The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Notebook Screen Resolution

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by shel10, Jan 22, 2006.

  1. shel10

    shel10 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    My current notebook is a Toshiba Satellite S701 with a 15 inch screen. It has an Invida GPU with 64 MB dedicated Video RAM. I can set the screen resolution to 2048x1536.

    I've been looking for a new notebook. The ones that I am considering have significantly more video RAM, but none seem to go above SXGA or WSXGA.

    I know that these sreen resolutions are hard coded. Does anyone know why the manufacturers insist on limiting the resolution? Not everyone wants to use the computer to watch movies or play games.

    Does anyone know if the hard coded resolution settings can be field modified?
     
    shel10, Jan 22, 2006
    #1
  2. ikovac

    ikovac Cooler and faster... NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    872
    Messages:
    1,637
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55

    Hi shel10,

    Err, LCD is a matrix of constant number of pixels in rows and columns. It is not like CRT monitor. Different resolutions are actually aproximized and then pixels "act" as bigger or smaller.

    LCD has its max (phisically) resolution that is sometimes called "native". The higher - the better. Only in Native resolution each pixel on LCD screen represents 1 pixel in screen "picture" that is shown on that screen. You can set smaller resolutions with black lines, and still get 1:1 ratio. But that is because you are using only a part of your matrix.
    Streching (lower res than native), compressing (higher res than native) or "floating" screen resolutions are actually only a different ways of dealing with GPU supported, but not LCD supported resolutions.

    So UWXGA, WSXGA+ etc... actually make a difference in price and quality of the screen. I would always take as largest as possible for the money I pay. As you already noticed - it cannot be changed.

    Hope it helped,
     
    ikovac, Jan 23, 2006
    #2