15" XGA, SXGA or UXGA

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tek · #1 Post by **tek** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 2:01 am

I'm ready to buy either a t42 or t42P. I am realtor. need system for lots of Internet Explorer and home pics and virtual tours. went to office depot to check for resolutions. It appears to me that 1400x1050 is a bit small to show websites and so forth to customers via my laptop (not external monitor). I also tried XGA (1024X768) which fills up the screen complete which I like and it doesn't look blurry or fuzzy, actually pretty clear.
On the other hand, everyone talks about 1600x1200 (which is probably very tiny for me to see. Now, when i lowered the native resolution from one of the systems at office depot from 1400x1050 to 1024x768..it looked ok. MY QUESTION IS: If i get the UXGA (1600x1200) native flex, willl i be able to lower it down to 1400x1050 and 1024x768 or either, so i could have the best flexibility....And will it still look good if I go down from 1600x1200 to 1024x768? In one of the forums, someone had mentioned that they could lower the 1600x1200 res to 1024x768 and it still looks go....as if the system had the original res of 1024x768.

PLS HELP.!!!! IT'S THE ONLY THING HOLDING ME BACK.

SINCE THE SYSTEM AT OFFICE DEPOT ARE NOT ONLINE, CANNOT DETERMINE EXACTLY HOW THE WEBPAGES WILL LOOK AT DIFF RES.

e_motek · #2 Post by **e_motek** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:42 am

Get the UXGA, you can always lower it to lower res. but you cannot go from SXGA to UXGA without changing hardware.

Keep on TP'ing

DavidE · #3 Post by **DavidE** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:50 am

No LCD screen will look as good at lower resolutions as it will at the native resolution. It's just the nature of the beast. The size of each pixel can vary on a CRT monitor; the pixel size is fixed on a LCD monitor. That's why the native resolution is never listed with a CRT, and it's almost always listed with a LCD. While some LCD monitors do a better job than others in displaying lower resolutions, a SXGA screen will always handle SXGA images (when displayed full screen) better than a UXGA screen.

This Google search link explains it better: http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:k8 ... size&hl=en.

Here's an excerpt from that linked article:

"The second disadvantage to LCD screens is their
fixed or native resolution. An LCD screen can only
display the number of pixels in its matrix and no
more. It can display a lower resolution in one of
two ways. Using only a fraction of the total pixels
on the display or through interpolation. Interpolation
is a method whereby the monitor blends multiple
pixels together to simulate a single smaller pixel.
This can often lead to a blurry or fuzzy image
particularly with text..."

DavidE
www.davidenglish.com

lfeagan · #4 Post by **lfeagan** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:55 am

Well, there is one lowered resolution on at 1600x1200 that will look really good, 800x600 as it is an exact multiple and therefore doesn't require dithering/anti-aliasing type of algorithms to make the pixels scale. (translation, it is perfectly divisible by an integer to get from one to the other)

DavidE · #5 Post by **DavidE** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:04 am

tek,

After sending that long-winded reply, I re-read your message and realized I may have missed your point. If your concern is only with displaying Web pages, you shouldn't have a problem with either screen size, as the browser will likely scale the page to fit the screen. If the content can't be scaled, you'll have scroll bars that will let you scroll to the rest of the content. If you don't want to have to deal with scroll bars, then you should go for the larger screen.

DavidE
www.davidenglish.com

DavidE · #6 Post by **DavidE** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:15 am

You're right, 800x600 would look OK. It would use four native pixels for each content pixel, and there would be no obvious stair-stepping in the image. It would be like those giant magnifying glasses that you were supposed to put in front of a small TV to transform it into a big screen.

DavidE
www.davidenglish.com

nikemen · #7 Post by **nikemen** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:34 am

so, I have just sort of gone through this with two new T42's I bought for my inlaws.

I have a T41, 14" with 1024x768 resolution. I have used this type of resolution for years, and find it really great for viewing. Web pages, documents, photos, everything.

I was REALLY drawn to the higher resoulutions, 1400x and even 1600x.

And, since I was going to be buying them 15" models, I thought, well I really should go for the higher resolution since the machine is better, faster, better resale, etc. I can always change the resolution to a lower one or scale items to have it be easier to see.

Well, after buying the 15" 1400 models, I had to spend an hour trying to tweak settings to get the screen to be reasonable to view. Even I, 37 year old, 30 year computer user with 20/10 vision have some trouble viewing everything. Maybe I am just used to the size of 1024x, but when I view their 15" screens, I feel I am straining a bit.

I know that one can always ratchet down the resolution, to lower resolutions. 1280x, 1024x. But, BUT, I think that the lower resolutions which of course are NOT native, really look worse noticeably so than of course the native ones. Of course this is subjective, but I wouldn't run the 1400x at a lower resolution, I would work on getting the interface to where I want it.

Even if you scale fonts, images on screen, menu drop downs, etc. to make everything a bit more viewable, ALL the items in the menu bar, will remain TINY. Try telling someone to find the Messenger icon in the bottom of the screen corner. It is so difficult to discern from the others.

Of course, I do'nt have any problem finding it, but with 10 icons over there, it is very hard to see.

I cannot imagine what 1600x would look like. I know people LOVE them, they are great screens, but I couldn't imagine using a machine that is a step higher than 1400x is already.

Even when one changes the settings, icons, fonts, etc. There are many items that don't change.

Dialogue boxes fonts don't change. Popup modal boxes don't change. Normal folder views, all the text information on the LEFT side doesn't change and the menu bar icons stay small.

As for web browsers, my experience is that the window will grow to fit the screen of course, but the fonts don't change. Unless one changes them all in the prefernces. Then they are changed for all users.

Best advice.

Go and view screens like this BEFORE you buy. Best matches I found were SONY XBRITE screens, that could do 1600x at places like best buy.

tek · #8 Post by **tek** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:53 am

I'M NOT SURE MY QUESTION WAS ANSWERED? I'M NOT SURE WEATHER IT IS THE SCREEN OR THE VIDEO CARD THAT ALLOWS THE FLEXIBILITY TO SWITCH RESOLUTION....BUT HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS.

DEPENDING ON THE VIDEO CARD (MY OPTIONS-RADEON 9600 OR ATI 128MB)...

TO WHICH RESOLUTIONS FROM THE 1600X1200 UXGA CAN I LOWER TO:

IS IT....1400X1050?
.......1240X1028?
........1024X768?

WHICH ONE? AND FOR WHICH CARD/SCREEN?

I KNOW THE "NATIVE RESOLUTION" IS THE BEST ....BASED ON THE RESOLUTION PICKED. BUT PLEASE.....I DO NOT WANT TO GET STUCK
WITH MAX RES OF 1024X768 NAT RES, IF I COULD GET THE 1600X1200 AND LOWER IT TO 1024X768. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IF I LOWER IT FROM 1600X1200 NAT RES TO 1024X768.....THE 1024X768 WILL LOOK AS GOOD AS IF THE SYSTEM HAD THE NAT RES OF 1024X768.

I JUST WANT TO HAVE OPTIONS.

nikemen · #9 Post by **nikemen** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:59 am

I KNOW THE "NATIVE RESOLUTION" IS THE BEST ....BASED ON THE RESOLUTION PICKED. BUT PLEASE.....I DO NOT WANT TO GET STUCK
WITH MAX RES OF 1024X768 NAT RES, IF I COULD GET THE 1600X1200 AND LOWER IT TO 1024X768. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IF I LOWER IT FROM 1600X1200 NAT RES TO 1024X768.....THE 1024X768 WILL LOOK AS GOOD AS IF THE SYSTEM HAD THE NAT RES OF 1024X768.

I JUST WANT TO HAVE OPTIONS.[/quote]

this will NEVER happen. Nothing but native will look as good as native. One can always notice if the up or down scaled resolution is not native.

Moroner · #10 Post by **Moroner** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:26 pm

20" CRT monitors typically have a .22 to .21 mm dot-pitch, which translates to roughly 1900 pixels horizontally. So pixel resolution on CRTs is not given because they have enough pixels to interpolate and provide a good enough image. Of course 1600x1200 on a 20" CRT is a pain compared to a 20" LCD, mainly because the CRT does not enough "pixels" to produce a sharp enough image.
Going back to LCD interpolation, displaying 1024 on a 1600 native screen actually works quite well. It is roughly as sharp as a CRT. On the other hand I use a 15" UXGA with 120dpi setting and ClearType, and the text is very readable.
The 15" SXGA and UXGA are both Flexview with better viewing angles, so that might be a plus if you need to present images to multiple people around a table.
Also, if you are concerned about scaling of web pages, Opera(http://www.opera.com/download) provides a nice page zoom function.

PS to tek: It would be nice to turn off CAPS LOCK, aka the "scream key", when posting.

15" XGA, SXGA or UXGA

15" XGA, SXGA or UXGA

just a quick note of my experiences

15" xga, sxga or uxga

Re: 15" xga, sxga or uxga

CRT vs LCD, LCD interpolation

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