XPS 15 L502X Question - 1366 x 768 vs. 1920 x 1080

Hey all, so I am on the brink of buying an XPS 15 L502x w/ the i7 2.0 processor, which I will be using for medium to hard-core gaming (Black Ops, Crysis, Starcraft) as well as school work, watching movies, etc. but mostly gaming. My question is since I am going to be using the laptop primarily for gaming is it still worth the extra $200 to upgrade from the 1366 x 768 WLED True-Life screen to the 1920 x 1080 B+RGLED screen? I am asking because I have heard that a higher resolution screen can decrease gaming performance (plus my eyes get strained easily when looking at computer screens) and I would really like to not spend another $200 if I can help it. But I've also heard that 1366 x 768 screens on the XPS 15 are pretty terrible quality in general...? so can anyone share some thoughts? Thanks so much guys

 

I have never seen an XPS 1920 x 1080 screen, however I have the 720p screen. I think it looks good, but I have never compared it to a 1080p screen. I think the majority of XPS owners will say the 1080p is superior.

Just wanted to chime in and say that the 720p isn't garbage, and anyone with the 720p screen will tell you that. Works fine for me - I play Crysis - every setting on "very high" (maximum) without any problems at all - game looks amazing.

PS: My eyes also strain very easily, and that affected my decision when deciding on the screen. Something to think about.

Good luck!

Erick

 

That's tons helpful thanks, I went with the 1920 x 1080 but thanks for the advice!

 

Quality varies but none are great.

Try running this program: CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting
click on video, what does it say under Monitor Type?

 

In gaming don't worry about reducing the screen resolution. On the desktop where you are reading text that is just a couple pixels wide and there are hard sharp edges everywhere, it makes a noticeable difference causing some noticeable fuzziness. In a 3d game, you generally wont be able to tell a difference because of the nature of the content put on the screen. Especially on a screen that has so many pixels to work with in approximating the smaller display.

 

Plus, it's not necessarily the best idea in the world to sacrifice having a high resolution which is very helpful for multitasking and everything productive you could do with the computer, just to make something in a game look better when running it at a given resolution on either screen.

if you were to end up with the bad 720p screen, gaming on the 1080p panel in 1366x768 would still look better than gaming on the 1366x768/720p screen in 1366x768. Blur is a lot less noticeable lack of contrast.

 

I've owned both the 720p and 1080p screens and I would not buy this XPS if it only came with the 720p screen. I returned my original L501x partially because of the 720p screen quality. It looked worse than my 5 year old Dell Inspiron 6000 1280x800 screen. People with the 720p screens (besides the blind) can try to justify all they want, but if you're looking at getting the 720p screen, you need to be looking at other computers.

 

I got a XPS15 with 768p screen. The screen is very grainy and I had to return it. It's worse than my current Latitude d830 screen. Some of you may be lucky to get better 768p screen but I was not.