FW owners: Screen size?

How does the FW screen size work in day-to-day work...not just watching movies? I really like the quality of the FW but noticed the screen height is only about .5" "taller" than a 14" laptop and is smaller than a 15" (which gives the appearance of being smaller than a 15"). Thanks for the input.

 

I don't own a FW, but I'd say your question is very subjective. It partly depends what kind of applications you use... so things like Photoshop where you might have quite a few tool palettes down the sides of the screen, or if you like to have two spreadsheets open side-by-side, are going to be well served by the wide aspect 1600x900 resolution.

If you use applications whose interface is 'tall' rather than 'wide', you won't find it as fun.

 

I like it. I tend to position things side by side on the desktop, not up and down... and the Vista sidebar thing is on the right side of the screen... so I prefer wide over tall.

By the way, I don't watch any movies on my laptop.

 

for me it took a little bit of time to getting use to. my desktop is a 19' 4:3,so when i started using the FW, i had to do alot more moving left to right to see the whole screen and at the end of the day my eyes felt a little bit strained. but now after i slept on it, the screen is alot better, i'm getting use to the resolution and a couple of nights with it and i should be fine.

 

As a software developer, having a wider screen is a huge help. Visual Studio, Visio and the Microsoft Office applications all like to have toolbars on the left and right of the screen, as does Windows Vista, so a 16x9 screen is a big help (over 4:3). Even a screen that is twice as wide as it is tall would not be too wide - I generally like to do development with two monitors side by side. For several years now, much of the new software just doesn't fit on a 4:3 monitor.

 

The FW 16.4" 16:9 screen is only 3mm shorter than a 15.4" 16:10 screen. That's .12 inches and, to me at least, it's not significant. You also have more vertical pixels on the FW (900 pixels) than you do on most 15.4" wxga screens (800 pixels). If you are comparing to a 4:3 screen then that's a whole other matter and the 4:3 will always be taller than a comparable 16:10 or 16:9 screen.

And wait till you see the 15.6" 16:9 screens that will be coming out later this year, those will be barely taller than the current 14.1" 16:10 screens (194mm on the 15.6" 16:9 vs. 190mm on the 14.1" 16:10)