Need help deciding on which resolution to go with.

Hi all,

I'm having a hard time deciding on a laptop due to screen resolution and small fonts. I want a 15" laptop that's is equal to a 14" 1280x800 screen resolution. The font size (96dpi) was perfect for that size screen for me. I have tried 1920x1080 on a 15" and have adjusted the dpi and font sizes to which made some apps ok but others still had hardcoded tiny fonts in the programs which made things way too small to read. Design and Video editing would be my main purpose and light video games such as starcraft I or II, WoW. So for 15" would 1680x1050, 1600x900 or 1368x768 be what I'm looking for? Btw.. I went to Bestbuy to try and I couldn't figure out which size was close to my old 1280x800 at 14" on the 15" models.

Thanks.

 

1680x1050 sounds like it would fit the bill. 1920x1200 can be an acquired taste....

 

Thank you pitz!

 

1680x1050 are hard to come by nowadays with all these new 16:9 ratio screens. A closer fit is 1440x900 (which are also getting rarer). A good bet will be 1600x900.

I have a 1920x1200 myself just like pitz, it is indeed an acquired taste at just over 147 pixels per square inch.

This is a neat site where you can calculate pixel density of various screens.
http://thirdculture.com/joel/shumi/computer/hardware/ppicalc.html

 

Well, if you are watching movies and have a need for full HD, then I'd go for 1920 x 1200, but for what you are doing, I'd suggest 1680 x 1050. If you have trouble reading text on 1920 x 1200, and it is too small for your eyes, then I'd recommend against it. You don't want to be straining your eyes, as it could potentially be bad for you.

 

Thank you Johnny T and CZX58. So if I edit videos from a HD video camera would that mean I need to have at least a 1920x1080 screen resolution? 1440x900.. ok that sounds interesting so I'll look into that as well.

 

WUXGA (1920x1200) would be my recommendation. Great for everything. The next best is 1920x1080 which is FHD or full HD.

 

You don't need an hd capable monitor to edit hd videos.

 

Well, technically speaking, HD is anything 1280 x 720 and above. So a camera can be marketed as HD, and only have a resolution of 1280 x 720.

I'd suggest that you find out what resolution the camera records, and then come to a conclusion on what resolution you get for your laptop. If it did turn out to be a full HD camera, meaning that it records at 1920 x 1080, then you would probably want to opt for the higher resolution screen, just to make it easier.

Also, if you intend to watch Blu-Ray videos, then again, 1920 x 1200 would be better.

 

For me anything over 1920x1080 is prefered. (1920x1200 ftw!)

But you might like 15" 1600x900 screen, because 1366x768 is terrible.
Way to much scrolling on webpages and such.
Only positive thing would be that you can play older games that dont support widescreen at 1024x768 native.

For bluray you should also get hdmi out so you can hook it up to your HDTV.

 

Ok I understand now. Thank you all very much for your help.

 

i would also recommend Full HD...Dell's RGB screen or Hp's dreamcolour would be the best.