Is 12" Too Small?

I start law school on Aug. 28th, and I'm torn between buying a 12" Dell (Latitude X1 or D420) or a 14" Latitude.

Those of you who have experience with 12" laptops, do you think it's large/comfortable enough to use both in class and during part of the requisite studying time outside of class? I have a 17" laptop at home, which I will use often too, but I need something I can take to class with me.

Suggestions?

 

I'd say it depends on how often you use you laptop and what activity you use on it. If you need to read a lot and program (like me), i would advise at least 14inch'. I find 15'in to be "comfortable" and 14inch' to be "fit", anything smaller than that will cause eye strain after long duration. It's a very important issue for me. I can't understand why students would want 12in laptop rather than being cool and trendy.

 

I imagine I will be doing quite a bit of reading from it.

I'll save money if I go the 14" route, too.

 

Ive never used a 12' laptop but i think it will be SMALL for reading and everything. For school I would definitly suggest something bigger than 14'. I have a 14' and I would say that its JUST right for reading. I would prefer the 15' for reading of course but then I would compromise on the weight which I prefer to have. Hope my opinion helped a little

 

you can always change the font size on the 12inch.
12 inch laptops are very portable and for the most part have longer battery life.
I've had a 15, 14 and 12 inch laptops.
My last 2 have been 12.
You can go to your local shop (best buy, walmart, compusa, etc..) and play around with them. See which one suites your needs.
I'm a journalist student with massive reading and writting assignments. I can do both on my laptop.

 

Here's what I specked out for $1214:

Latitude D620

Intel® Core™ Duo T2500 (2.00GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core
14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD Panel
1.0GB DDR2-533MHZ,2 DIMM,LAT,FACT
256MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 110M TurboCache™
60GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM
Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module
90W A/C Adapter
24X CD-ROM Drive
Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Band Mini Card
6 Cell Primary Battery


That's after the $400 rebate. Pretty nice setup for the price, if you ask me.

 

A 12" really ist that small, especially if its a widescreen. This may be me personlally, but Ive used my laptop for 6+ hours in 1 sitting while gaming, surfuing, and posting here and on other forums. Ive had no eyestrain from mine, and in fact I like my 12" screen better than the 17" Dell Ultrasharp for my old desktop. If I had to choose between the two for gaming/reading I would take the 12" because the quality is so much better. It may be too small for me but I think its a perfect notebook size.

 

I have 12" and it is not too small for me. Now I write this post from a 10.6" model!

I read a lot from the laptop screen (at least 8h/day) and I feel comfortable even with 10.6" screen.

In my opinion all the point is in the screen resolution (1280x768 WXGA is the usable minimum, imho) and quality.

The weight and the size turned out to be the priority for me while using the
notebook at the university. I think everything which is larger than A4 is too big,
and everything above 1.6kg is too heavy to carry around and use effectively.
It seems that some of my professional colleagues whom I met recently at an international conference slowly move towards the same conclusion (based on the laptops used in the conference hall).

The only improvement I'd like to have in future is 12" SXGA screen with the resolution 1400 x 1050, so that I would be able to see more text on the screen and to have more windows open. Undfortunately, the only models offering such SXGA 12" screen (Toshiba Portege M200 and M400) are too expensive here (in Germany they may cost 2000-4000 euro) and they also seem to have not sufficiently sturdy buid quality (see users' comments on cnet).

 

Yeah thats something I wish 12" had too, an SXGA resolution. Believe it or not sometimes I wish the things on my screen were smaller then they are. But 1280x800 isnt a bad resolution by anymeans. Its small enough to be productive with and it also has great quality.

 

Having had 15"14" and 12" i would never go back from the 12". I use my notebook everywhere and the benfits of size/weight are something i have come to expect. That said when im in the office I use a seperate KB/LCD and all is well.

 

You just have to decide what you want: size/weight or performance. I had a laptop with 13.3" LCD and it was a bit too small for me. I'd say go with 14" if you can carry it. I had 17" 15" and 13.3" LCDs, I'd say 14-15" is optimal.

 

It may be too small for me personally ....

 

I have a notebook with a 12" screen and it is fine. My desktop has a 17" screen and I have no problem adjusting from one screen to the other. The resolution of the 12" screen is 1024x768, which I consider optimal for that size. Some people argue that a higher resolution is better but these people don't seem to realize that with a higher resolution, pictures on web pages will look really tiny. You can select a bigger font for word processing and browsing the web but pictures stay the same size in terms of pixels. Thus, higher resolution = smaller pictures.