Will 17" FHD monitors *ever* be available again?

HP - No.
Dell - No.
Acer - No.
Asus - No (well, except for G73).
Toshiba - No.
Sony - No.

All are selling 1600x900 in 17" laptops. What's up with that? FHD is available in the 16s and 15s! It's bad enough I have to lose 10% of my screen real estate by going from 1920x1200 to 1920x1080 but down further to 1600x900? Not going to happen! Is there only one plant in the world making these things? Did it burn down or something?

Anyone have any insight?

 

Maybe you can't get these displays on Inspirons and Studios, but you can still get 1920 x 1200 in the M17X and the the M6400/M6500. Lenovo and HP also offer 1920 x 1200 on their 17" workstations...

 

Hmmm...I knew you could still get 1920x1200 on some of the older machines and the dramatically over-priced workstations, but I didn't know about the M17x. The Alienware's are just so staggeringly ugly and impractical that I never even looked!

Still wondering why the 1920x1080s that are readily available in 15" and 16" models are not available in the 17" models.

 

Well, this is irritating. The M17x identically configured to the Studio 17 is $2074 versus $989. The only differences that I can see are the video card which I don't care about and the screen which I do care about. That means I'd basically be paying almost $1100 just to go from 1600x900 to 1920x1200.

 

I took delivery of a Studio 1749 with the 1920 x 1080 display a week ago. The FHD display for the Studio 17 was taken off the Dell websites some time before Christmas if I remember correctly. I was waiting for them to be listed again so I could order a Studio 17 with the FHD display, but eventually I got tired of the wait and rang up Dell and asked the sales rep to check what the status was, and I was told that it was actually available... This was on the 6th of April. The machine was built within 8 days of ordering, indicating that the displays were indeed in the inventory. So there you go - call your sales rep and insist that they check.

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Still I don't understand why they took it from the website for so long if they still sell the screen. I can't get used to the 1600x900 screen. It feels like looking through the mailbox.

 

Interesting. What was the cost adder (it's $75 for the XPS 16)? Are the i7-540M and/or 620M also available this way, as they are for the XPS 16? The 620M for the XPS 16 is $180 extra over the 520M.

Thanks for the comment.

 

The added cost for the display upgrade is about the same as for the XPS, maybe a few dollars more. On the Norwegian site the i7-620M is listed and it's around USD 330 more than an i5-520 (probably almost half of that price in the US, so USD 180 sounds about right - yeah we do get ripped off over here...).

During the last few months I've learned that what's on the Dell websites does not necessarily correspond with what's really available. I've specifically experienced this with the Studio 17 displays, optical drives, memory, backlit keyboards, OS etc.. I've also wondered about other inconsistencies; e.g. you can select a bag or backpack for some systems and not for others (without making a separate order). Their systems/procedures for synchronizing the websites with reality as well as maintaining consistency between the options for the various models and across countries are not good - this creates confusion and makes you miss out on things.

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So, this option came back to the 1749 first on the Employee Purchase site, and now it's back on the public site. About time! Still lacking any processor above the 520M, however.

Now the odd thing is they claim you can get the 720QM or 820QM in the 1749 (as opposed to the 1747). Not sure if that's true or if it's a misprint. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I'd probably prefer a 620M to a 720QM at the same price but that's not available (yet).