1600x900 or 1366x768 resolution of Sony Z?

With the $700 you saved, I'll suggest using that money to get a really nice 24" monitor with a 1920x1200 resolution to hook it up to your Vaio Z.... it will be awesome IMO, although you may not agree.

 

That is a good idea.. however when i am in class or somewhere where i can't bring the external.. the extra footprint would be nice!! I love the laptop just too bad i will have to go through 3 of them before i get the one i want lol!

 

For portable use, cant you just get by with the lower res.

On that note, ive used my TZ through almost 2 yrs of grad work, no problems for me... id go for a 1600x900 13 inch any day.

 

I have no problem with TZ at 1366x768. My Z590 has 1600x900 which is same dpi I guess as TZ.

 

I think your eyes get used to anything. For the last few years I was using a 13" 1280x800 screen and it seemed perfect. Then I got a TT with an 11" 1366x768 screen. It seemed crazy small initially, but now I'm used to it and the resolution on my old laptop seems ridiculously big!

I do find that I have to magnify sometimes, or hold the laptop closer to my face, but it's not a big deal. If I were getting a Z I'd definitely go for the 1600x900 screen.

 

Maybe my eyes get used to but I currently have 25.5" Samsung at 1920x1200, NR310E 15.4" at 1280x800, Z590 13.1" at 1600x900 and UX 4.5" at 1024x600. My eyes are okay with all of them.

 

theres something i dont get here, cant you just get the 1600 x 900 notebook and lower the res to like 1400 x 900?

 

yes, but because it is not the lcd's native res, it won't look as good. instead, you go change the font dpi in windows if you think it's too small with the 1600

 

I got a Z590 specifically for the 1600x900 screen, it is awesome! I wouldn't want any lower DPI screen. I used one for a couple hours at a Sony Style store just to make sure I could deal with it though...

 

Yea I am slowly getting used to the 1377x768 but knowing me i'll soon be on my 3rd Z series just to get ALL the features i like :S

 

Since you're that desperate for the a Z590/Z690, I'll suggest that you post up your Z570 for a trade in the NBR Marketplace section. I'm sure you'll have better luck finding a trade there. Good luck.

 

i just looked at a 590 at london drugs and realized that everything on the screen IS pretty small! i'm still going for it though, guess i'll have to increase the font dpi in vista

 

Well if you find it too small then keep me in mind

 

For me, it was worth going 1600x900. The reason is because with the HDMI port, connecting the Z to my HDTV to take advantage of the Blu-Ray drive (or whatever HDTV movie files you may have) makes perfect sense. In that regard, getting 1600x900 makes a visual difference.

 

I'm debating this myself. From tinkering with a MacBook and its default res in a Best Buy, I have no problems with lower resolutions on 13" laptops.

I use 1680 x 1050 on my desktop, but then again, that's a 22" screen.

Have not found a z540 / z590 locally.

 

Come again? The HDMI port works just as well on a 1366x768 model as on a 1600x900. The HDMI output is 1920x1080 on both, regardless of the resolution the laptop screen has.

 

I'm not really sure how it works but...if your computer's max output is 1366x768 (which I assume is the case for the 1366x768 model), isn't that the max output on whatever monitor/tv you attach to the computer? Or are you saying the image gets automatically up-sampled to 1080?

 

What arth1 said is correct.

The 1366x768 model only has a max output resolution of 1366x768 on the laptop's internal LCD screen. For hooking the laptop to an external monitor/TV, the max HDMI output is 1920x1080 for both the 1366x768 & 1600x900 models.

 

I thought I'd need to change the dpi in Vista myself but surprisingly I find the sony at 1600x900 EASIER to read than 1600x1200 on my LaCie Electon Blue 22 inch CRT. And this is for a near 50 year old that should be wearing his glasses and never does.

About the only thing I find hard to see is the insertion point and a few of the cursors in photoshop but I have trouble with this sometimes on the CRT as well.

Doug

 

No, it doesn't get upsampled. The resolution of the signal to the external display is independent of the resolution of the internal display. You appear to think that the external monitor has to mirror what's on the laptop display; this is not the case. You can, for example, work on a Word document on the internal display while showing a movie on the external display. Or the other way around.

You can watch a 1920x1080 movie in full quality on the external display -- that's why the Z comes with a sticker saying "True HD 1080p". But having independent resolutions isn't unique to the Sony Vaios -- Windows has supported independent displays with different resolutions since at least Windows 2000, and possibly even NT4.

 

1600x900 and then crank up the DPI

windows 7 does a great job w/ handling the DPI as well, very smooth

 

Cool, didn't know that...