Desktop LCD Displays piss me off

[Mikuro]

I've wondered this myself. The best I could figure (I never really looked into it) was that the laptop LCDs just weren't desktop-quality. They probably have worse response times and constrast than most people would want in a desktop display. But that's just a guess.

[btoth]

I ended up with my PowerBook because I could actually read the words on the screen without getting a headache.

I originally bought a nice Gateway with a high-resolution 15.1" display. It looked really really sharp in the store, and the first week I had it it was really cool and I enjoyed showing people the nice screen. After a few more days I figured out the my eye-aches, tension, and headaches were attributed to reading the damned small text all day. Of course, changing the resolution made things blurry because it's an LCD, and making text bigger is not really an option because the UI is not really designed with that in mind.

Regardless of the 72dpi 1280x854 screen on this PowerBook, everything is very clear to read (partly because of superior font smoothing over Windows). I'd be happy to have a really high-res display though when resolution-independance is fully supported.

[TommyWillB]

Originally Posted by HateEternal

...If they make the LCDs for Laptops how come they don't make them for Desktops?...

IMHO it's simple ergonomics + economics.

A laptop screen is usually closer to you, thus easier to see. My 17" screen is almost 2 feet away, and (wih my glasses on) I can barely read it sometimes at 1280x1024.

Anything smaller would add no value, and only up the price. The reason to do it on a laptop is to make it a more credible "desktop replacement", and therefore people will pay more for that.