Will XGA Run Well On An SXGA+ screen?

I am thinking of ordering a Thinkpad with a 14" SXGA+ screen (1400 x 1050). Will the SXGA+ screen display XGA resolution (1024 x 768) as well as a native XGA screen would?

The reason I am asking is that some of the time I want SXGA+ resolution, but sometimes I prefer XGA for larger icons and text. Depends on the task.

 

Well, I've got an SXGA+ display and have just now reset it to an (1024*768) resolution, and to my eyes, everything looks exactly the same..

...apart from, that is, there being a black border (about one and a half inches on all sides) surrounding the various Word documents, Firefox, IE windows, etc.

So, that might suggest SXGA+ displays (1024*768) as would a native XGA screen but since I do not have an XGA, I cannot really be 100% certain.

However, text was not that much larger (when typing into Notepad) and that did kinda surprise me a bit.

 

I think the OP may be thinking more about when you set the display so that the black borders are not there (so that the display driver is forced to "spread" the XGA pixels of your apps into all of the SXGA+ pixels).

I just tested my 15" SXGA+ screen with XGA resolution and no black border, and everything was nice and readible due to the larger font size, etc., but the display is somewhat "blurry" looking due to the "spreading" of the pixels. I'm no driver expert but the general idea is that the physical pixels and the software pixels are no longer one-to-one and so you end up with something that seems like a soft focus in a cameras.

It's very hard to take a picture of this kind of thing, sorry.

 

Perhaps the WXGA+ resolution on the widescreen models might be a good compromise. If you are planning on getting Vista, it actually does a pretty good job of making things bigger with the DPI settings.