Why have high-res screen become so uncommon?

About 3-4 years back, there were lots of high res screens, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, etc. Lenovo even had a 1400x1050 sxga+ screen on their 12.1" tablet. Dell used to offer 1920x1200 screen upgrades on their consumer inspiron lines.

Now, high res screens seem to have dissappeared to expensive models. Dell doesnt offer 1920x1080/1200 on any inspiron/vostro etc. HP has 1920x1200 only DV8 (and maybe DV7?) + 2000 euro plus business machines. Asus offers 1920x1080 only on a 1600 euro machine.

Why have higher resoultion screen become so uncommon?

 

Because they cost more money and manufacturers have realized that the majority of mass consumers don't really care(or even know for that matter). If you stick an "HD" label on it, people think it's "high res" even though it's just 1366x768.

 

That is high res, it's just not the highest standard. A lot of people got suckered because of the confusion of that generality.

Umm, because the newness wore off?

 

Sony has many high resolution screen options, 1920x1080 and 1600x900 are common options in most of their laptops. Heck, even their 8" laptop has 1600x768 resolution. HP offered decent screens in their Envy line and Apple offers decent resolutions in their MBP lineup. Many other manufacturers seem to prefer lower resolution options because they are cheaper and need a less power GPU to push high quality content. Also, some people seem to find the text too small on a 15.4" 1920x1200 screen, DPI adjustments aside.

 

This.

Most people don't seem to know or care about resolution or image quality. You have no idea how many people I've seen running their LCD screens at non-native resolutions, because the "text is too small".

 

Money.

HD screens are more expensive to produce and as long as punters buy low definition screens this will continue; especially if manufacturers can slap 'HD' on any old piece of tat with a 1368x768 screen.

(This post was typed with great smugness on a WUGXA screen with 1200 glorious vertical pixels) - Super

 

Want, now.

 

How can that be high-res when it is the lowest common resolution? That range of resolution was high-res ten years ago, but it is far from it today. It is average-res at best.

 

Because your HD TV does 1366x768 if it's a 720p TV and thats HD. All common people care about is "HD" they dont know any better.

 

1368x768 supports 720P which IS high REZ. 10 years ago you were lucky to get 640x480

1368x768 works just fine for sub 15" notebooks. If full vector graphics were supported across the web and PC then I would jump on a second 1920x1080 screen. On my 17", 1400x900 is fine for all around use..

oh yes, YMMV; specially for the 3D junk coming out now which (IMHO) needs a bit more work.

Maybe all this will change when 4k screens make it to notebooks?

 

Say hello to the cost cutting world of crappy 16:9 resolutions.

 

The aspect ratio of a screen has naught to do with its resolution or color depth......

 

1024x768 was already common on 12.1" laptops back in 2000...

At any rate, the Sony Z utilizes Toshiba 1080p 13.1" displays

 

?

You get the displays aspect ratio from a resolution.

 

You missed the point, were you not lucky, in Y2K, to have ANY laptop over the run of the mil CRT rez, of that era? Apple, IBM, HP and Sony were not giving them away.

...as far as the 13" 1080P screens, let's see the raise of hands of people over 35, who do NOT scale the text or the screen as in word processing.

I would venture this is the main reason for the OP's title; the squeaky wheels, with wallets and wearing glasses, gets the vote?

 

Because the average consumer is ignorant and/or has no real need for anything higher. The #1 thing average consumers look at when they "check the screen" is brightness, not contrast or accuracy or max res.

 

Lucky? Ten years ago 800x600 was crap. The only people running 640x480 were complete nincompoops who didn't know how to change the resolution up from Windows' default. I actually take back what I said about 1366x768 being high-res ten years ago. It would have been just a bit better than the average 1024x768. I remember I was using 1280x1024 from around then up until 2005 as my favored desktop resolution, and 1600x1200 for gaming starting a couple years later, in 2002.

 

I think 1440 x 900 is the best for 14.1".


--

 

nothing under 1900x1200 i have grown used to real high rez even my hd tv is 1080p but i fint it a little limited verticla rez wise

and every time i have to use my gf 1366x768 it makes me cry and the colors on it are so crappy

 

the pressing reason is because they're expensive for sure.. PC manufacturers don't care about customers.. just want to max profits so scamming the regular user with low res screens is now common... for me , I'm nver buying anything with less than 1920X0180..

 

Resolution doesn't reflect it's color gamut, brightness or any other factor in graphics work - those are based on the panel type and backlight.

 

Exactly. T400 WXGA Hight Nit panel is an example of a low resolution decent screen. The problem is I can't seem to find a supplier for it. This option is attractive to anyone with a T410s (those who have a problem with the factory installed panel)

 

It's not like this 16:9 transition is the first time we have witnessed the over-abundance of low-resolution screens . . . before 1366x768 we had 1280x800 and before that 1024x768. Low resolutions have been notorious on consumer notebooks for a long time.

What makes today's situation different than yesterday's is the availability of high-resolution screens. In the past (mid- and early 2000s), low resolutions still came standard but you at least had the option to go high-res on a good percentage of notebooks (much more than today). For example I remember when I went to buy my HP zv5000z in 2004 -- nearly all their 15.4" Pavilion consumer notebooks offered 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 as upgrades from the standard 1280x800. Look at HP's Pavilion line now -- no such options at all, you are stuck with 1366x768 on 15.6". Today it is impressive to see more than one screen offered on a consumer notebook at all.

It's not hard to guess that most people weren't ordering notebooks with the higher-resolution screens; manufacturers probably cut out the options to simplify their production line and cut costs.

Computers are commodities -- most people don't take them seriously enough to consider putting more money into the screen and such.

 

I think the OEMs have concluded that high-res screens aren't popular.

Possibly because Dell, HP et al made them so, by including them as they do with everything, as unjustifiably & stupidly expensive upgrades.

And to make things worse adjusting DPI in WinXP was obscure meaning there were plenty of 'too small can't read angry whine ' comments in forums and emails sent to tech support.

For mine I didn't bother considering any laptop with LCD below 1080p on 15.4". Glad I did.

 

Well, at least we have ever-improving and cheaper desktop monitors!

 

OT
LOl, My 2003 hp was 1024 x 768, had a wood fired Radeon, M9? and cost way too much compared to today's gaming laptops.

 

Exactly, that is what I was going to say. I'm so irritated when I go to buy a notebook that I can't even pay the premium for a higher resolution screen. I am willing to pay for the "feature" yet they still don't offer it. This is one reason I typically avoid Dell, HP, Acer, etc anymore because rarely can you get a high resolution screen. You have to go with specialty shops.

I was hoping to get a 1920x1200 res screen with my next laptop but I know darn well I'm gonna have to settle for a 1920x1080 and have a hard time finding one at that.

 

Dell: M17x, M6500 (My XPS M1730 :wub: from which this is typed)

HP: 8740w

Acer: lol

 

AFAIK, speciality shops are the hardest ones to get high res screens from.
Dell/HP business are the best bets.

 

^ I think he meant barebone builders.

I find 1366x768 on a 15-16" is shocking. Consumers dont know what they are missing out on.

 

Also Apple and Sony. The high-res screens have not disappeared, but the top sellers of cheap laptops (Dell, HP, Acer, etc.) are on the verge of not offering them at all anymore in their consumer models. The results include some really bizarre machines with a GPU that is definitely capable of handling 1680x1050, but gets stuck with 1366x768.

I don't buy the commodity argument. In every respect except this one all laptops from the cheapest to the most expensive have gotten better over time: the CPU is faster, the GPU is faster, there's more RAM and storage and they're both faster, the battery life is longer and machines of the same class weigh less. It's only the displays that have not merely stayed the same, but actually got worse (e.g. 1600x900 instead of 1680x1050). This is much more likely to be the result of price fixing and other illegal collusion by the display manufacturers. New York State has already accused them of doing this for the last 15 years last August:

 

That does not surprise me; thanks for the link.
The bs reasons of Lenovo for phasing out IPS screens, the shift to 16:9, low res screens...now it makes sense.

Why does the article say price collusion only from 1996 to 2006? What happened after 2006?


My conjecture on this situation is that LCD makers are actively trying to kill high res notebook lcd market. The "common" lcd market is now a commodity market; and very hard for a new company to enter. The high res/high quality lcds can command a significant premium and thus easier for new entrants. And the LCD makers thus want this market shut down, so they are pulling out of it. If there isnt already an established market, then a potential new entrant will have to be able to manufactur in large numbers from the start --- this will act as an effective barrier to potential newplayers.

 

They got smarter about hiding the collusion. There was a similar lawsuit back in 2008 and even before that, but this doesn't help: the manufacturers just pay the fines and continue exactly as before.

 

Yes, like XoticPC, PowerNotebooks, ...

I like the 1680x1050 matte screen on my Sager NP8662. I'm going for a 1080p next time around althought I'd prefer a 1920x1200 but that will be a stretch. Probably go with 17" next time too, more likely to get the options I want.

 

Not as much as before. I took a look at Xotic's 15.4-16" section. There are 22 notebooks there. The resolutions are distributed like this:

1366x768: 13
1680x1050: 3
1980x1080: 6

The 1680x1050 notebooks (IMHO the resolution best suited to this form factor) are all variations on an MSI theme which will probably go away in the next generation. The 1980x1080 will probably stick around, but the dominant resolution is clearly 1366x768. In fact, what the boutique shops do is often worse than HP, Dell & Company. For example consider the MSI GX660-053US: it starts at $1350 and pairs the 1366x768 display with an HD5870. Giving that pitiful display an HD5650 is bad enough, but an HD5870 is downright obscene.

 

This is not actually the fault of the boutique shop. Boutique shops buy barebones and install the parts that they can, and the parts that are available for them to install, depend on the ODM that designed the barebones in the first place. In the case of the GX660-053US, it is MSI which has designed it with only a 1366x768 display. Don't forget that while many boutique shops can handle simple technical support and assistance, for major repairs, they'll usually end up having to send a machine back to the manufacturer/factory for repair. This would preclude them from making major alterations, such as replacing the manufacturer screen with a non-supported one.

 

Well the laptop HD5870 is less than half as powerful as the desktop version, so it is only right that it gets half the pixels to display onto.

 

Neither do I. Nevertheless, I might give some validation if it's in reference to the sub $500 category. However, I don't know many individuals that would spend $1000+ dollars on any appliance ever couple of years. Do you?

 

If that price fixing turned out to be true, it could have the same results as when the memory manufacturers (some companies do both!) had to settle. Rock bottom LCD costs followed by price spikes (I held off upgrading my memory for 6 months before it settled to a reasonable price) then some stabilization.

Then again, it doesn't really explain why they are essentially making only three types of screens: 720p, 900p, and 1080p. Those form factors are fine but only on the right size. It's impossible to find a 900p 14'' inch laptop (which I think is ideal for its size given 16:9 is standard now) that's under $1000.

TONS of laptops out there in stores or CTO are great and suit my needs perfectly. Battery life is getting better. But I cannot work with a 720p screen. Absolutely unacceptable.

 

Any official NBR people: have you asked your contacts about the real reason behind the restricted choices in notebook LCDs (crappy resolution, 16:9, glossy)? Are LCD makes dictating the terms via their cartel?

 

I would argue that the commodity argument is valid - all these components are improving, as they should, as technology advances. Displays have not, however, because they are poorly marketed to consumers. RAM, hard drive space, and especially CPUs, have been very well marketed to the end consumer. For example, you drag a random person off the street and ask how they would improve their computer's performance, they will first and foremost say "add more RAM," followed by "upgrade the CPU," and if they're semi-computer-literate, they may even say "add a graphics card."

But even among the semi-computer-literate, it's surprising how few people know what display resolution means, and how few of those actually care. To most, higher resolution may even be undesirable because "text is way too small, I'll need a magnifying glass to see that," and it's common to hear that "display size is the most important factor" (just look at laptop ads - how many of them list the screen size, and how many list the screen resolution?).

So as computers have become more of a commodity, laptop manufacturers have cut costs by cutting down on things they believe consumers don't care about - one of these things, unfortunately, is the high resolution display - and maximizing things that laptop consumers look for but often don't matter (just look at the ads and see how many laptops are advertised with 6GB of RAM and/or >1GB of graphics RAM tacked onto a weak GPU).

 

Like os3330 it said before you, it has to be cheap. That's why we get cheap LCDs because our laptops have to be cheap.

 

May I ask what real world needs are for higher than single FPD's or 720P on a laptop? Most PS professionals and photogs work with desktops unless on the road. What about you journalist over 25?

720P video looks fantastic on my 13", 1080P video looks great on my 47" but begins to fall apart on my 52". I doubt may would care between the two on way smaller laptop displays at native resolution.

What about gamers, you know who you are. My old 8800gts struggles with (some) games at 1400x900 native and I hate the scaled down look. Yeah, right, I need to upgrade to Quad SLI with optional fast reactor back pack

While I think the choice of screen size is critical to some, and there should be a choice, my beef is the quality of screens. While higher rez is nice; I would like to put my money toward screens with top notch color gamut and off axis viewing with much better contrast over some of the junk used in the last year!

thx

 

Obviously screen size does affect what resolution to use. Sony offers a 1080p screen on their 13" Vaio Z. I think that's crazy. But on a 15" to 17" it's the perfect fit IMHO.

From a general Windows desktop perspective, the larger the resolution the better. Ability to fit multiple windows side by side and view, copy, paste, whatever between them is important. I get frustrated when I get on my netbook with 1366x768 display and want to view two websites side by side, but it's impossible because I have too much scrolling. On my 1680x1050 display on my 15" laptop or better yet 24" 1920x1200 on my desktop, it's a lot more comfortable. Not to mention I have a second monitor on my desktop (old 1024x768 LCD) to put reference material, youtube videos, whatever, when I'm working on something on the main monitor.

Regarding gaming, you don't need an SLI setup to play games at 1080p. I have a GTX 260m and it plays most games just fine at 1680x1050. I even drop the resolution to 720p for really demanding games, and it really isn't all that bad as people say.

Bottom line for me at least is desktop space is invaluable.

 

Scrollbars. Everywhere. Scrollbars over scrollbars under more scrollbars. If you could scroll in an angle, they'd have a bar for that too.

In a real world application, I like the ability run multiple VM and RDP windows and not be lost with them. I actually like to run them at 1440x900, but reasonable minimum is 1024x768 if I plan to do anything useful with them. My 8510w has wsxga+ screen and in many occasions I feel that wuxga would be better.

 

Yep, a 24" at 1920 x 1200 is great. But a 15" with windows open side by side would have me boosting scaling to get the fonts to a comfortable size for any long term usage. Two excel sheets open, side by side, on a 13" at any rez kills me so I just find a work around, like your 24", if available.

cheers

 

1920x1200 screens are incredibly hard to find today because many manufactureres have opted for the crappy 1366x768

 

I think he's referring to desktop monitor, but even 1920x1200 is impossible to find for a desktop monitor. They're all 1080p on the 22" and up.

It'll be a sad day when I have to replace my Dell 2407FPW.

 

i'm talking about laptops. many high end laptops have 1366x768, or 1600x900

very rarely do I see full 1920x1200 panels.

 

OH yeah true. Especially now. 1920x1080 can be hard enough to get, 1920x1200 is darn near impossible. I always find it funny in local advertisements where I see in big bold letters 17" laptop for $599!!! Then you see it's a core i3 with integrated graphics and 1366x768 resolution. LOLWUT?