Laptop screen sizes and resolutions

[srs]

I'm going to be buying a laptop soon and would like to hear some opinions on what the best size / resolution to get on a laptop. is 1400 x 1050 + too much on a 15 inch screen. is the text still readable. i use 1400 x 1050 on my 19in desktop and love the resolution. if i get a laptop with a resolution such as 1400 x 1050 and i want to play games, i notice that most games don't support 1400 x 1050 natively so if i change the resolution will the display look blurry ? thanks for any help.

 

[Ryan]

Yes, that is WWWAAAYYY too much for a laptop screen. I wouldn't go any higher that 1024x768, or you won't be able to make out anything.

 

[srs]

if you think 1400 x 1050 is big...... dell is selling a 15 inch screen with 1600 x 1200 native resolution

 

[Ryan]

I'm telling you, everything will be unbearably small.

 

[pulpp]

i used the UltraXGA 1600x1200 screens on dell inspirons and i have to say its brilliant, very sharp and clear, text is very sharp, and i had no problem reading it at all, also newer video cards in laptops now can scale a diff resultion other than the native one on an LCD screen which will look just fine

 

[srs]

i heard that since laptops have a fixed number of pixels if you switch to a non native resolution the picture looks blurry. is this problem fixed in the newer laptops ?

 

[Burn]

I have a laptop with the Geforce2 Go and when it scales, it sucks for text.

 

[srs]

is it acceptable for games though ?

 

[Burn]

The native resolution of 1024x768 obviously looks beautiful. When you run at 800x600 you get free antialising. When you run at 640x480 you get a very blurry image.

 

[Rogue]

1400x1050 on my Dell Inspiron 8000 is pure bliss. It's sweet. It is very readable.

 

[DuffmanOhYeah]

I agree, I think that things would be teeny at 1400x1050. Also, consider what games you could play at 1400x1050 on your laptop and still have acceptable frame-rates. I understand that the GeForce 2 go may be a significant improvement over previous laptop graphics, but I doubt that it will handle aything you want to play well at that res. A recent PC World article demoed a Toshiba Satellite Satellite (P3 850 128mb) with a GeForce 2 Go and that only managed 30fps in MDK2 at 1024x768. Think what this would look like at 1400x1050. Ummm sir, I seem to be stuck in molasses and I cant get out. Radeon mobility should debut this fall but I doubt that it will give you any signifiant improvements over the GeForce 2 Go. Maybe find a system with a native 1600x1200 for work, but I wouldn't expect more than 1024x768 for acceptable gaming..well, maybe a good pong port, but thats it

 

[vi edit]

I've got a Dell Inspiron 8000 w/ the 32 meg Ati card in it. Native resolution is 1400x1050. It looks gorgeous. Unfortunately, and resolution under that within Windows looks like crap. It's blocky, grainy, and a complete headache.

What you have to remember about laptops is that you usually sit within a foot to a foot and a half of the screen, so the resolution can be cranked a lot higher than your desktops where you may be sitting farther away from.

As far as gaming goes, I can run games at a lower resolution than the native 1400x1050 without any problems.

 

[Rogue]

Once you've gone above 1024x768 on a laptop, you won't go back, period. I'm working on an Inspiron 7000 right along side my Inspiron 8000 right now and I can't stand to look at the 7000 screen.

 

[vec]

I was wondering about this same question.

So far it seems that higher resolutions are acceptable for regular windows stuff (office, web, etc), but how is gaming (Q3A and UT) at 800x600 resolutions? It is still full screen yes? What kind of frame rates are people getting with the geforce2go?

When I play 640x480 games on my current 800x600 laptop, the displayed image is not full screen, which really sucks.

 

[srs]

bump

any other opinions ?

 

[Shalmanese]

on a 1600x1200 screen, you can scale back to 800x600 without any loss of quality since they are in a 2:1 ration. with 1400 x 1050, it harder to find resolutions that are smaller yet acceptable so some blurring and loss of quality in games is inevitable. my suggestion is to go for the 1600x1200 screen if possible and play games in 800x600