L502X 1080 screen - External monitor

Looking for an opinion here. Planning to buy the XPS 15 in the very near future and I'm hung up on the screen.

I do a lot of excel and programming work but for this I would be using an existing 27" external monitor. The only time I'd use the laptop LCD would be primarily "couch surfing" type activities.

I know the 1080 screen is extremely good even when compared to other similar screen but how is the 720 screen other than the obvious resolution difference? My eyes are not what they used to be and I'm afraid everything is going to be too small on the 1080 screen. I know I can adjust DPI blah blah but there are many apps that simply do not play nicely with inflated DPI (pretty much everything that isn't a web browser comes to mind)

720p screen good enough for this? Is it somehow worse than other typical laptop panels?

 

Well most people on here will tell you that the XPS 15 720p display is one of the WORST 720p displays on the market. Me, I would probably get the FHD and scale things.

I've found that most apps actually seem to work fine with DPI scaling under Windows 7. But I hardly work on the system that uses the scaling since it is an HTPC and pretty much only used for DVR and for a network location to keep my files in sync between laptop and desktop. Never tried Excel on it.

I do agree that FHD seems a little small on a 15", but really it is almost 16" and I have no trouble on my 17". So I don't know. I still say that the best screen resolution for a 15" would be 1600x900...A good compromise size, but alas that isn't an option for you.

 

Don't buy the XPS 15 if you're not going to get the 1080p screen. 1080p resolution even helps a lot for "couch surfing" because you'll be able to fit side-by-side windows and the such. The screen benefits everything. Plus, keep in mind that if you have the 1080p screen in the laptop, AND you have a high-res external monitor, that could only help, because you can use both screens at once in a dual-monitor setup.

A 27" monitor will have 2560x1440 resolution, so the XPS 15's 1080p screen is already a step down in screen space. The 720p screen will have only slightly more than 1/4 the realestate of the 1440p external monitor.

And yes, the 720p screen is worse than most other screens. The specific model number of the LCD is AUO B156XW01, and it's worse than screens in most budget-class laptops. The 1080p screen is also an AUO-branded screen, and it happens to be one of the best screens out there in terms of quality and color reproduction. AUO makes really good top-of-the-line screens, but also some horrendous junk like the XPS 15's stock screen.

If you want an idea of how small things are, just go into an Apple store and look at the 11-inch Macbook Air. a 15.6" 1080p screen will only have slightly smaller text (as in, only 4% smaller) so if you're fine with it then you'll be fine with 1080p

But you can always:
- Use Windows DPI scaling to increase the size of Windows UI elements such as text, the taskbar, and window headers.
- Use either built-in settings, or 3rd-party add-ons for Web browsers that set a global zoom setting of 120% or so if necessary.

 

Actually my 27" is 1080 also.

A crappy screen is a crappy screen though. Thanks for the heads up.

Wanted the XPS 15 because of the speakers and quad option. Just wish it had a mid resolution option. 1600x900 would have been nice.

 

Yea only IPS screens get higher than 1080p for the most part. And they cost 3 times as much as a decent LCD. My sis has an Inspiron 15R with a 720p screen, it is meh. And I think that Dell uses a worse one in the XPS 15...of course her system is a year old so it might have changed.

 

Next time I go to Best Buy, I'm bringing a flash drive with HWInfo on it so I can check the model number of the Inspirons' 720p screens to see if they're the same or different from the XPS'

 

Haha, that's a pretty great idea. I wonder how the bestbuy nerds would react xD
Post your findings, I'm curious. I've heard the 720p screen on the XPS is awful. But it could be coming from 1080p spoiled reviewers

 

From my experience, the Visual Studio programming environment quickly eats up pixels even on a 1080p screen. I can't imagine programming on a 720p screen.

1080p resolution on a 15.6" screen is fairly high, but not THAT high. Consider that the Sony Vaio Z does that same res on a 13" screen!

Just my 2 cents....