Running games below native resolution on 1680 * 1050 screens

I am working my way around to selecting a laptop and the G1 and V1J are at the top of my list. I want to play games but also use it as a general domestic work machine. My company laptop is 1680 * 1050 and when I use one our current home laptops I get really wound up with the low 1200 res screens hence the desire for a his res screen (I'll be doing all sorts with it including photo and vide processing).

I also understand, from this and other forums and just understanding how the screens work, that games look better at the native resolution, but any recent fps or other 3D game will struggle to run well at native resolution on one of these machines. I also understand that recent machines (screens? graphics cards? both) do a reasonable job of running below native resolution, but just how good.

So, what I am asking is, will the G1 or V1J look "ok", "good" etc., if run at (say) 1200 horizontal res rather than 1680 when running a game (say Rome: Total War or Medieval II, or a recent FPS). Other than the speed difference between the 7700 and x1700 in the above machines, is there anything about one over the other that would be of benefit when running below native resolution?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

 

Here's a review by MysticGolem,
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3412&review=Asus+V1JP

It goes through a host of games, all of them being lower than native resolution. Overall, my suggestion is that don't worry about running games at lower resolutions. Most of the screens now a days, especially the V1JP and G1 are good at scaling, which you won't have a problem gaming at lower resolutions.

You can see for yourself in the the review, with the pictures provided.

 

Thanks. The screenshots in the review can't give an indication of the user experience in front of the screen, but the comments alongside the shots indicate it is not an issue.

Good - cake and eat it time!

 

Here's a review I did of the LG S1, it shows a picture of Oblivion of the user experience but it's a bad picture.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=69108

Nonetheless, scaling in general is not a problem, otherwise you would hear a lot of complaints, since many laptops are not able to play all games at native resolution.

 

Generally, the further away from native resolution you get, the "worse" the picture gets. Of course, "worse" is relative here, since most laptops nowadays can display any compatible resolution without noticeable distortion.

 

exactly that ^

I own a G1 and i dont own a game that dosnt support 1680x1050, and they run fine at that resolution. Of course i overclocked the GPU but Oblivion, HL2, CS:S and WarRock all run teriffic @ native res, i wouldnt stray from that.

 

How is War Rock? Looks like a freeware version of Battlefield 2

 

I'm buying the g1 with 1280x800 native resolution,so I'm hoping this machine will run all the game smoothly at the native resolution.At first I regret buying the wxga version,but when I realize that the difference mostly is gonna be in the desktop size I have no regret anymore since I don't like the small text and icon anyway