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    Screen size help

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Greel, Nov 3, 2015.

  1. Greel

    Greel Notebook Evangelist

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    im looking to buy a used laptop and I'm not sure what screen size i need.


    I plan to use steam in house stream to play games on it, and right now I have a 32inch 1440p monitor but due to poor eyesight it strains my eyes a bit (8.1 doesn't scale right)


    So assuming I can get windows 10 on it, I'm thinking 4k. What size screen does 4k look best on? 13in, 15 inch, 17 inch, or 18 inch
     
    Greel, Nov 3, 2015
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  2. Bytes-N-Stuff

    Bytes-N-Stuff Notebook Enthusiast

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    The larger the screen the better for 4k, but you probably don't want 4k in a laptop either way.

    Just keep in mind that the larger the screen is the heavier the laptop is. They've come down in weight over the past couple of years, but if you're thinking of going used you want to be careful on the weight, some of those older large screen laptops were extremely heavy and bulky...

    You're looking to play games on the laptop? You're going to want something newer with the most powerful video card you can get if you're dead set on getting a laptop (Which I don't recommend when gaming, but that's just me :D )
     
    Bytes-N-Stuff, Nov 5, 2015
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  3. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    I would say forget 4K. If you have poor eyesight or your eyes are strained on a 1440p 32 inch screen, you are sure to have issues on smaller laptop screens with 4k resolution. You can always use DPI scaling to increase text size, but If you don't like DPI scaling in Windows 8.1, I would suggest looking for a laptop with a resolution that is comfortable for your eyes without requiring DPI scaling.

    I had a 1080p screen on my Alienware M15X and although I have good eyesight, the text was still too small for me. I am now using a 900p screen on this laptop and it seems perfect for the screen size. 1080p will probably be better for 17" and above, but this is more of an opinion, not a fact. Go to a local computer shop and look at various laptops. Make a note of their screen sizes and native resolutions and you'll get a good idea of what you'll be comfortable with.

    Also, for gaming, you may not want the highest resolution anyway. For modern games to run on a 4k screen at 4k resolution you are gonna need a powerful graphics card to maintain proper framerates. You can always lower in game resolution, but it won't look as good as the native res. Take a look at this:

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html

    Even a top of the line card like the 980m GTX struggles at 4k resolution.
     
    kosti, Dec 16, 2015
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