Studio 15 and 1080p screen

I have been looking to buy a laptop for a while, and would prefer to go with an i7 model, hence I am looking at the studio 15 as Dell is the only company to have i7 laptops available in Australia. For some reason the options for inbuilt 3g and a 1600x900 screen are available on the model with the old processor but not with the i7 . The normal resolution screen will likely be too low so I am not going with that. Is 1080p on a 15" screen able to be used for word processing and general office tasks? This laptop will be an all in one - office use, multimedia and a music production laptop. Should I go out of my way to find a 1080p 15" laptop to trial or is it a stupid suggestion that isn't worth the trouble?

Thanks

 

A lot of people complain that a 1080p screen makes everything too small on a 15" laptop. Screen resolution is really a matter of personal preference though, so you should go to your local Best Buy (or whatever the Australian equivalent is) and look at some yourself.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to get to a store to try it out, however in country Australia the range at retailers is limited. I have used 1680x1050 on a 17" laptop most of the time, however pushing even more pixels onto a smaller screen doesn't sound great to me, so I'll wait until I see one in person before deciding.

I'm just annoyed that the new Dell Studio 15 with the i7 is missing options that the lower models have, yet the same options are available with the i7 in America.

 

I think the 900p option would best preserve the pixel size ratio of 1680x1050@17".

 

As long as some store's carrying some 15" laptop with a 1080p screen, that's all you need. As far as pixel density is concerned, they're all the same.

Well, America gets the best, the first, and the cheapest, when it comes to computers. At least you don't live in Japan, where an entry level laptop with a Pentium Dual Core costs as much as a white Macbook.

 

Even that might be a big ask in country Australia (roughly 2 hours from Sydney). The large retailers only have your average users laptops on display, and maybe a select few more expensive ones. The other option is the MSI GT640M, which one online shop in Australia has listed, so it will depend on if they can get within a reasonable price range.

Probably what will end up happening is I will wait a month or so until the options I want become available on the Studio 15 or XPS 16 and then buy, getting the laptop closer to December. As it isn't needed right away and it will get all the parts that I want, it seems reasonable, I just hope they update the options sooner rather than later (if at all).

 

hey.. as far as the screen text being small.. you can increase them by changing the DPI settings in the operating system.. i do own a full HD 1080 p laptop and i use it for programming so no probs till now..... go for it...

 

Thanks for the idea. I tried it quickly just on my temporary laptop (15.4" 1280x800) and external monitor (22" 1680x1050). On Vista it seemed that the desktop icons were larger and pixelated, when navigating in windows explorer everything was bigger, however browsing in chrome and firefox seemed just the same. I'll play around with it some more tonight and see if that will make up my mind.

 

Alright, I've settled on the Studio XPS 16 with the 1080p. The main reason for this is that it future proofs for blu-ray, gaming and I have external monitors if it really bugs me that much. Most of the time it will sit on my desk anyway.

However just one quick question. Can you hook up two externals to this laptop? I currently have a 22" samsung (1680x1050) and a 20" Dell (1600x900) is on the way. Can the XPS 16 provide support for both of the externals to run a 3 screen display?