Screen Basics- Whay shoudl I be looking for?

Didn't see a general guide for this like the Intel chipsets, GPU's, etc....

In the process of looking for a laptop with either a 16" or 17" screen. I've read a good number of the reviews here and usually one of the most discussed aspects is the screen resolution, quality, etc. I've picked up bits and pieces here and there, but what are some of your "minimums" you like with your screen? How important is shelling out usually a decent amount of $$$ for 1080p vs 780p for example? I've seen a decent 16" laptop get heavily panned because it'll be 1366 x 768, for example, I pretty much find myself getting more lost than any other component...this will actually be the very first laptop I buy after years of desktops

I guess I'm just looking for those used to looking at these, what are some of the priorities I should be placing on these? (i.e. minimum resolution, glossy, HD stuff)

Thanks for ANY advice!!

ETA: Jeez, don't think I could have sounded more drunk when I typed out the post subject...sorry.

 

The Quality ---> viewing angles, depth of blacks and whites, brightness, natural vs color saturation should be most important. Read the NBR Reviews.

The Resolution, higher means more detail, and more space (length times width) should help increase productivity. One misconception is that higher resolutions "make text tiny", but you can simply increase the size of the text to the desired level and it will be more detailed.

Most Glossy Screens make your colors more vivid but can be tough on the eyes outdoors because it reflects light. I prefer glossy for movie watching and gaming as the colors jump out at you, enhancing the image quality.

Matte Screens don't over saturate the colors, they aren't as rich and bright, but won't reflect light as much outdoors. You might read/hear "clear and crisp". It's a cleaner, more natural picture.

It depends, if you're more of a movie watcher and gamer, the length (768) won't be so bad, it's like a 16" widescreen TV!

Now, if you're working, and/or you need to have multiple browsers and applications open at the same time, 1366 x 768 on a 16" could prove frustrating and time consuming.

 

Resolution:
DPI (Fineness) of Displays
125DPI is a nice resolution in my opinion, down to about 110DPI, but below 100 DPI is a joke. Above 125DPI and the fonts start getting really small. If you don't have problems with the eyes, then you won't have much problems with a display with anything above 125DPI, but you may also consider increasing font size in Windows to reduce pain in the eyes.

Surface:
There's glossy and matt.
Cheap matt displays look a bit grainy, good matt displays are nice to view.
Cheap glossy displays are reflective, good glossy displays use an expensive but good Anti Reflective coating which reduces reflections and thus makes it a perfect display.
Glossy displays have more vibrant colors than matt displays, but most of the newer notebooks don't have an AR coating and thus are very reflective. Many upper class VAIO notebooks have perfect glossy displays with a good AR coating.
Good glossy displays are better outdoors than good matt displays.

Display panel:
Most notebooks gets shipped with TN panels. They are cheap, that's their only advantage.
There are much better panels available, sadly they are more expensive. Therefore they have much better color accuracy and viewing angles.

Backlight:
You can choose between LED and CCFL. CCFL is older, consumes more power, thicker and will die earlier. LED is the future.
Cheap displays have dim backlights and backlight bleeding, good displays have bright backlights and a uniform backlight.

An informative homepage:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles.htm

 

What's annoying is how Windows scales text unevenly, like certain text on certain programs are enlarged, while others are not. IMO if you have bad vision, get a lower resolution. Make sure you check out the resolution in a store to see if a screen size/resolution combo works for you.

Most screens are glossy, again try it out at a store. If you don't like glossy but love the notebook, check places like buyviewguard.com or I believe 3M too, for anti-reflective/glare coating.

Pretty much no choice in 99% of notebooks for panel type (TN), but if LED backlight is an option, get that (worth the premium if you plan on using your notebook for a long time).