I'm probably going to change my Macbook for a Dell Studio 15 today. I'd like a nice high res screen and there is a well priced option of a 1920x1200 WUXGA+ CCFL display. Is this not a little bit too much in 15.4"? Has anybody seen one of these displays? Especially if anyone has one, it would be nice to know what they think about it, how the colours, brightness and viewing angles are like. Luckily, I have good vision but I am a bit concerned that everything will be a little too small. Sure, I can use DPI scaling in Windows... but I'll probably install Ubuntu. Are there such scaling options there?

The next step down is a 1440x900 WXGA LED panel. Sounds like roughly the same DPI as my 1280x800 13" Macbook screen - it would be nice to have a bit more. I really wish they had a 1680x1050 option. Does anyone here have the 1440x900 15" Dell LED lit TFT?

I'm after a few opinions please. I'll be using this for leisure (browsing and hopefully a bit of gaming if the Radeon HD 3450 can handle it) and some work. Work will involve spreadsheets, multiple windows of cost/competitor/input pricing, a bit of Perl and most likely Windows XP in VirtualBox.

As a comparison, the 15.4" Macbook Pro has a 1440x900 TFT (maybe the same as the Dell one?). The 17" MBP has a 1920x1200 TFT.

My old ibm laptop had a 1600x1200 screen at 15".(This one: http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=s...true#Post304306 )
I didn't think that was to fine. (edit: i mean i liked it, didn't think the pixels were too small)
Isn't compiz using svg graphics by now? That would be ideal for the scaling (It's been a while since i used linux)

I have a new 1920x1200 Dell Precision 6300 17" 16:9 screen

I also have a 4 year old 1400 (ish) x 1050 15" 4:3 on a Latitude D505.

Viewing angle on the former is quite good.

I have no problem with size on either at normal scaling. In fact I much prefer the higher resolution. Can take a while to get from one side of the 17" to another

They do often come with 120% scaling which in Windows means really crappy scaling of icons in the systray etc so I turn that off straight away.

I've just started to deploy some laptops with the same screen: Dell E6500s. Except for one person with really bad eyesight, they all love the screen. I haven't personally used one in-depth yet, though.

For the record, that's 147dpi. I have an older laptop that I use all the time with a 1400x1050 14.1" screen, which is about 128dpi. I have no trouble with that at all. In fact, most of the time, I view it from well more than arm's length away. My eyesight is pretty good, but not great. I think the additional resolution is great.

I had a Dell M70: 1680x1050 on 15.4". If my sums are right, that's 128dpi. I have a Samsung Q45: 1280x800 on 12.1". 124dpi.

I much prefer the screen on the Samsung, even though the DPI is more or less identical. Maybe it's the brightness, but it's probably not the DPI.

Edit: originally this was supposed to be a post in favour of lower DPI (up to a point), but that's obviously not the problem I have with the Dell M70.

I have a Dell Inspiron at work (1920x1200 17" diagonal) and I've been happy with that. So much so I find the 1440x900 on my 15" MBP a little frustrating when I've got an IDE open.

Yes, go for the highest resolution you can. You can always work the font size. There are some windows UI items that don't scale (well?), but if you're a reasonably proficient user you'll still know what they are even if you can't make out exactly what it is.

The resolution on the MBP is one of my larger disappointments with apple. I just keep telling myself Steve Knows Best.

Thanks everyone!

I've decided to not be afraid of the giant resolution 15.4" and go for it. Its definitely going to help when I'm doing some work and that is the main reason to get it in the first place.

It may not be as vivid, have as good battery or have as good viewing angles as the LED model but I think I'd be okay to suffer a sub-10% drop in those attributes for the extra resolution.

As it stands my 13" Rev. 1 Macbook display is pretty shoddy really and I've been using that for just under 3 years - so I bet nearly anything will feel like an upgrade

If the sales dude ever calls me back and they deliver it I'll give my opinion of it here. There is surprisingly little good information about it elsewhere on the Internet.

What do you dislike about the resolution? I'm pretty pleased with mine.

I want WUXGA in a 15" screen. I've had it before, I know I can "handle" it. I also want a matte screen, but I assume that will be rectified in the next revision of the 15" to match the 17" and it's the price I'll pay for being an early adopter.

Ah. I got the 1920x1200 17" model. As I recall, that was an upgrade from the normal 17" model. Be grateful that you can get anything even vaguely high-res, though. It wasn't until a few years ago that you could get a Mac laptop with a decent DPI at all.

Laptop arrived today with the 15" UXGA+ option, and I've been using it for a few hours. First impressions on the screen are that is a huge amount better than the Macbook. Better colours, very good viewing angles and nice and bright even lighting which is a great relief. The resolution looks good to start with, it feels like I'm using my computer at the IMAX! It is amazing that I have more space on my lap than I do on one of the 20" displays at work.

Anyway, the bad stuff happened after just half an hour of relaxed browsing on my sofa. At a 'normal' distance I had quite a bit of eye strain. I've never had eye strain before and really think I have good vision, but this hurt quite a bit and had to take a break. But now I've realised that you need to sit much closer to this screen to use it comfortably. I've used it while sat closer for a while now and its a whole lot better, no strain. Ergonomically this isn't ideal (not too bad), but it seems to be the compromise I will have to make.

Sure, I'm definitely liking this screen myself, I think for someone who wants to use a Dell Studio for normal home use rather than spreadsheets, terminals and code the WXGA+ option is easier to recommend.

The screen has been something that holds me back from considering a plain MacBook. They clearly use a different, lower quality panel in it then they do the Pro or Air laptops. After owning a laptop with a decent screen now for 5+ years, I can't go to something worse.

Definitely. Before my Macbook I had a 12" Powerbook, and the screen on that was pretty horrible too, just as bad as on my sisters iBook. So yes, there are a lot of Macs in this household (dad has a Mac Mini too), but we don't get tied in.

This plastic Dell is actually really nice. Nearly as fast as a Macbook Pro, massive screen, cute features (coloured lid, backlit keyboard, remote, slot loading drives, touch controls, pretty lights), Blu Ray, and a 4yr onsite warranty for £100 less than a unibody 13" Macbook. This keyboard is really excellent btw, much better than the new Macbook keyboards, and just as good as the old Powerbook ones.

No comments on the Dell, but I've had an Aluminum PowerBook for 4.5 years and I prefer the new-style keyboards to tell you the truth. The keys on the new MacBook Pros are the same as on Apple's thin aluminum keyboards and I find them very usable with a light but comfortable feel.

I can't take it anymore!

Sure a couple of days ago I was quite happy with the laptop when sitting close, it seemed okay and I thought I'd get used to it. 1080p movie trailers were immense and gaming was good fun too.

But yesterday I was doing a bit of reading and writing and after about an hour my eyes were killing me, even with the font size jacked up a notch. I woke up this morning and I could still feel uncomfortable. Had to bail out and return the laptop, they will collect it tomorrow.

Thank goodness for the Distance Selling Regulations...

Does this mean that the screen on the Macbook wasn't so bad after all? At least for the health of your eyes.

Do you have an opinions as to why the screen was causing you so much strain? Could it be the backlight? Anyone's first thoughts with regards to a super high pixel pitch would be possible strain reading relatively small text. But you mentioned you had jacked the text up in size, eliminating that concern.

It shouldn't be a problem with an lcd, but maybe 60hz refresh rate caused it?

Shouldn't be. As you said, there isn't actually any flicker on a LCD.

Refresh rate on LCDs is irrelevant. The reason a low refresh rate on a CRT can hurt your eyes because it flickers. It flickers because the same thing that generates the image also generates the light. The light generation source on a an LCD, though, is constant. (Well, effectively constant. The CCFLs that LCDs use for backlighting run at several hundred hertz.)

I don't rate my 1st gen Macbook display because there is a colour cast and the viewing angle isn't great. But yes, at least it is quite comfortable to use.

I am trying to figure out what the problem is. I'm typing on the laptop right now and going to use it for a bit before wiping it and putting it back in the box. Its not the CCFL backlight, this seems quite even and I can't detect any flicker.

Initially I said the viewing angles are quite good, and they are in the way that through a wide horizontal angle there is minimal colour change. But there is something weird going on, at a very slight change in angle there is a slight change in colour. The blue background of this BBS changes its shade ever so slightly as I move my head around. Maybe my eyeballs are not seeing the same colour? I've got the text size upped to a sensible size. Looking at Bitt's paragraph above it is a good size but it is not comfortable to read, its almost ever so slightly 3Dish. I think I can't really figure out how to focus on it, well that is what it feels like.

When I opened up the laptop about an hour ago I was thinking again "hey, this is alright". But now after some more time I can feel my eyes hurting slightly. It is a problem that isn't easy to pin down and takes a short while to develop.

I always thought it was purple...

Blue, Purple, whatever! Actually I wanted to add that the viewing angle problem is worse vertically, and pretty bad.

My only experience with Dell displays has been with stand-alone LCDs. The two I have, plus the one I put at my parents house were certainly bargain priced, but their quality sucks compared to the screen in my PowerBook and a 20" BenQ I have here.

The image changes considerably with viewing height and color temperature is not even through-out the screen of each display, but I can't say it ever seems that text is out of focus.

People say that about what I write all the time anyway!

Did you change the DPI setting back to normal? Many vendors ship their high-res computers with the Windows DPI set to something higher than 96, and it looks universally awful. Display Control Panel → Settings → Advanced → General → DPI setting.

You might also want to play with the antialiasing options: Display Control Panel → Appearance → Effects → ... smooth edges ....

lol

Yes, I did set the DPI back to 96, it really annoyed me how some elements scaled while others did not. Huge icons on my desktop with tiny legends under them, badly scaled icons and it was a horrible mess. I only had the DPI increased for a very short while before I realised that actually it wasn't helping that much. I found it better to just increase the size of text that you are using within applications. Font smoothing set to 'Cleartype', in my opinion everything else is worse.

Thanks for the suggestions, but while its fun and interesting to play around I'm committed to sending this back and its about to go back in the box right now. Eye strain has actually scared me and no matter how l33t (for want of a less geeky word) this screen is, I can't take any chances with any possible long term effects of me continuing to use it.

I love 1920x1200, but on a 17" display rather than 15".

It could be the way that the graphics chip scrolls the screen. I find when reading various web blogs/bbs's and such, that using the down cursor (repeat mode) results in the screen scrolling with a discreet jumping motion. I find that very annoying after a while.

I tend to compensate by either scrolling a page at a time, or dragging the scroll bar.

Discrete?

That's "smooth scrolling", one of the first things I turn off in a new Windows installation: Internet control panel (of course! where else would it be?) → Advanced → Browsing → Use Smooth Scrolling.

So, Smooth Scrolling, isn't, not really. How windows is that?

In theory, Microsoft added some measure of resolution independence in Vista. I seem to recall that Apple is similarly working on resolution independence (which, given the NeXT-roots of the window system, shouldn't be as hard as it seems to be). Absent proper software support, though...

I considered that, and it does sound like it could be a good screen. But I do use my laptop on my lap most of the time and it does get carried around between rooms at home all the time. I just think 17" is just a little bit big without a desk.


A lot of applications ignore the DPI setting, including Google Chrome, my Accounting and Payroll programs. So I had bigger than normal Windows elements with normal small sized applications it was just not useful.

Oh, about cleartype, there is this cleartype tuner: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/step1.aspx (needs IE)

And i find that cleartype is made for black on white text, it makes light text on a dark background worse.

Edit: For me the "BGR - very rare" in step 2 looks like you describe, if that one looks better on your screen then we've found the cause.