13.3 inches too small?

is a 13.3 inch screen (as seen on the SZ series) too small for the occasional game session? will i get eye strain from writing papers?

 

That would probably depend more on your resolution rather than the laptops screen size. The eye strain will depend on what your eyes can handle; i have 20/15 vision and the WSXGA+ resolution i have is fine on my 15.4in laptop.

 

Yes, you really need to look for yourself to be able to tell. For me, my 13.3" screen is perfect for text documents, powerpoints, even excel sheets feel ok. And I do the occasional gaming like Half-Life 2 without issue. I find 13.3" (1280x800) to be a perfect compromise between screen area and notebook size. It is easily portable, yet large enough to do regular tasks on. If you are big into gaming, then you may want to look for a 15" display with a superior video card though.

 

I'd go maybe as low as around 14", but about 15"-15.4" is the average screen size recommended, since a laptop with such a screen is able to still have good mobility and great size, unlike the next biggest, 17", which is, well, often heavy and bulky...

 

I posted here asking the same question about 3 months ago and several people responded saying I'd be fine with a 13" screen.

Well . . they were right.

I've had my sz for 1 month now and my (still working) 15" 1680 x 1050 screen laptop is collecting dust. It's definitely more cramped than before but not enough to matter. (only caveat is I don't use it for gaming)

 

Yea personally I have a SZ650 for some months now and I'm already used to it's screen... I mean it's so nice that I feel very comfortable using it...
I'm now thinking about buying myself a TZ to totally replace my SZ!
I initially bought the SZ because of the dual cards thing but now I notice that I barely use the dedicated card so... My next laptop will definitely be a TZ!! (even with the 11.1" screen)

 

I went from a SZ to a TZ - no issues and due to the smaller screen the colors and resolution on the TZ look incredible!

 

Yea, I totally agree...
For now I'm short on money, I recently bought an iphone and a Sony T200 Camera so... I'll have to wait some good months until I can buy anything else...

 

For me, 13.3" is perfect. It has the same resolution as a 12.1" or 14.1" (and a few 15.4" as well) so Its perfect for portability without compromising on real estate.

 

Hi,, last week in nyc I saw the lenovo X300 with a 1440X900 screen (matte). I liked the resolution because of the desktop space you get. But the sz screen is much better in viewing angles and colors. I hope Sony will bring a sz model with the same res but wiith the better viewing angles and glossy surface.

 

Like an above poster mentioned, I also used the SZ for occassional gaming --- played both HL2 and Black and White 2 without issues RE: the screen. The size and resolution didn't bother me a bit.

 

Hey KarimNacer, Are you Ismaili by any chance lol?

 

it depends on person to person

I have used a 17" monitor on my desktop PC.....and 15.4" dell......and now i have a 13.3 vaio and a 13.3 macbook...........!!

to me 13.3 is just perfect......now i dont like using larger sizes

i saw a 12 inch laptop the other day in subway....i think its too small for comfort to me

 

Hehe I'n in facts born from a Muslim father and a Christian mother so...
Yes I am Muslim, but a kind of very liberal one... More liberal than a lot of Christians...

 

Hi,

Im a newbie, so basically a 13.3" inch display is good. Would it be good for visual studio 2005/2008 as I am looking for a portable laptop with a 13.3" display. Would coding in web developer be to hard to read on such a small display compared to the 15.4".

 

I have an SZ71VN/X - it works perfectly for me.

I did play World in Conflict and Age of Empires 3 and Anno 1701 on my SZ - it was fine (especially the Anno session for several hours...)

Typing is good too for me.

But as other's have said, look for yourself.

 

I also really like my 13.3" SZ. I think it's the perfect size because 13.3" is about as portable as you can get without sacrificing too much screen size or making the keyboard smaller than standard.

I use Visual Studio for C++ and C# work on my SZ sometimes, and it works fine for me. If you hide unneeded toolbars/dropdowns/etc. (that waste vertical screen space), and remember to use Fullscreen mode (very handy), it's pretty nice.

In a way Sony already does have something like this - the 1600x900 13.1" Sony Vaio Z. Although the DPI on this is even higher than the 1440x900 13.3" X300, so it might strain your eyes more (although when I saw it text looked very clear).

 

13.3 inches is DEFINITELY big enough

i use a 12.1 inch and it's still big enough

i play games, write papers, and everything in between

the sacrifice in screen size is always worth the gain in portability for at least up to 12.1 inches

i would dare say that even the TT's screen is big enough

 

If 13.3" was too small for gaming, people wouldn't have bought gameboys and PSPs.
The trick is to find games that work well on the screen size and resolution you have.

As for "normal work", resolution increasing while screen size going down isn't a problem, as long as you make the correct trade-off for you in whether you want to cram more stuff onto the screen, or instead make things appear sharper.
I tend towards the latter -- my fonts are 40% larger in pixels, but side-by-side, they're the same size as on a lower dpi display -- just a heck of a lot more readable.
A 13.3" widescreen is big enough to display the width of an A4 or Letter size in 1:1, and that's near perfect to work with for writing. With the extra resolution, a 10 pt font is actually readable in that size, and you're one step closer to WYSIWYG.
The Z is not hard to work on for long periods of time. Just make sure you reduce the contrast and gamma from the default "screaming" values, and increase the dpi.

 

Ive used a TZ exclusively for almost two years of grad school (Word, Excel, pdf, power point, browsing, etc)... it has MORE resolution than my previous 14 inch Toshiba (1200x800), so i wasnt losing any working space. The TZ/TT screen is incredibly sharp, so its actually easier to use than the previous, larger screen. And, you can scale your docs to a readable size..eg. when using Word, i use the 150% zoom feature.

The one consideration in moving to a TZ/TT is that is hardly a powerhouse; its fine for Office apps or browsing (photoshop even), but, anything else that is processor or GPU intensive, it will chug. However, they are MUCH more powerful than even the highest spec Netbooks.... the SZ/Z is a perfect balance of portability, power, screen res, etc.

 

I'd say its perfect, at first i was afraid to go smaller than a 15.4, and when i was looking at a fz and a sr together, i was like wow it so small. However after a few days the screen just look great, didnt seem small at all.