Laptop Resolution

Ok, I have been wondering these 2 things for awhile, and figured I would ask and see what people thought.

1) Why does everyone love 1080p resolution? It seems that 1600x900 (which I prefer) has gone the way of the dodo. Maybe it is because I am older and can't see anything on 1080p, but I am not so old as to need the seemingly giant 1366x768.

2) Why can't LCD/LED displays change resolution without getting that little bit of "fuzzy" look to them?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Bryan

 

1: A lot of the members here are enthusiasts and resolution junkies. 1600x900 hasn't gone the way of the dodo, but they are rarer. I suppose manufacturers assume 1366x768 is fine for cheap laptops and people who want to pay more go for 1080p. There are a many 14" + models that you can customize with a 1600x900 lcd.

2: A lcd panel has a set amount of physical pixels and each pixel can only display one color at a time, if you lower the resolution on a 1600x900 lcd to 1366x768 for example, you will have to go through pixel interpolation as each "virtual" pixel that needs to be displayed can't be displayed on a single physical pixel. 1600/1366 = 1.17 and, you can't display two different color on the same pixel so you can't display on only a 0.17th of a pixel. The computer will compromise what each physical should display to give the best reproduction of the image, but it is never perfect. If you want to do a little experiment, set your display to 800x450 and it won't look fuzzy as each virtual pixel will be displayed on 4 physical pixels (2 horizontal by 2 vertical).

EDIT: Not sure i was clear with the whole fuzzy looking picture thing, i'm certain someone can explain it better.

 

1600x900 displays on 15-inch notebooks are very thin in the consumer/enthusiast space, but they're still easy to come by if you look at a business-class system (Dell Latitue, HP Elitebook, Lenovo ThinkPad).

 

The 900p screens sadly do not look as good (viewing angles, contrast, etc) as the 1080p ones...

 

Alot of the time, high color gamut even IPS screens are only available on the highest resolution screens (Dreamcolor 2, Precision's RGBLED IPS Premium panel, Lenovo's 95% color gamut FHD LCD). It is generally accepted that low resolutions are only wanted by people who are on a budget, but my dad who had bad vision selected his laptop to have the lowest resolution (Studio 1558 with 1368x768).

As for the top posters, everything is true. Average joe schmoe does not care whether a laptop has 1368x768 or 1600x900 or 1920x1080, they just want a cheap laptop that works, and thus 95% of laptops are 1368x768.