Xga

Is there anyone here who would want a 14.1" XGA on the laptop? Is SXGA+ unnecessary if one doesn't watch movies or process large/high quality photos?

 

I chose XGA specifically because I like the text to be clear. Movies and graphics look fantastic, but my main purposes was for the web, and text documents and pics, itunes, etc. I don't game with it. A SXGA+ might be a bit small textually but it's all personal.

 

Did you mean large?
Higher resolutions don't affect clarity.

 

Lower resolutions are clearer to StagoreK because he can't see well.

 

That's weird, because it's actually backwards for me. Smaller text on higher resolution displays seems more crisp, focused to me. But you're right, same number of pixels still making up each character regardless, so it must be all psychological perception. But I'm no textpert.

 

Does higher resolution use more battery power?

 

This from a rodent with a gun?

Well whether I see well or not my understanding is that the more resolution the more screen real estate you'll get, but flip side is that the text is then by comparison smaller and taking up less space and finer to read (which may be perfectly cool for most). I haven't sat XGA side by side with SXGA so I can't say for sure to be honest, but on other systems I've seen with higher resolutions it seemed to be the case. Depends on your personal preference.

 

I did some search and it seems there are quite a number of people preferring XGA in a 14.1". I think if someone generally prefers larger text size (like myself-I don't play games at all) but buys a laptop with SXGA+ and then change the dpi to make text larger, that seems not worth it considering SXGA+ cost much more.

One question: will an external LCD monitor with SXGA+ work well?

 

Well like when I had an iMac with a 17 inch screen, I would manually increase the text because it sat farther back on the desk but then the website would look out of whack a bit. So if you're not gaming a lot you're right, it may not be worth the money and also not be ideal for your purposes. I was thinking about sxga at the time because I could get flexview screen, etc. but my 14.1 xga looks great for graphics.
PS - I do hear that Vista (I use XP) will upscale the text well but still not perfect. As for the external monitor question, not sure, I assume you could change the settings on the graphics card for when you are using an external monitor?

 

I went to a computer store today and most every single laptop displayed there had text too fine/small for my liking, though the pictures looked sharp. I'm not sure about how external monitors are used

Does higher resolution affect (however slightly) power consumption?

 

Not sure to be honest, I would like to know as well. I feel like it would. Anyone else know for sure?

 

The reason the default settings make fonts small in SXGA+ etc is because the extra clarity allows fonts to be made smaller while retaining the same readability.
XGA has large fonts because they cannot be made smaller and still be readable to a satisfactory degree.
Of corse if you like bigger letters, fonts can allways be enlarged in SXGA+.
A same size font will be clearer in SXGA+ than in XGA+.

 

Interesting, I hadn't realized that, I too kept getting feedback saying to get XGA if you want bigger text without messing with scaling, and that bigger text on an SXGA+ would mess with pagination on a web side or look jaggy perhaps (I guess Vista does a better job). I'd love to see an example. Anyone have photos we could compare?