Request for DELL Inspiron E1705/9400 owners

hey guys, could you all do me (and maybe others) a big favour?

I just can't make up my mind on what to get - a XGA+ or WUXGA

My request goes out to anyone owning a E1705 to take some pictures of the screen while some windows are open (for example office products running, photoshop, 3dmax, internet explorer,you name it).. so one get's a better picture of the difference between these two resolutions - there is a big resolution difference and I for myself think DELL should offer a something-in-between-both resolution..

Unfortunately, as long as you don't live in the US (I am stationed overseas with the US Army in Heidelberg, Germany for instance) you can't take a 1st person look at the notebook and have to rely on pictures... I already checked out all the reviews here, but they all feature flower desktop background pictures or some movie or game screens on the E1705...

So, if you have an E1705 running at either XGA+ (1440x900) or WUXGA (1920x1200), please take some pictures of it! Also it would be nice to see some pictures of the loss in screen quality if you switch down from native resolution to an emulated resolution...

thanks so much

 

ill see wat i can do, i personally love the wuxga on it. I just need to finda digital camera lol.

 

trust me you won't be able to tell the difference on a digital camera (i already took pictures of before and after - you couldn't tell any difference).

Can you not go to a retail store that sells laptops? If you can, you can get a comparison of matte vs. glossy. Chances are that if you like the glossy screens on other laptops, you'll like the one on Dell.

On smaller laptops, i always recommend matte, but on the 17in, I would go with glossy no matter what. The matte is very dull in comparison and you'll most likely regret it if you get it. Most of the complaints with truelife stem from the icon/text being smaller, but you can always adjust that to a larger size.

Don't do like me and wait until your 21 day period is up to decide that you don't like the matte screen - then you have to pay 500 bucks for a new LCD.

 

pics, anyone?

 

i'm in the process of ordering. had the same question.
had a student bring in his wuxga. 17" wide screen is smaller than 17" monitor.
he had to change xp to large desktop font for him to be able to easily read. i still had problems. 1920 is just too much in a short space for reading menus. (for me). i am ordering xga+ with ati 1400
p.s. I don't game very much. and 1400 won't suck as much battery life

 

Alright, I have the XGA+ screen. I'm quite happy with it. No dead pixels and only minimal light leakage which seems to be accented in these picture, but the leakage doesn't bother me in the least, even when gaming.
I took some color images with dead pixel buddy, and some of this topic and other windows. Still, you can't really see much from these photos, if anything the quality from my digital camera is so bad it might make you think the screen is bad or something.

Like I said, sorry for the quality:
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/8467/im000209go2.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3411/im000210wi7.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7411/im000221sa9.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4043/im000222om6.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4043/im000222om6.jpg
http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/7441/im000224gi7.jpg
http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/4482/im000225eh0.jpg
http://img289.imageshack.us/img289/7514/im000228pn2.jpg

 

wow nice. Do you find it too big?

 

No, I like the size of the screen. It's like carrying a desktop around with me. I don't have a problem taking it places, and my old CRT monitor was only 17" so it's like the only thing that's changed is the widescreen.
I like the notebook a lot.

 

I did print screen twice at both resolutions without changing any of the sizes of the windows. I think that will give you a good comparison of the differences between the two resolutions. Let me say, in switching back and forth between the two, I personally say the extra res is worth it.





Hope that helps.

 

hey thanks for the pics! anyone else got some pics of the E1705?

P.S: yeah kickin1019, they helped! can you switch between resolutions fast? also is it true, that if you switch to a non-native resolution, the texts get blury?

 

Yeah switching resolutions takes about 5 seconds. You just right click on the desktop>properties>settings and then adjust the slider there.

And at 1440x900 the text doesnt look blurry to me. Maybe it happens if you go to lower resolutions, but I didnt notice it when i switched.

 

okay, thanks, very helpful!

 

2 teamkillahilla:

I'm used to high resolutions on small screens, but to be honest with you WUXGA was a bit too much even for me.

My workaround was to make XP fonts a little larger.

Imho XGA for the screen of this size is too low.

SXGA would be perfect, but alas...

 

2 Leshii:

yeah, that's what I think too.. I mean my eyesight is good, but I'll have to sit in front of it like 6-8hrs a day.. on the other hand I hate too low resolutions, because I'm a heavy multitasker and it just slows you down..
as you said, they really should have SXGA for it

 

heres mine wuxga stats in my sig and pics taken with a nikon d50 slr cam at night as well as ps cs2 running (runs great)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0068.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0069.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0070.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0072.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0073.jpg
pic of what this cam can do
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Dr-toronto/nikon%20d50%20slr%20shots/DSC_0016-1.jpg

 

Listen, I was in the same position as you were. The UXGA is not as small as you would think and about 10x better then the normal XGA. The UXGA paired with the 7900GS makes gaming a treat. When browsing the net or using PS7 its also sweet. Having the extra space comes in handy. UXGAs are generally better quality too. Dont even think about it, get the upgrade and enjoy the top of the line UXGA.

 

hey thanks all! I've decided to get the UXGA! yaaaay

 

lol but as things go, I now ordered the DELL E1705 with WUXGA! yay! lol will get some glasses if necessary hehe

 

Hey, you know, with the dell quick set if you set your DPI higher your text and icons will get larger. Plus windows has a few optinos to enlarge your text if things are still really bad. The WUXGA is really worth it though, you made a good choice.

 

Yeah WUXGA rocks !
I have WXGA on my e1505, and I find that resolution too low.

 

Holy crap - u paid 500 extra for a screen replacement ?

 

2 teamkillahilla:
anyway, if you get WXGA you will be sorry later on, at least with WUXGA you can drop resolution.
So basically WXGA is not really an option for this notebook.

Watching high-res movies on this notebook w/ WUXGA screens is amazing btw.

If you get this lappy w/ WUXGA and then need help making your fonts larger - give me a shout, it'll only take you 5 min to do

 

hey just wanted to let you know, that I made up my mind and got the WUXGA resolution.. a couple of more days now and I can check it out for real

 

let us know what you think

 

In the same boat here.

Was feeling really bad about choosing the WUXGA screen after talking to
others and reading others posts at the Dell Community Forum. Honestly
was considering cancelling my order (still "in production - boxing") and
redoing my order with the XGA+ screen instead.

People have me worried that the fonts will be too small, etc. And, others
said that the DPI settings when increased can sometimes do odd things
and cause programs to look odd.

Others have told me that if I deviate from the native resolution of 1920x1200
whatsoever that my screen will be blurry. Is this true?

From reading this thread, it appears that I should be okay with my selection
of the WUXGA TrueLife screen .... please confirm this and make a weary
medical school a little less frazzled.

Thanks for any response and making me feel better about my purchase.

Sincerely,

William K. Kunkle, Jr.

 

Yes it's true, it's the nature of the fixed pixel display. When you run at lower than native resolution the monitor or video card has to scale up the image through interpolation. But manufacturers are always improving how the monitor scales, so while it's definitely gonna be more blurry it might not be that much of a difference.

 

Okay .. thank you for the response about the blurriness.

So, what you are saying, is that it will be blurrier, but it might not even be noticeable (if I understood correctly)?

... Any feedback from anyone that actually has the Inspiron E1705 17" TrueLife WUXGA scaled down?

Regardless, everyone thinks the WUXGA with TrueLife is the way to go with this laptop ... and if I have problems with the fonts/icons being too small, changing the DPI is an efficient and non-problematic solution? (or use Dell QuickSet)

Thanks again for any advice ...

Like I said, I am in medical school (start my first year of courses on Monday, August 14) and this laptop was bought with my loan money. So, I want to make sure I will not have problems with size of icons/text, because I won't be able to get another one for at least four years!

Sincerely,

William K. Kunkle, Jr.

Edited to Add:
Sorry for taking over another person's thread ... I just figured it would be easier to condense my comments into a thread with the same questions/concerns as myself.

 

On another note, I chose the wuxga so I could watch 1080i/p hd tv and movies in their native resolution. For regular viewing font size can be increased. Most programs display larger fonts correctly. I've only had a few small utilities that didn't display the larger fonts correctly. I'm very happy with my wuxga screen.

 

See that's the thing, I wish I got UWXGA cause your 'white' is white but mine is kinda yellowish or something that is not pure white.

 

i know may be this is offtopic.. but.. CvcDrk but do you use to skinning your XP looks good.

 

Just get the WUXGA, and change the resolution to 1440x900, at first u'll notice it's not as sharp as 1920 1200 but it's minimal difference. if you get used to 1440 x900 it's fine. I don't see much blurry.

IF you think the text too small when u read on website and stuff.

Use firefox, then Hold Ctrl key and scrool down your mouse to enlarge text.

 

Though I had a WXGA+ matte screen, I'll recommend the WUXGA TrueLife glossy screen in order to get better viewing quality.

 

I'm on day 3 with my WXGA and am pleased so far (typing this in my corner recliner with open windows to either side), but you guys are making me question my choice. I made the decision strictly to save money and hoped I wouldn't regret it. I'm not, yet, but if I should decide I want to put in the extra $175 or whatever it was, how would I go about it? Return and get refund and then just go through the purchase process again?

 

Keep your current system & not worry about it if you are happy with your WXGA+. That's my suggestion.

 

I had the LG WXGA on a system I've since sold, and I have to say I was very disappointed with it. Backlight leakage was bad and viewing angle was very poor.

I really like this Sharp WUXGA on my current system

 

Is the viewing angle generally accepted as much better on the WUXGA? That'd be the thing that got me to switch. Watched an episode of Weeds last night from bed and the laptop on the dresser and we had the adjust the angle like 3 times to get it viewable.