Lower resolution on a WUXGA?

Hello!

I have a little question concerning the WUXGA screen on the 17" macbook pro. The questions may sound pretty basic, but I've only got experience with 1280*800 =)

Can i put the resolution of the screen on, let's say 1440*900 if i chose to? Or is it really THAT resolution (1920*1200) that is supported only?

In the case it is possible: does it look like a normal 17" screen with a native resolution of 1440*900

In the case that it is not possible: how small are the letters? I looked at a 15.4 inch screen with 1680*...? and i thought it was pretty OK. Is it comparable with a 17" 1920*1200?

Most of the time the laptop will be used for programming, and a game from time to time (but from experience i know games can be set on lower resolutions, resulting in ugly stuff, just the way i like it).

Thanks a lot for reading this and potentially helping me out on my biggest purchase yet as a student.

Any other advice is welcome as well.

Bart

 

You can run a monitor at any resolution levels lower than the native one - you just change it in System Preferences.

However, when you do that the system has to dither the pixels to the lower (bigger) size and the end result is that text etc will take on a fuzzy/indistinct appearance and will lose much of the sharpness you see at the native res. For some people, this isn't a problem and they can deal with it well.... for others (me included) it gives a good case of eyestrain and a headache.

Gaming is usually different and easy for people to use lower res on (gaining the fps benefits), because the textures etc in the game can be easily downsampled without appreciable visual difference since the images you're looking at are rarely static and unmoving (unlike text in webpages, documents, the finder bar, etc).

 

if you lower the res,it will look blurry... But you always can increase DPI, so the text will be bigger However, I doubt that will be needed since WUXGA on 17" looks wonderful!

 

So there really really is no problem with the text size on websites etc? Really really? I have no sight problems whatsoever (only far sight) =)
Comes in superhandy for programming tho.

One more question: I'll need to put windows on it (blame uni); will the ASCII signals from the keyboard be the same in vista? So when i type { on the keyboard, it will show { in vista because the ASCII signal emitted by the keyboard matches; or is there another virtualisation layer that interpretes the keyboard signals?

Short: any problems with keyboard buttons in vista?

 

AFAIK, yes, it will be the same.

 

Not exactly. 1440 x 900 doesn't seem to be supported. The nearest is 1344 x 840. But yes, it will display lower resolution sizes although these look decidedly fuzzy and definitely a lot worse than a 17" screen with a native res of 1440 x 900 (or indeed, 1344 x 840 if you could get one).

The 17" display is fine, but the information density on the screen is definitely more like looking at a scaled-up version of a packed ultraportable screen than the 15-inch MBP or for that matter, a 13" 1280 x 800 machine. For that reason it will be more fatiguing than those machines for long-term viewing. While the pixels are useful to have, 17" 1920 x 1200 screens certainly wouldn't be my main screen for any significant length of working time, unless I'm actually on the move.

 

yeah... thats what I dislike on the 17".. there used to be screen resolution options... I can kind of live with the old 1680x1050 option, but 1920x1200 is just way too high res for me unless its like a 24"+ screen...

I have a friend with a new 17"er and if I down the screen resolution it looks just fine... so don't worry about it.

 

The biggest problem with increasing DPI - aside from the menu glitches that sometimes occur - is that it does nothing for images and video.

I personally would not get a display that has too many dots per inch. I'm with DOH123 on this one, although I COULD live with 1920x1200 on a 17," I could not stand that resolution on a 15" and had severe headaches.