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General discussion

Need advice regarding a WUXGA and WXGA

Jan 10, 2005 7:26AM PST

Hi,
I'm planning to buy a laptop from DELL. More likely Inspiron 8600 with a 15.4" monitor, with a processor Pentium M 1.6. I'm planning to invest around $1700 so by the price you can clearly see that I'm getting a desktop replacement.
I'm a computer programmer and at the same time I love watching/burning DVD's movies plus I'm a lot on the road/trips. So my questios is which resolution would be better for programming and watching/burning DVD's, the WUXGA or the WXGA? I haven't heard so much about both screen so I thought I would ask for help regarding both resolutions. Is there any machine out there that you guys could recommend for my purpose besides DELL?
Thanks for your comments.

Discussion is locked

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SXGA is a nice alternative -- HPZT3000/Compaq X1000 has it
Jan 10, 2005 7:45AM PST

DVD's will look better the higher resolution you go as the more pixels on the screen the better the DVD will look. But it is relative as they still look great at XGA widescreen (1200x800).

Keep in mind that UXGA is very extreme (the pixels are very small) so some web pages can have some lettering look very small. If getting as much of a spreadsheet on the screen is your goal this will achieve that but you had better have eyes like a hawk.

So, if you want to consider SXGA and don't need 128mb dedicated video consider the HPZT3000/Compaq X1000 (I like mine for my use). If the higher end video card or the 7200rpm hard drive is a priority go with the Dell 8600 (but then you have the extremes for XGA/UXGA.

Keep in mind the widescreen 15.4" LCD on both, even with XGA, will show you more columns of spreadsheets and will display more lines of code (left to right).

But it sounds like SXGA would be a good choice for you.

See X1000forums.com for the issue of getting an LCD (Hitachi) that has a lower refresh rate than others (LG or Samsung). Dell, however uses different LCD companies as well and the only way you can be sure what LCD manufacturer you have is to burn a CD with Knoppix (Linux) and that will tell you who you have.

There are software programs like Powerstrip that can effectively lower your resolution but on a LCD (desktop or notebook) you have only 1 true fixed resolution (as you can't resize pixels on an LCD) so choose carefully.

A good compromise between XGA and UXGA is SXGA which is offered by the HPZT3000/Compaq X1000 (see X1000forums.com --general section -- pinned area on resolution.

The HPZT3000/Compaq X1000 is very comparable to the Dell 8600 but it has a better keyboard (somewhat), a better case (metal bezel surrounding LCD and aluminum lid) but it does not have the ATI 9600/9700 video card the Dell has (up to 128mb dedicated video) (it has an ATI 9200 with up to 64mb dedicated video however which is decent) and you can't get the Hitachi 60gb 7200rpm screaming fast hard drive (you can install it on the HP/Compaq yourself and many have but you can't order it like at Dell).

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wuxga
Feb 5, 2005 4:36AM PST

If you are ready for the next generation of High Definition (HDTV) entertainment, then I suggest you to purchaes a notebook with WUXGA monitor. But make sure your new notebook video card is 128MB type. Otherwise you just getting a fast car running on diesel gas. If you care picture quality, WUXGA will be the best choice. WUXGA with Xbrite tech will be top of the line. You may get a Sony notebook with WUXGA monitor at your budget thru Sony clearence sale online. Check it out.

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WUXGA has more pixels...
Mar 28, 2005 4:49AM PST

LCD screens starting with the letter "W" are wide aspect -- they are wider than they are tall. The acronym stands for Wide (then either Super or Ultra) eXtended Graphics Array. The remaining part of the designation refers to how many pixels the screen has. Wide aspect screens have the same number of pixels in height, but more in width as their ordinary aspect cousins.

RESOLUTIONS FOR ORDINARY ASPECT SCREENS

VGA 640x480
SVGA 800x600
XGA 1024x768
SXGA 1280x1024
UXGA 1600x1200
QXGA 2048x1536

RESOLUTIONS FOR WIDE ASPECT SCREENS

WXGA 1366x768
WSXGA 1600x900
WSXGA+ 1680x1050
WUXGA 1920x1200

Occasionally the numbers vary slightly. The difference is that the more dots you have, the sharper the picture is and the more information you can display on the screen -- fonts, for example, are much smaller -- but just as crisp -- on LCDs with more pixels.

A significant consideration is your vision. If you don't have the very best vision, you won't be able to get any enhanced use out of a higher resolution screen. The benefit of a higher resolution screen is to have text and images displayed smaller on the screen so that you can fit more information onto the screen at one time.

I'm working on a WUXGA laptop screen right now and I have two full browser pages open side by side and there is a little room left over. That's roughly twice as much information as you can display at one time on an XGA (1024x76Cool screen. However, if you can't read small type face, a very high resolution screen will merely require you to adjust the resolution lower so that things on the screen will appear larger so that you can comfortably read them -- thus wasting the extra money.

But if you have good vision or use reading glasses, higher resolution can make computing a much more enjoyable experience by allowing you to have more open windows on your computer that you can view simultaneously.