Very nice looking notebook with nothing worth components inside the chassis!

I can't tell if you're trolling or just grossly misinformed. There are plenty well-made metal and glass competitors to Apple's laptops that have better internals.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Several factors come into play here...

First, as was mentioned, the sellers love having different market segments they can use to get you in the door or online with a low price then upsell you with the better model.

Second, M$ and many of the application programs are terrible at scaling and if you buy a model with a display that is not one of the 70% of lowest common denominators then you're going to have problems with text and icons being too small. I've been using a 4K display for 1.5 years and I have a 4K display on both my desktop and a laptop. There is nothing I can do on the 15 inch 4K laptop screen to make it fully usable and I recently upgraded my 24 inch 4K desktop screen to a 32 inch 4K display -- a huge improvement.

The bottom line is nether M$ nor many of the apps developers are all the concerned about the 10% or less that go for the higher end display like 4K and they're only a tad more interested in the 30% that goes a step above the bottom. US industry is all about feeding the bottom...


Brian

 

[cbn]

2. The real reason is differentiation which is done to extract more money. The same reason that the Dell 7559 has an IPS display, but a (relatively) lousy one, and same for speakers and keyboard. All these things will cost Dell few bucks really (which customers even be willing to pay), but they won't do it.

Yes, I'll bet having the 1080p display doesn't add much to the cost. However, you make a good point that if all laptops accross the board got this feature then that would be one less checkbox the OEMs could add to the more expensive hardware.

With that mentioned, it does appear this rule was lifted for the laptop found in this deal which has a 14" IPS 1080p/1.8 Ghz AMD quad cat core/4GB RAM/32GB eMMC for $219.99 shipped.

 

[philipma1957]

I am 59 years old. I had double cataract eye surgery. I have nice clear vision for distance and middle. For close up no go for me.

So 1080p in any screen under 17 inches is a full and complete waste of time a hardship and a hassle for me.

Pc industry pushes mobile gear in laptops,ipads,big phones because the money is there. They want disposable gear that you just buy something new every year or two. Plus pay more for mobile streaming.

So selling a 2k laptop with god like screen quality only works for apple due to moron loyalty to Apple. (My self included as I type on a mac mini).

My issue for apple is I need big screens I am using a 48 inch sony tv to type this and it is my goto pc. I could not care less about any screen that is small and clear since I can not read the small print.

What has happened is if you are tech savvy and over 50 most pc/it/tech companies don't give a cr@p about your needs.

Sorry for the rant. I will get back to mining some coins and posting on bitcointalk.org . Still want to thank this site for getting me back to what I love most tinkering with gear.

 

[piasabird]

Higher resolution might use more power. I have the exact opposite problem, I can see things close up but not far away. Then there is the horrible experience of seeing text that is so small that it can not be read. For some reason people want to print things so small they cant be seen by anyone over 40. So I like to watch VIDEO about 5 feet from the SCREEN. For me a 40 inch HDTV makes a great monitor.

 

[Commodus]

So selling a 2k laptop with god like screen quality only works for apple due to moron loyalty to Apple. (My self included as I type on a mac mini)

I definitely understand the issue of laptop makers not being considerate of older users, but saying that it "only works for Apple" isn't really true. Many people can notice the difference between a Retina display and the conventional kind, and it does make an impact (especially if you're editing photos or videos).

The important thing is to scale the interface for those people who aren't so sharp-sighted, and to make sure that they have at least one large display option in any given form factor. Apple's default UI scaling on Retina systems is pretty forgiving... now if it made you see the equivalent of 1080p on a 15-inch MacBook Pro by default, that'd be a problem.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I find it ridiculous how screen resolutions in general, even PC, have stagnated. 4k should be standard, even 8k should be on the horizon by now. Back in t he 800*600 days we kept seeing resolution increases fairly regularly, then it just kind of died.

But laptops are especially bad, they could at very least put HD on those screens. When it comes to computing devices more pixels is always better, it maximizes the work area. Screen size is not even that important, HD on 55" does not give you any more room than HD on 19" for example.

 

[Commodus]

I find it ridiculous how screen resolutions in general, even PC, have stagnated. 4k should be standard, even 8k should be on the horizon by now. Back in t he 800*600 days we kept seeing resolution increases fairly regularly, then it just kind of died.

But laptops are especially bad, they could at very least put HD on those screens. When it comes to computing devices more pixels is always better, it maximizes the work area. Screen size is not even that important, HD on 55" does not give you any more room than HD on 19" for example.

Unfortunately, we're hitting the limits of current technology -- stuffing that many pixels into a computer display limits the amount of light that gets in, which requires a stronger backlight, which hurts battery life. That and realistic greater-than-4K screens require display tech that is still pretty rare (newer DisplayPort/Thunderbolt 3).

With that said, I'm somewhat surprised that 4K desktop displays still tend to command more of a premium than, say, a 4K TV. Mind you, I can't help but get a kick out of realizing that my iMac has a 5K screen for less money than you'd pay to get a Dell 5K monitor by itself.

 

[antihelten]

Why, is 1366x768 still the standard for laptops? It really doesn't make much sense, does it?

If 1080P became the default standard for laptops (budget laptops included), then the economies of scale would make the panels for that resolution, nearly just as cheap as current 720P panels, wouldn't they?

So why not change? Entrenched mfg infrastructure? No laptop makers willing to go out on a limb to change the status quo, and put 1080P panels in their budget laptops?

The reason for this is actually quite straightforward and doesn't really have anything to do with cost cutting as such like a lot of people are suggesting.

1366x768 is so common for laptops for the exact same reason that 1080P is common for desktop monitors, they have the same PPI.

When a manufacturer makes an LCD panel, they don't make it in the final size, but instead make a huge panel (a mother glass) that is then cut into smaller pieces. For desktops, the most popular mainstream size right now is probably something like 21.5" (#1 best seller on Amazon), this panel has a PPI of 102.5 and thus the mother glass also had a PPI of 102.5. So if you were to cut 15" panels (i.e. laptop size), then you would naturally get panels with a resolution of 1366x768.

This is also the reason for why you almost only see 16x9 monitors these days and very few 16x10 monitors. The shape of the mother glass means that manufacturers can get more panels if the cut them as 16x9 panels.

So long story short, 1080P won't be mainstream on laptops until 1440P becomes mainstream on desktops (again these would have roughly the same PPI at 15" and 21").

 

[Red Storm]

I can't tell if you're trolling or just grossly misinformed. There are plenty well-made metal and glass competitors to Apple's laptops that have better internals.

The problem is really the OS. On Mac OS for example, the trackpad is actually a joy to use. The many built in gestures make using it intuitive and a good experience. I have yet to use a trackpad on any Windows machine where I felt the same. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the OS. Windows does not take advantage of the trackpad like Mac OS does, and it's really frustrating. I don't know if Apple has a patent on these gesture shortcuts, but Microsoft REALLY needs to incorporate them into Windows (an example would be switching between desktops).

 

[giantpandaman2]

The problem is really the OS. On Mac OS for example, the trackpad is actually a joy to use. The many built in gestures make using it intuitive and a good experience. I have yet to use a trackpad on any Windows machine where I felt the same. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the OS. Windows does not take advantage of the trackpad like Mac OS does, and it's really frustrating. I don't know if Apple has a patent on these gesture shortcuts, but Microsoft REALLY needs to incorporate them into Windows (an example would be switching between desktops).

The new precision trackpads are excellent. I have no problems with my Surface Book trackpad.