Desktop LCD Displays piss me off

H

HateEternal

Mac Metal Head
I was at CompUSA the other day and happened to notice a Sony VAIO laptop that was 10" small and had a 1280x768 display that was BEAUTIFUL. Of course this laptop was around 2300$ but I was impressed. So today, out of curiosity, I checked the Sony page and they have several other laptops with nice high resolution displays. One that stood out was a 1300$ laptop that had a wide screen 17 at 1920x1200!! HOLY CRAP! That is basically all of the pixels of a 23" Apple Display crammed into a 17"!! I was very much impressed and I hope Apple starts putting those into their PowerBooks, I mean 1440x900 is pathetic in comparison!

This is the part that pisses me off. This discovery drove me to further investigation. Since I had been contemplating buying a 20" Apple display I wanted to see if Sony had a 17 Desktop LCD with such a nice high resolution. The answer is NO, every display had 1280x1024. I did a quick search on google (and newegg) for a WUXGA 17 and got nothing but laptops.

So what's the deal? How come several laptops (Sony is not the only one) support UXGA displays but no desktops do? How come there is a market for crazy high resolution displays on laptops but not on desktops. A 17" inch wide screen that has as high of resolution as a 23" but takes up less space is WIN in my book. I mean those 23" screens are big. Image what you could accomplish with TWO 17" WUXGA screens!
 
You know, I was wondering that a little while back as well. I mean why not offer a 17" widescreen with higher resolution. I'd go for one of those - or two :)
 
The only people I see benefiting from that are Optometrists...the people using those resolutions need will glasses and contacts every other week.
 
Nonsense, I am used to using 16x12 on a 17" CRT and have been for a long time. Still no glasses here.

I understand that some people don't like high resolution displays, when I worked as a tech and set up peoples computers I always had to lower the resolution for the user. BUT the point I am trying to make is: If they make the LCDs for Laptops how come they don't make them for Desktops? Is it because you can go with a bigger monitor on a desktop than you can on a laptop or what? I (obviously) for one would rather buy an LCD with a smaller form factor and get the same performance. A lot of people like LCD displays because they take up less space than CRTs, so why not be even more efficient?
 
Well I've never run 1600x1200 on a 17" CRT but I was running that res on a 19" CRT which is 18" viewable which is not far from a 17" LCD :) So give me a 17" widescreen and I could be happy - as long as its got some decent resolution.
 
Oh which brings up another point. How come 19" LCDs are so weak? They get the same resolution as 17s! 1280x1024 is big on a 17" How much bigger do you need?
 
Generally, they don't make 'em because there's no market. Sure, one or two customers out of hundred would buy them, even if they're more expensive, but the other 98 or 99 wouldn't.

You also have to keep in mind that a desktop monitor usually has more distance to the viewer.

I have to admit, I too would love to buy a 19" 4:3 display at 1600*1200. Alas: They don't seem to see a market there, so they don't build them (yet?).
 
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.
 
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.
 
HateEternal said:
...If they make the LCDs for Laptops how come they don't make them for Desktops?...
Click to expand...
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.
 
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