Stupid laptop screen resolution.

[Colt45ws]

Ive been kind of window shopping for a laptop for a couple days now. Looking for something to play with when I am away from my computer for whatever reason. In bed. Working on a car. Away from home. Etc. Was looking for something decent But I dont need a heavy desktop replacement. Would prefer to spend less than $600. Probably not going to happen for a good couple months but I thought I would check out what is available. EVERY ONE has a FREAKING STUPID "HD" 1366x768 screen! WTH? I would like to have some room on my screen. My ancient broken Dell C610 was 1400x1050 on a 14" screen. It seems if you want more resolution anymore you have to step up to a 'gaming' laptop for 1920x1080. $850+ Any ideas?

 

[rationull]

You can also shop for business class machines (e.g. Dell Latitude), which frequently have higher res screen options (typing this on a Latitude 14" at 1600x900 -- good but not extra impressive) although you start to run into the same pricing jumps you're seeing on gaming laptops.

 

[Colt45ws]

I was looking at those too. I did see 1600x900 as an option on some of them. I think Im probably going to end up getting one off ebay from the Core 2 era. Looking primarily at business laptops. Latitude and Thinkpad, etc. I have some parts to upgrade those. Couple sticks of DDR2 sodimms just collecting dust. I can pull the 500GB WD Black out of my Eee and put the 160GB Seagate back in it. The Eee and its Atom is what I am working with right now, so even a Core2 will be a massive improvement.

 

[Basil]

Look at the newer Acers with the Intel B940 CPUs (Sandy Bridge). Can be had a little under 400 sometimes from Newegg (mailing list) or other sites that drop the price when NewEgg does. The difference in price between that and a used Core2 would be well worth it considering the boost in memory bandwidth and extra microcode in the SB architecture. Also, a fresh battery. Nice screen, it is considered HD class with LED backlight, but don't know the exact resolution. Chassis is solid, attractive, and slim. Acer has cleaned up their act a bit in that department.

 

[Colt45ws]

1366x768 for those Acers. I think I found my lappy. Lenovo Thinkpad T500 with the 1680x1050 screen. Over 1000 vertical pixels and 16:10 too; my favorite. Pricy for an old lappy though. Going for ridiculous prices. The one Im looking at, the one I want, is priced at $430. C2D T9400, 2GB DDR3 (I would trash that and put in a 8GB set for $40), Radeon HD3650, and 160GB HD (would get switched for my WD Black 500GB)

 

[Vikas]

Since they have all gone wide screen these days, getting over 1024 vertical pixels means almost 1800 pixels on the horizontal. My ideal laptop would have 1280x1024 with 14 or 15 inch screen but there are no more new laptops with that resolution. Anything higher and my eyes are too weak to see the tiny font and anything lower and I do not have enough real estate for my real work. - Vikas

 

[spackard]

> 1366x768 screen! WTH? If you do the math, it comes out close to 1 megapixels. (1,049,088 vs 1,049,576), so it saves money on video memory.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: Vikas

Since they have all gone wide screen these days, getting over 1024 vertical pixels means almost 1800 pixels on the horizontal. My ideal laptop would have 1280x1024 with 14 or 15 inch screen but there are no more new laptops with that resolution. Anything higher and my eyes are too weak to see the tiny font and anything lower and I do not have enough real estate for my real work. - Vikas

Yeah, and 16:9 widescreen too. I hate 16:9 on computers. I ended up getting a stripper Thinkpad T500. No Ram, HD or OS. Setup otherwise like the one I posted about above. So, I also have a 8GB ram set on the way from newegg. Max it out. Itll get the 500GB WD Black, of course. Eventually I want to put a SSD in it. Its no Sandy Bridge Core i*, but itl do just fine I think. Compared to my poor Eee, itll be a wondrous improvement.

 

[JHZR2]

$600 is a pretty lousy laptop. You get what you pay for, and I pay more than $600 for a monitor for my desk, let alone the computer that tethers to it. Eyes are important, good screens are $ for a reason.

 

[Nick R]

Honestly, I do just fine with 1366x768 on my lenovo. It feels like a good size to me. Maybe that's just because I'm used to it.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2

$600 is a pretty lousy laptop. You get what you pay for, and I pay more than $600 for a monitor for my desk, let alone the computer that tethers to it. Eyes are important, good screens are $ for a reason.

Yeah, I dont have unlimited funds. I'd love to have a $1100 laptop. But, it aint happening. So Im buying a used $1100 laptop. I think the root of the problem is everyone has switched to 16:9 and I hate 16:9 on computers. Fine if its an entertainment box, otherwise its retarded and unnecessary. Even current business laptops are 16:9. Which I have done some poking around and found other people are a little bit peeved at that development.

 

[Colt45ws]

I got my T500. Its in fine shape. My brother thought I had a military laptop because of the "blockiness." I told him, "No not quite, just a business laptop." Unfortunately the seller forgot to send to the hard drive tray and related parts. So I cant install a HD yet. He is rectifying that now.. In the mean time I fired up a Gentoo LiveDVD and Im playing around on it. I like it a lot. I find Im really liking the eraser head as a mouse over the touch pad. After awhile of using a touchpad I find my finger gets sore. Also, something I thought was the best thing ever was the little light that shines down on the keyboard from the top of the screen. I "Squeee'd" like a teenage girl at a Justin Beiber concert. :P I really dislike the Fn key placement, though. Its at the very bottom left corner of the keyboard with Ctrl to the right of it. I keep hitting Fn when I want Ctrl.

 

[wkcars]

On smaller size screens on laptops, you don't want to have too high of resolution because then everything will be so small on the screen, maybe on 16" or larger would higher resolutions be useful.

 

[sxg6]

I feel your pain, that's one of my biggest pet peeves with laptops these days. I would like to get a new laptop, but unless I spend over $700-800, I can't get a 15" laptop with a wsxga+ (1680x1050) screen like i have on my current 5 year old dell vostro laptop. I think $600 can get you a perfectly fine laptop, but, its extremely annoying how 80% of the market seems to have these 1366x766 screens. Not only do I love the size of my screen, but its also much more crisp and clear than the current screens.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: wkcars

On smaller size screens on laptops, you don't want to have too high of resolution because then everything will be so small on the screen, maybe on 16" or larger would higher resolutions be useful.

I got a hold of the repair manual for my laptop and apparently it was possible to get them with a 1920x1200 resolution which would be insane on a 15.4" screen. My 24" on my desktop is that res and its a nice res for that size. I like this screen size and resolution which is 1680x1050 on a 15.4 screen. I wasn't looking for an insane res or size. I knew I was giving up screen real estate for portability but cutting back to half of my primary screen was unacceptable. W7 WEI: 6.1/6.1/6.3/6.3/5.9 with the Radeon 3650 enabled as opposed to integrated Intel.