Sony FW and Z screen resolution comparison

Guys I am not tech-savvy so I will appreciate if you can help me.

I saw Sony FW with 1600 x 900 resolution and I quite liked it.

Today I will go and see a Sony Z which comes with the lower resolution model. In other words, I don't have the opportunity to see a Sony Z with 1600x900 resolution with my eyes because I will be moving to Europe very soon and I have to make a decision and buy my Sony Vaio laptop.

I know that FW has a bigger screen but my question is, what would be the differences between a Sony FW and Z both having a 1600 x 900 resolution screen? I would like to hear particularly about the below three respects, but will appreciate if there are other differences that I might have not thought of.

1) Would FW's screen can display more and/or wider windows than Z's screen? (For the purposes of this question, please assume that I will open two or more Internet Explorer or Microsoft Word windows w/out making them full screen)

2) Would the icons/shortcuts on FW and Z be the same size? Such as; i) the ones on the system tray ii) shortcuts on the desktop iii) widgets

3) Lastly, what would be the differences between these laptops in terms of displaying photos, watching DVDs, watching the videos I recorded with my HD camcorder?


I will appreciate if you can answer respectively in order for you not to overlook any question.

Many thanks in advance!

mg428

PS. If you say that there will be a great difference between a 1600x900 FW and a Z having the same resolution, then, since I do not have the opportunity to see a Sony Z laptop with 1600x900 resolution with my own eyes, I was wondering whether there is another Sony laptop having a screen which would be comparable to Sony Z with 1600x900 resolution. I am asking this because I read a post where the poster says that TZ is quite comparable with Z having a 1600x900 resolution because, according to him, although TZ is 11 inches and has a lower resolution, the so-called "pixel density" of these two laptops would be very close. Would you confirm this? Can I go and see a TZ laptop to obtain an idea as to how a Z series laptop with 1600x900 resolution looks like?

 

If the resolution is identical, the amount of information you will see on the screen will be identical. The Z's icons/shortcuts/whatever will be much smaller than on the FW. Same amount of pixels + smaller screen area = smaller pixels = smaller fonts/everything else. This can be helped a bit by changing the DPI setting in Vista to something higher. And yes, I think the TZ would be comparable in pixel density so go see if you can live with the font sizes on that.

Displaying photos/etc, the ability will be the same. Not sure if the screen qualities (in terms of contrast, colors, etc.) are identical but if you can view an entire photo on one screen, you'll be able to see the same entire photo on the other. However, like I said previously, everything will be smaller on the Z. If you have great vision and aren't bothered by tiny fonts, and you need to carry your laptop around a lot, by all means, go for the Z.

 

Yep. Real estate will be the same. But everything will be smaller on the Z and larger on the FW.

 

I went to the Sony store on Madison Ave in NYC yesterday.

I saw the Z with both screen resolutions. At first, I thought there was a problem as both laptops looked identical. I opened Excel and saw the same number of rows and columns on the low-res as on the high-res Z. When I asked the sales person to check the DPI settings on the high-res Z, we found out that it was set to Large Font DPI. When he lowered it down to normal, the screen looked quite good.

For an experiment, I compared Outlook, Excel, IE and some Corel movie maker program on both laptops. I normally use Outlook 2007 with the folder-view, header-view, message-view and task view open simulatnously. Obviously, the higher res Z was the only one to display all this without looking scrunched. Excel looked good with all the extra cells. Internet Explorer didn't look that much better, because most web pages tend to have sooo much white space in the borders. The movie maker program looked horrible on the low-res Z 'cause everything looked cramped because it had 100+ toolbars.

IMHO, the low-res screen looks pretty good. My current SZ has a similar screen resolution and works well for MS Word and web browsing. However, if you have certain applications (Excel, Visual Studio etc) where screen real estate is really really important, I think you should seriously consider the high-res screen.

BTW, if you jack up the font DPI size on the high-res Z it looks identical to the low-res Z with normal font DPI size except that the desktop icon spacing is much greater.

 

Thanks for the info. So for the high-res Z did you find the font small or hard to read?

 

I'm very curious about people's input on the ability to read anything on the high res screen. It's great to display more cells in Excel or other programs that like high resolution, but I don't think I will be able to read anything unless i'm 6" away from the screen. I have decent eyesight, but I run a resolution not that much higher than that on a 24" screen and any smaller, I would have to squint or sit really close.

 

Some time ago I went to see the TZ on display, because the TZ's 'hardness' on eyes is very similar to the Z's. (More precisely, the Z's screen actually is a tiny bit less harsh on your eyes.) The stuff on the TZ screen definitely looks small but I was really surprised that it wasn't hard to read at all.

Previously, I have seen someone on this forum posting text at a smaller size like this to show what typical text on the Z would look like

It may well be that the size of text on the TZ's and Z's (high-end) screens will be about the same size 'in absolute terms', as the text above looks on a 'normal screen'; however, on the Z screen, text of that 'absolute' size looks much better (/ much more detailed!) because obviously it has much more pixels on that same part of the screen. Can you follow me? Summarized; if you're younger than 30, I feel you won't have a problem with the 1600x900 Z screen!

 

FYI, I own a TZ and a SZ and have 20/20 vision.

I like my TZ but the small screen drives me absolutely crazy. When you open Internet Explorer, because of the window bar, the URL entry box, the tabs and the menus, there is only a small fraction of the vertical space left in order to actually view the web page. I spend so much time just scrolling up and down.

As a developer, I use Visual Studio 2005. When using VS, my eyes become fatigued and watery after 1/2 hour. The fact that my eyes hurt really upsets me to no end. My lower res Vaio SZ doesn't display as much information but I have never get fatigued.

At work I have a 21" screen with 1600x1200 resolution. I agree thats its comptely counter intuitive how a 13" screen with similar resolution can be readable. However, it is. I think it might be the fact that a laptop screen is generally placed much closer to the viewers face.

I actually had low expectations for the high-res Z. After looking at it in person, I'm going to order one this week. If you don't like it you can always bump up the font size.

If you have access to a Sony Style store, you should definitely check it out.

 

The Z's weight, and beauty knocks down the FW..

Though If I could lug around a 16"4 it would be on top of my list..

Z is more practical and with same res, why not?!