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15.4 vs 17 inches screen

post #1 of 5
5/20/07 at 7:39pm
Thread Starter 
Hello folks,

Does anyone have any experience with 15.4 or 17 inches laptop? I looked into some laptop specs and learned that 17 inches uses 1920x1200 but 15.4 inches uses 1680x1050. Which is best for HD movies like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and games?

Thanks!
Tim
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post #2 of 5
5/20/07 at 11:00pm
1680x1050 is just 30 pixels from being true 1080p. Watching BluRay on a WUXGA monitor will force the video to upscale to the 1920x1200 of the Laptop's display. Scaling down a few pixels looks better than scaling up more pixels. For games a lower native resolution will deliver greater framerates. On a 1920x1200 monitor you'll often find yourself with a game that is a slideshow at the panel's native resolution but is quite playable at a lower res. With a monster card like the 7950GTX there's only a few games it can't handle at 1920x1200...but you might want to consider a lower resolution screen for lesser video cards.

P.S. 15.4" displays can be sold in 1920x1200 resolution too. My Latitude D820 had the WUXGA (1920x1200) as an option.
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post #3 of 5
5/21/07 at 1:02am
also, with the 1680x1050, it will actually be more likely scaling to the width, not the height, so you're going to be scaling the 1920 to 1680, which is more than the 1080 to 1050. i don't really follow the hd movie formats, so i don't really know, but i'm guessing they come standard at 1080p, or are they more often 720p? if it's 720, both are going to be scaled up, and the wuxga will seem more stretched and more fuzzy than the wsxga. at 1080, the wsxga is going to be squished a bit, while the wuxga will just have bars on the top and bottom (each of 60 pixels, assuming it is centered).

also, i don't have a wsxga monitor to compare video quality, but when i view 1080p video clips, it looks very nice on the full screen 17", but i'd guess it looks probably just about the same (to most people) as it would on a wsxga 15.4" screen scaled down a bit. it will just physically be smaller, as the screen is physically smaller.
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post #4 of 5
5/21/07 at 4:48pm
1920x1200 is a true 1080p resolution. It's best for HD DVDs and Blueray. Less would be the equivelant to 720p, 1080i, and lower quality. The larger the resolution the sharper the picture scale will be. It's actually more colors and detail per picture area.
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post #5 of 5
5/21/07 at 7:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by clmstro
1920x1200 is a true 1080p resolution.

actually, 1920x1080 is true 1080p resolution, but 1920x1200 is the smallest resolution that can natively display it.
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