WUXGA worth the money?

If you have the eyes then yes it is worth it. A lot of people don't like widescreens for coding because they seem to be "shortscreens" instead, but with WUXGA those 1200 vertical pixels are great, not to mention the insane horizontal space. I code a lot on mine and also wear contacts, but I have no problems with the screen. I think you'd like it.

For me, you can't make me buy it even if WUXGA is 250 dollars cheaper than WSXGA. The screen is just way too small to read, and Radeon 9600 doesn't support the high resolution of WUXGA.

what do you mean by this? do you mean in game resolutions? if you do then it also doesn't support native WSXGA+ in real demanding games, well without lowering settings or turning them into a slideshow..

No, I think he is perhaps referring to the ATI + WUXGA scaling issue. All discussed in the i9100 FAQ (yes, you're gonna have to read it Axiom ).
stu

Never!!!

Muawhahaha!

Yeah i deffinatly wouldnt buy it. I actually whant wxga over all the others because i play my games at that res and i dont want them being ugly on the other screens at the lower res.

They are not ugly on the other screens at the lower res... If anything the higher screens look better at lower resolutions (like 1024 x 768) because they have a better pixel pitch. But it is nothing to write home about.
stu

how do i explain to my friend how uxga is going to make things appear smaller, in simple terms?

Put your 17in SCR screen to 1600x1400 and ask your friends if they think the font is too large for them........

that'd work if i had a 17" screen. maybe she does. thanks.

it is so worth it.

Think of this, if you do any graphic work, think of how a good photo looks with massive pixels so in my book, the hi-res is important. As for native res, you get two 1200 x 1920 I believe it is, divided by 2 = 600 x 960 for nice large text to read from a distance. IF you play with digital images, it is great! If you multi task, it's great for that too. I have to wear my reading glasses but it's worth it for me.

An easy pixel description:

OK, imagine the WSXGA and WUXGA are side-by-side on the ground. Now physically you could measure them with a ruler, they will be exactly the same physical size as each other.

Now add the pixels, imagine that in a sraight line across the screen you have 1920 pixels on the WUXGA and 1680 pixels across the WSXGA, both have no space between the pixels. Now to fit that many more pixels onto that WUXGA (which is the same physical size remember!), those pixels are going to have to be smaller.

So we discover that there are a greater number of smaller pixels in the WUXGA.

Now think of an icon/ text character painted in pixels. This character is 16 pixels accross. Now, because of the smaller pixel size and more pixels on the WUXGA, that 16 pixels across is going to take up a smaller amount of physical space than on the WSXGA (with larger pixels) even though it takes up the same amount of actual pixels as it does on the WSXGA display. Therefore, the same items will always appear smaller on the WUXGA simply because the pixels are smaller and they are drawn with the same amount of them.

I've used the word pixel way too much here . Anyway, hopefully this made some sense or I've just wasted 10 minutes of my life

stu

flockey86:

To find out "how uxga is going to make things appear smaller", you should specify which screens you wish to compare.

Each screen is specified by its diagonal length, the aspect ratio (width to height), and native resolution. For comparing sizes of the same objects (fonts, icons, etc.), the most important parameter is the number of pixels per inch (PPI).

For instance, your screen is 14.1", 4:3 aspect ratio, SXGA+ 1400x1050, so it has 124 PPI, as can be seen from a table in Tommi's compendium

http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/screensize.html

Since 15.4" WSXGA+ has 129 PPI, it reduces sizes relative to your screen by 124/129 = 96.1% (thus few users would notice this reduction).

In contrast, 15.4" WUXGA has 147 PPI, and its reduction of 124/147 = 84.4% is quite large.

On the other hand, 15" UXGA has 133 PPI, so its reduction of 129/133 = 97% is small.

So in simpler terms, if your friend considers 15" UXGA (4:3 aspect ratio), your notebook will indicate what sizes to expect.


yorkhung:

Considering your "advice", let me observe the following. I guess you wrote 1600x1400 instead of 1600x1200 (UXGA), and that you were thinking of a standard 4:3 aspect ratio screen. However, 17" 4:3 UXGA has 118 PPI, so relative to flockey86's screen, it blows up sizes by 124/118 = 105%. I don't know how this should help his friend.

Pappie:

I guess you were thinking about running a WUXGA screen at the non-native resolution of 960x600. However, I don't know any combination of video cards and drivers which support such resolutions.

Here's the simplest explaination:

More pixels + same amount of space = smaller pixels

Smaller pixels = smaller icons and objects

Ha, I was just saying to Axiom yesterday how I always seem to give too much info when little is needed, or too little where more is needed. Another case in point it seems...

stu

Your question is hard to answer as it varies greatly on personal preference. If you can handle the size the real estate is always a plus. If your using toolbar bulky apps like vs.net for visual c++ widescreen UXGA is a godsend. My advice to you would be to check around and see if you can dig up a coworker or friend that has a WUXGA and see if you can handle it. If so you'll never go back to anything else.

If you have really, really good eyesight, you should be fine with the WUXGA. I didn't feel like straining my eyes every day, so I went with the WSXGA.