Question about laptop component differences

Greetings. I'm not sure exactly where to post this question, but this seemed like the most correct place for it. Forgive me for the abstract topic title - couldn't think of a better one.

I'm buying a new laptop soon and I've already made a list of likely candidates, but I would like some input and basic information about their differences.

Display. Main question: is the full HD 1920x1080 resolution worth it on a 15.6' laptop? I hear stories of text becoming small, bordering on unreadable and that if used for basic internet browing it's less comfortable than a smaller resolution. I've had a chance to look at some full HD 15'6 screens on display at a store, and while everything looked beautiful and the "real estate" on the screen was amazing, I cannot say how my eyes would feel after a few hours of work on it. It's a requirement(or, rather, a huge bonus) in my studies(engineering) to be able to have several windows opened side by side, and on my current 1366x768 15.6' screen it's not the easiest or most pleasant thing to do.
Also, for CAD, gaming and multimedia, would a glossy or matte screen be preferable? My current one is glossy, and also it's a dust magnet, so it's damn near unreadable in sunlight or prominent indoor lighting.

CPU. As I mentioned, I would mainly use the laptop for CAD and similar engineering programs, and gaming/multimedia. Maybe photo editing. Is a quad core(even an older, Ivy Bridge model) worth more money and less battery lifetime when compared to a dual core Haswell? The processor is the bottleneck in my current system, so I would like to avoid making that mistake again.

Thanks in advance. Please move if this happens to be the wrong section for these kind of questions. And I apologise if it's been already asked. I did a quick, but not too thorough search and didn't get any relevant results.

 

Display. Two words: "hell yes". Not only would a higher resolution such as 1080p give you more screen real estate, but the overall quality of high-res displays trumps that of low-res displays commonly found on low-end laptops (and, for some reason, are still an other for somewhat higher-end laptops...). I wouldn't say that the smaller text (assuming 100% DPI, instead of the default 125% where text will be "bigger") would be a cause for concern; when I got my first 1080p 15.6" display (coming from a 768p 15.6" display), it only took me maybe a day to fully adjust to it, including lowering the DPI to 100% (which makes the text even "smaller"). Mind you, I have horrible vision and have to wear strong corrective glasses/contacts, so you should be fine with using a 1080p display. Just checking out a 1080p display for maybe an hour or two won't allow you to fully adjust; I'd say give it about 6-8 hours of use and then you'll feel more comfortable about it.

Glossy vs matte is mainly a subjective preference, though each has its pros and cons. Glossy screens tend to look "more vibrant", though in truth it can sometimes also just be a trick created by the coating. Matte displays are great at reducing glare caused by indoor/outdoor light sources, and don't distort the image much (like glossy displays sometimes do). If you're looking to cut down on glare, matte is the way to go.

Battery life differences between the same generation quad- and dual-core won't be all that much, since modern Intel CPUs (at least since Sandy Bridge) will underclock or maybe even turn off CPU cores(?) when you're not using them. For CAD and gaming, having at least a basic, modern quad-core CPU would be a very big positive, even if it's a generation old (Ivy Bridge still offers a great amount of performance, whereas Haswell wasn't really a performance update). If you can get a Haswell quad-core, that would be a little bit better, though between the two choices you present, I'd go for the IB quad over the Haswell dual.

** Also: if your primary goal will be to work with professional programs in CAD/engineering, you'll be better served by a laptop with a professional GPU (Quadro or FirePro) rather than a gaming-oriented laptop (Radeon, though GeForce especially since nVidia gimped OpenCL/OpenGL/CUDA/etc. performance on the GeForce 6xxM and above). I'd consider looking into a workstation-class laptop for that usage, so something like a Dell Precision, Lenovo Thinkpad W, or HP Elitebook -w or ZBook would be great laptop series to consider.

 

For the first question, I stopped at 1920x1080 and engineering. Yes, yes yes and YES! Seriously in engineering, ti's either going to be programs with complicated UIs, mega Excel spreadsheets, MATLAB or other types of more traditional programming languages, so you'll want that display real estate.

Glossy vs matte: if you work in environments with bright lighting, go matte. Note that in the sun, you need a high brightness display meant for this too and those aren't exactly common in most notebooks.

CAD: depends on the software, some are CPU heavy others are GPU heavy and some are both. Get a quad core if you can. Usually simulation software used for strain, stress calculations, CFD, etc. scale extremely well with more cores. You're literally cutting crunch time by roughly half with a quad vs dual of the same architecture and clock speed. A tad less than half haswell dual vs ivy quad at the same clock speeds, but it will still be significant.

 

Thank you for the swift and informative replies. So far they've further reinforced my interest in a Full HD display and quad core CPU. Still not sold on the matte. I'm shuffling through the forums and reading mixed comments regarding colour reproduction and screen vividness. I will go visit some local electronics stores in my spare time and have a look around the laptops section to get a general feel of them. I've already visited some, but forgot to make a mental note to check out the glare on the screens.

Jarhead - interesting comment about the professional GPU, but to be completely honest, up until your post I hadn't even heard of them. So I'd rather not dabble in affairs that I have no knowledge in. I finish university in a bit more than 6 months, and after that I'm not sure if the laptop will still be used for engineering. I will most likely get a computer at work so this one would remain only for gaming/multimedia. But that's only if I don't go for 1.5 more years of university for a higher degree.

I will now go to sleep, but I will check this tomorrow. I always want to make smart purchases that are of good quality and last at least for some time. For example, I've done this for the past two cell phones I bought, and they definitely were great purchases, no regrets. I love reading people's opinions and melding them all into a final choice.

 

Ah, didn't know that you'd be only doing CAD/engineering work for possibly only six more months. If you get a job in that field, more than likely the company will provide you with some sort of workstation, so in that case you should be able to get away with something with a gaming GPU in the meantime.

However, also consider that workstation-class laptops (or business-class laptops in general) will have a much higher build quality and aftersales support than consumer-class laptops, so if that's an important thing to you I'd still consider them.