Screen resolution options for 15.6" 1080p display

What are the 5 screen resolution options for the Dell Studio 1555 display with a 1900 x 1080 display?

"15.6 Inch Full High Definition(1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife and Camera/Facial Recognition"

Is 1280 x 800 one of the 5 resolution settings available under the Display Settings? I believe this is the lowest resolution setting where pictures are not distorted and out of proportion. Anything lower, like 1280 x 720, pictures become distorted.

This are the resolution options on my XPS 1530 I am referring to.

 

You'll probably have more than 5 steps on the 1555, since its native resolution is 1920x1080.

1280x800 will probably be one of the options, but it will be stretched and distorted on the 1080p display, because it has a native aspect ratio of 16:9 instead of 16:10. 1280x800 is a 16:10 ratio.

The closest resolution to that would be 1280x720, which fits perfectly with 16:9.

 

I prefer working in a 1280 x 720 or 1280 x 800 resolution environment.

On my XPS 15.4" 16:10 laptop, 1280 x 720 distorts the pictures. The native resolution is 1440 x 900.

1280 x 800 or higher is required for viewing pictures correctly on my XPS.

I guess I am trying to find out what is the minimum resolution setting on a 15.6" (16:9) monitor where pictures are not distorted?

Just curious, how did you know 1280x720 is a perfect fit for the 15.6" monitor?



Would a Studio 1555 with a 1440x900 be a better configuration to view pictures in the 1280x800 or 720 resolution?

 

Since the 1080p Studio 1555 has a 16:9 ratio screen. 1280x720 would not be distorted. (1280x800 would be as that is a 16:10 resolution.)

Minimum resolution for a 16:9 screen that causes little/no distortion should be 720p or 1280x720.

 

I havn't yet received my 1555 yet, and is the reason for question.

How did you know 1280x720 is the best fit for a 16:9 screen? Is there a mathematical calculation? Just trying to learn this for myself.

Edit - I guess I just figured it out. 1280/720= 1.778 16/9 = 1.778
1280/800 = 1.6 16/10= 1.6

Thanks for the help.

 

Aspect ratio is the ratio of width to height in a display. 1080p (1920x1080), 900p (1600x900), and 720p (1280x720) all have a width:height ratio, aka aspect ratio, of 16:9.

16:10 is the other common widescreen aspect ratio, including resolutions like 1920x1200, 1440x900, and 1280x800. The Studio 1555 is only available in 16:9, while the older Studios (1535/1537) and XPS (M1330/M1530) are 16:10.

EDIT - just got ninja'd by you two.

 

Thanks! That helped fill in the holes in my knowledge base!

 

Using an LCD monitor at anything but its native resolution will cause blurriness, especially when viewing text.

 

This is true, but you can at least preserve your aspect ratio with the right resolutions.

Also, some LCD's scale better than others. I had an old 17" desktop LCD, native resolution of 1600x1200, and it looked fantastic at 1280x1024 and 1024x768. You could hardly tell they weren't native.

 

Which is why ATI has this feature available for use:

 

I feel that this is going to be one of many of the problems people will face now when buying laptops. Ugh, why do manufacturers insist on replacing 16:10 screens with 16:9 ones???

 

Because we buy computers specifically to watch Blu-Ray and HD movies, remember?

 

I don't see much of a problem per say, as most people couldn't care less whether they purchased a 16:10 or 16:9 laptop, and quite frankly, most people won't even notice.

I just want all the manufacturers (TV, computer, even cellphone) to just decide on one standard. First it was 4:3, then computers went all 16:10 while TVs went 16:9. They need to just decide - one way or the other peeps.

 

I think computers should stay 16:10. Unless you watch HD movies all the time, you don't need the screen to be that wide, and even then...just watch them on a 16:10 and deal with half an inch of horizontal black bars.

 

On the Studio 1555 there are three options.

1920x1080
1600x900
1280x720

I thought 1920x1080 had the best quality and best detail.
So today I placed my order for this native resolution.

But I plan to set my resolution to 1280x720.

I was told that the quality/details of the display would be better with 1920/1080 (even if I was using 1280/720) than it would be if I bought a 1600x900, or 1280x720 native system.

But you have me second guessing my decision by saying I will experience more blurriness if I use 1280x720 in a 1920x1080 native system.

I am really confused which is better.

I don't watch HD movies or need a gaming system.

I can still change my order today.

 

If you're not going to use any resolution higher than 1280x720, then get the 720p display. Otherwise, you will inevitably get some blurriness from the LCD downscaling.

 

I was wondering about this very thing. I was thinking of getting the 900 or 1080p screen, but setting it to 1280x720 (or possibly doing so, I'm assuming I'll prefer it)

Now I'm second guessing myself...so luckily I happened upon this topic.

 

Right or wrong, I just changed my order from the 1080p to the 900p LED display.

I just don't see myself ever needing to shrink everything down to 1900x1080. But I may later want to go higher than 720p, so I purchased the 900p.

Downscaling from 1080p to 720p seems like too big of an adjustment. 900p native to 720p seems like a better solution and maybe less likely to produce distortion.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

I notice from your .sig that your current laptop has a 1440x900 resolution... if you are happy with that, I suggest you go 1600x900. I suspect you will be really disappointed at the loss of useable screen space if you "downgrade" to a "720p".

If anyone does any GUI development, go for at least the 900p. 720p resolution is really only good for people that just play games or surf the web. If you do any real work, get 900p... or if your eyes are really good, get the 1080p (but be warned, 1080P on a 15.6" screen = very tiny text). And don't listen to people who say you can use the font scaling feature in Windows... it just makes everything look freakishly out-of-proportion.

For me, I think 900p is the perfect compromise for a 15.6" - 16.4" screen.

And yes, for max image quality, always run your screen at the native resolution. Unlike CRT's, LCD screens look best when used at their native resolution.

Just my $0.02

 

I have my settings at 800p on this XPS system. I tried 900p but I didn't see any advantage and some things were a little too small for my preference. I really don't think I am going to need 900p but I am willing to give up a little resolution at the 720p setting to keep 900p as an option latter on.

 

Just for reference, 16:10 resolutions don't have "p" designations, like 720p or 900p. "800p" does not exist.

Common 16:10 resolutions and their names:

1280x800: WXGA
1440x900: WXGA+ or WSXGA
1680x1050: WSXGA+
1920x1200: WUXGA
2560x1600: WQXGA

 

I've never seen a laptop with a 1280x720 screen. Most low-resolution 16:9 screens ara 1366x768.

 

The reason behind the transition to 16:9 is to cut costs. The panels are cheaper to produce than 16:10

 

Confusing!

 

I've never seen either.

But in all my games that allow 16:9 resolutions, 1280x720 is always an option. 1366x768 is not.

You'll get the hang of it.

 

most hdtvs are 1366*768 when you ar usin it as a monitor!!
the minimun 16:9 in laptops is 1366*768 then 900p and then 1080p.
as 720p is tooooooo narrow (some netbook beat it ).

look a the chart

something i found here

 

That's only preferable if the display's native resolution is 1366x768. If the native res is 1280x720, then 1280x720 will be preferable.

 

why would anyone wanna lower their resolution anyway?

 

I never do when I can help it. The only time I ever lower my resolution is if I'm playing a game that's too stressful on the graphics card at my native 1280x800, so I scale it down to 800x600 or so to get playable frame rates.

 

An LCD has a set number of physical pixels or crystals making up each line of the panel. This number determines the native resolution of the panel. The higher the resolution the more physical pixels the panel manufacturer crams into an inch of space. Looking at this in simple form:

1920 px \ 16" = 120 px per inch
1280 px \ 16" = 80 px per inch

A 64x64 px icon takes up close to an inch on the 1280 display but only a half inch on the 1920 display...even though each is a 16" panel. This is why your desktop and everything looks smaller and smaller as push the native resolution up on a panel.

The second thing to understand is that the native resolution is a physical limitation (unlike CRTs). Changing the Windows resolution has no bearing on the physical number of pixels making up the panel.

This is where scaling and interpolation come into play. You can scale a 1920 native resolution panel down to 1280 but that does not mean the system is able to take away physical pixels. The panel still has to use every pixel on the panel so what it does it interpolate the image.

In the above instance you have 640 physical px on the panel that are unaccounted for (1920-1280=640). Your panel has to decide what to do with these left over pixels so it interpolates where to add them back into the image. Since 640 is half of 1280 it is likely your panel will just double every other line of the display to acount for the physical number of pixels on the panel.

Obviously doubling every other line means you loose some clarity especially in small items like text that are not many pixels wide to begin with. Of course the good thing is 1920 is somewhat cleanly divisable by 1280 (1.5) so the panel doesn't have to think too much where to put the extra pixels. You run into much more image degredation when you scale to resolutions that do not evenly divide into the native resolution. If you go with a 1680 resolution on a 1920 display your panel has to account for 240 extra physical pixels. That is one extra pixel for every 7.

So idealy you will have the best image running at your native resolution or one that is evenly divisable. Unfortunatly the resolution divisable evenly into 1920 is 960. So if you ran 960x540 you would have exactly two physical pixels for every one pixel of resolution and no odd ones. So instead of getting hung up on 16x9 or 16x10 just take your native resolution and divide by the other available windows resolutions. The one that is closest to an even should be the clearest.