Widescreen or standard laptop screen

[MrBond]

I'm going to be buying a new laptop here soon and will probably get a T-series Thinkpad since I've had such good luck with them in the past.

I'm going to be using it for general day-to-day stuff, Word processing, Internet, and web surfing. Not a lot of gaming, since I have a good desktop for that. I don't see myself watching movies on it either. This won't be a work laptop - my company is buying me something, probably a Dell (ack), it's strictly for personal use.

The widescreen model is $200 more than the standard screen at the same configuration. I don't think it's really worth it, but then again, I've never used a widescreen monitor before for any length of time.

So tell me, is the widescreen display really worth an extra $200?

 

[Paperlantern]

Completely depends on your particular prepferences and computer usage. How do you like to view your screen and or programs. For example do you have a chat program or other similar program you normally "dock" on the right side of the screen, if you do wide screen is great as it still allows you to have a full web browser even with that visible. You can also fit more on the screen at once. It all depends on what you do with the area on your screen, and if you feel you could use the extra "Real Estate".

 

[Schadenfroh]

So tell me, is the widescreen display really worth an extra $200?

No

 

[Ruptga]

Widescreen is pretty nice for a couple reasons, like financial guys like to be able to view two windows sidebyside without either one being too small, travellers like movies and more desktop space with a (seemingly) less bulky machine. But, you don't care about movies, and it is two hundred bucks, so I'd say forget it.

 

[zig3695]

eventually, if not already, widescreens will be the standard and 4:3 will have its niche. im talking about all screens, tv, pc's, ipods... it just makes more sense because our own eyesight is 'widescreen'. actually, the next big idea is widescreen-curved. the panel will actually wrap around your peripheral sight a bit, should be way cool- and by then people will not be able to stand flat-screens!

 

[6000SUX]

If you work a lot with documents, or you do digital photography, you may find 4:3 better. I would only pick widescreen in an ultraportable, and then only to enable the widest possible keyboard.

 

[DarkThinker]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

So tell me, is the widescreen display really worth an extra $200?

No

Exactly, see if the widescreen was for the same price, then I would be giving it a thought too, but it's much more expensice, TBH it's more worth it to get a refular aspect ratio LCD and spend the extra $200 getting a highers res one!

DarkThinker

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I think the T60WS is a bit of a ripoff in that the screens are actually cheaper than 14.1, 4x3 screens. Also, a 15.4" screen makes for a massive computer. I owned a T60WS for about a day and returned it - I really wasn't happy with the quality or brightness of the screen, and as it happened my machine was defective and I was disgusted with the awful service provided by Lenovo's Atlanta call center - I've had much better service from any of several Indian call centers.

The word on the streets is that Lenovo plans to make a 14" WS T60, which would be a much more usable machine IMO, in terms of form factor and battery life (the battery life was awful on my T60WS).

 

[MrBond]

I checked again and the $200 price difference wasn't just because of the widescreen - the WS model had 128mb of graphics memory vs 64, and a slightly bigger drive (which I don't really need).

I'm not going to buy something right away. I don't start my new job until May and I can't afford a Thinkpad on a grad-student budget, but I like to plan ahead for a purchase like this. I'm fairly sure the laptops they're issuing at work are widescreen, so I'll see how I like it, but chances are I'll just go with a 4:3 model.

So Lenovo's service is bad DonVito? I was considering springing for the three year plan (if possible) because IBM's support in the past was so good.

 

[nombrecinq]

I don't know about Lenovo. I just had a terrible experience with them so I'll probably avoid them.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=102860

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: MrBond

So Lenovo's service is bad DonVito? I was considering springing for the three year plan (if possible) because IBM's support in the past was so good.

My experience with them was awful, though I guess part of the issue was that I called late at night. I bought a loaded 87445BU-model T60WS, and immediately experienced a problem where the wireless and the sound seemed to be in conflict - the sound would drop out when I was using wireless, and then the wireless would fail, requiring a reboot. This was on my first day of ownership. I believe. after a little research, that this is a non-uncommon issue on a/b/g/n-wireless-equipped Thinkpads

I called Lenovo service, and I have NEVER dealt with a ruder, more incompetent team of service personnel. They seemed not to understand even the most basic aspects of computers, and one in particular implied I was lying about the problem. That was it for me.

The machine had a lot of things I disliked - the battery life was very poor, the screen was fairly dark, the sound was muddy and insufficiently loud, the clasp was very flimsy and fussy, and the whole machine seemed like one big sharp edge - but none would have been enough to get me to return it. What did it was learning that the vaunted Lenovo service was worse than what I get at the DMV. I returned it immediately, and ended up with a Macbook I love.

 

[mauiblue]

When I was searching for a new notebook, I knew that I wanted to get the largest screen I could get. The Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 was the one for me when all was said and done. It has a bright and wide screen for movie watching and surfing the web. I wouldn't go smaller than a 17" screen that's for sure after experiencing my Qosmio. BTW, I had this notebook almost a year now and I had only one problem which was a hard drive going south. That took only two days to resolve. Tech support sucks because you've got people that just don't know squat about computers but when I comes down to it, they were not rude and was very consideration.