Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I'm considering about buying an X61 laptop. It'll be my second time purchasing a laptop. I did research on the laptop and am satisfied that it will meet my hardware requirements. I also have searched through on this forum for feedbacks and it seems to me that most people are happy with it. However, I'm not sure about the screen resolution.

I'm curious about what people here think about the 12.1" size & its screen resolution, 1042x768. My aging laptop, Dell Inspiron 2650, is 15" and has same resolution. I'm not sure how different there is between 15" and 12" for the same resolution, 1042x768.

Do you enjoy working on the laptop with that screen resolution? Won't it get in way for programming?

If that helps, I usually use vim/jedit/eclipse for programming. Web browsing, IM chat, and checking email are my other daily activities on the laptop.

bradk wrote:I'm curious about what people here think about the 12.1" size & its screen resolution, 1042x768. My aging laptop, Dell Inspiron 2650, is 15" and has same resolution....Won't it get in way for programming?

The number of pixels determines how much real estate you have on the screen. "1024x768" means that you have 1024 pixels horizontally and 768 pixels vertically, so you have a total of 786,432 pixels on the entire screen. Thus, the X61 has exactly the same real estate as your Inspiron, so if you find the Inspiron sufficient, the X61 won't be a problem. The only difference is that things will look smaller on the 12.1" screen.

Yah - I'm very satisfied with the resolution actually - I don't think I would need a higher resolution on such a small screen - and I find, since I'm using the X61s as my main computer and don't have ready access to another computer w/ a higher resolution - that I've gotten used to the screen very quickly.

That is a very good question. I'm in the sameboat about the screen resolution. I'm traveling 98% of the time for my job and carrying around a 15" is already getting old.

1024x768 on a 12" was old-tech 5 years ago. Lenovo's got to get with it and offer a higher-res 4:3 screen on the X6x series like they do on the tablet.

If you're going for the tablet, definitely get the higher-res version.

Its fine for me as I use an external monitor. I have no complaints.

I find the screen resolution of the x61s adequate provided I am using a desktop/window manager with multiple desktops. On *nix window managers this is common, and I recall XP (and I would assume Vista) has a powertoy for the same.

I spend about 50% of my time with my x61s with it alone and my productivity high. The other 50% its keyboard and mouse are cloned to another computer with a high resolution screen, and even in those cases I primarily use the x61s' LCD. It is really quite usable.

I prefer x6./s's 1024x768 12" resolution to my coworkers' MacBooks with 1200x800 13.3" screens. That said, I would have prefered 1200x900 (or whatever the exact values for the 4:3 standard are) on my 12" and am confident I could adjust quickly.

The small size seldom becomes a problem. If I want to watch a film, which is a seldom occurrence anyway, I am likelier to hold it closer to me rather than put it on my laptop stand on my desk and watch it from bed... although when I do it's still comfortable to view.

After seeing a T61 WSXGA+ and T9300, I was tempted, but then I remembered that my X61s has 8+ hours of battery life, is tiny/portable, and has really all the processing power I need. As for your issue, the screen is still "nice", don't worry

GL with your decision

I was running 1024x768 at 12.1" for a few years, and I didn't find it to be a "problem," per se. But I much prefer the SXGA+ screen's resolution, even at 12.1". It is very nice to have all that desktop space--you don't realize how much you like it until it's gone.

I was also running 1024x768 at 14" for more than 7 years working mainly on office and mail apps while on the go (and I travel a lot). Now with my 12.1" on my new x61s, although I have the exact same resolution, I feel I am not having the same comfort. Before I used to work word documents at 75% zoom with font size 12 and I had plenty of space to work with 2 documents side by side. Now on the 12.1" the 75% seems a bit to small and if I increase it then I am missing some space.

But I guess I am gonna get used to it. Actually the screen resolution was the only compromise I did with the standards I put down before buying a new lappy and, so far, I didn't regret it since everything else is exactly as I wanted it to be. I guess one will never find exactly all his preferences packed in one single laptop, so make sure the one or two compromises you are going to make are the least annoying.

Actually, the best screen resolution is not a matter of "older" vs. "newer" technology, but of

- display size
- font size
- age of user (!)
- then, finally: application

Naturally, if you cramp a lot of pixels into a small subnotebook screen (such as 12 inch), you sure get more displayed "real estate", however, fonts appear smaller, becoming unreadable to the avid mid-40's aged subnotebook geek (not so much a problem to the 20somthn tech college guy or gal). (PS: with age, the eye lenses become less flexible, creating a certain difficulty to focus on small items on a 12' screen close up - fact of life, you've gotta live with it..)

So, for TEXT applications, 1024 x 768 seems to be the best compromize between pixel size, display size and the standard Windows font. You may increase the standard font in Control Panel somewhere, however, then, the fonts are displayed in an interpolated way and look blurry (at least to me, I used that feature for a while on a 14" 1400 x 1024 (?) screen and was dissatisfied with blurry looking fonts)

IF one needs to have real estate (Visual Studio, CAD, large Xcel sheets, whatever..), then go to a larger external screen (17"; 20+ inch) to have the expected font size, BUT with the poor VGA output signals the Leno-Oh machines provide, the X machines do not seem to be a good fit for these applications.

The poor capability to drive larger external screen resolutions via DVI or an excellent VGA signal is certainly something to work on for the manufacturer...

my two cents.

Gerd

gerdh wrote:So, for TEXT applications, 1024 x 768 seems to be the best compromize between pixel size, display size and the standard Windows font. You may increase the standard font in Control Panel somewhere, however, then, the fonts are displayed in an interpolated way and look blurry

But word processors and PDF viewers scale very well. Let's say you view the same Word document on a 15.0" 1024x768 screen versus a 15.0" 2048x768 screen, and in both cases you maximize the document and zoom to page width. The text looks much smoother in the latter case because each character is made up of four times as many pixels.

I am actually doing that right now on my R50p's QXGA Flexview screen. It looks awesome.

Just sit closer to the screen...works for me.

Bill Pratt

billp117 wrote:Just sit closer to the screen...

Oh yes, I sit unusually close to my R50p. I keep my eyes about 13 inches from the screen.

bradk wrote:Is anyone satisfied with the screen resolution for X61?

Yes, very satisfied.

Have to give a thumb down for the 1024x768 resolution: too limited to do any useful work. Viewing angle is not that good also.

If I'm going to do any serious work over a long period of time, 1024 x 768 doesn't cut it. At home and office, I use 1920 x 1200 via my dock and an external Samsung monitor. It's an amazing difference. After dragging around a T43 for a couple of years, I love having a tiny X61 and am willing to put up with the small screen.

Sounds like it's not a big deal to have a small screen resolution. My old laptop has XGA and displays 1024x768 resolution, so I don't think X61 won't be a problem for me. As for age issue, I don't think it's a problem. I'm not yet 30.

I'll go for X61. I'm more interested in having more processor power and it's bit cheaper than X61s as well. I'm not interested in having a tablet because I have no use for it.

XIII wrote:Have to give a thumb down for the 1024x768 resolution: too limited to do any useful work. Viewing angle is not that good also.

What useful work?

Actually I gotta say I'm much more efficient at only 1024x768! If there's only room on the desktop to display the one window I'm working in it's a lot harder to get distracted

Really though I've been using a 12-inch powerbook with the same resolution for all sorts of work (Flash/Actionscript, Java in Eclipse, HTML/PHP, audio editing and multi-track mixing, MS Word, etc). Once you get used to switching windows quickly it's a non-issue (exposé on mac is great, same goes for similar compiz plugins under linux; I'm sure there's something similar available for windows)

bradk wrote:What useful work?

Every user has their own preferences. Many of us find 1024x768 inadequate, but that shouldn't concern you because you do find it good enough.

I switched from a 14.1" SXGA+ T42 to my current X61. It took a couple of weeks, but I got used to the new lower resolution and actually find it less straining on my eyes. I can still do CAD / Photoshop kind of work, although I sometimes wish for an external monitor.

pianowizard wrote:

bradk wrote:What useful work?

Every user has their own preferences. Many of us find 1024x768 inadequate, but that shouldn't concern you because you do find it good enough.

Thanks, I am about to say that it all comes down to users' preference. I do have an X60s but I could not get really productive with its 1024x768 resolution. AutoCAD design on 1024x768 is also a nightmare. I use more time scrolling back and forth than working.
I also do a lot of coding and I need at least to see 4 windows at the same time to debug my codes.