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screen real estate: 10" 1024x600 vs. 13" 1280x800 vs. 15" 1440x900

S

stefan1975

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hi,

i currently am using an asus eee (clone) 10" laptop with a resolution of 1024x600. and while this laptop sucks in many ways the biggest issue i have with it is that the resolution of 1024x600 shows really little on the screen. even when using chrome, with the win7 bar on the left i still have insane amounts of scrolling to do on almost every page.

i know the MBP13 has a slightly better res. of 1280x800 and the MBP15 1440x900 but the screen are also bigger so i guess the increase in resolution is nullified by the bigger screensize, right? Making all almost comparable in DPI?

the netbook is 16x9 while the MBP's are 16x10, would that make vertical space even worse in comparison?

because of this i am currently leaning heavily to the MBP15 highres (1680x1050) AG or a cheap dell m301z 13" with a res of 1366x768, it is not in the same league as the MBP but at least it is 16x9 and the 1366 res on a 13" screen seems like a big improvement to me, or am i missing something here?

would it be likely to see either 16x9 or a 1366xsomething res on the MBP13 soonish?

and how does that screensize versus resolution into DPI calculation work?

thx people,
stefan
 
DPI isn't a metric for screen 'real estate'. The actual number of pixels is. The more pixels, the more things you can have on the screen at any time, thus 'real estate.

I personally don't ever want to see the Apple laptops ever switching to 16:9, especially the smaller screens because 16:9 is just too short.
 
well i must either be missing something then or i am not explaining it well enough.

i went to the apple store to make up my mind and look at all three MBP's side by side and what was a surpise is that the base13 and base15 showed almost the same amount of 'real estate' and only the highres 17" looked better. I didnt bring my eee but it felt as if i had to scroll as much on the MBP13 as the eee. so even though it is 1440x900 it didnt seem like an improvement.

the matte 1680x1050 MBP15 might be a better choice in that case .... but hosh it is expensive at EUR1880.
 
You'll have to define what 'real estate' means to you then. Because 'real estate' as I understand it is 'usable space' which for a computer screen is the number of pixels. DPI doesn't mean anything in this regard. The (current) iPhone has a DPI of 163, does that give it more 'real estate' than any of the mac laptops?
 
what i meant with real-estate was indeed space to show stuff on the screen, multiple windows or a browser with enough height to limit vertical (and horizontal) scrolling. or watching a movie in quicktime, chatting on msn and browsing at once without scrolling.

of course the eee sucks at this, apart from not having the power to do it all at once and causing stutter at all movies and music due to the atom, i also cannot fit it all on the screen.

the MBP13 with 1280x800 seemed a little better, but in the shop i was diappointed at the extra space it would give me stepping up from the 10" eee.

if the 1440x900 MBP15 isn't that much of an improvement i have to decide either paying extra for the high res or get a 1366x768 13" windows7 laptop (i don't mind windows7 and will most likely put fedora13 on it anyway).

S.
 
So now it's a toss-up between the Dell and the High-res MBP. There isn't anything I can tell you now, it's your money and is it worth it to you?
 
well on the MBP15 i can get a 20% discount and not on the Dell, so that is attractive, although even with the discount it is still 2,5x the price of the Dell.

The Dell has a brand new ULV AMD processor though, so no reviews yet if it is C2D, atom dual core or i3 comparable.

i would prefer a 13" screen but with more "real estate" then 1280x800. So guess the MBP13 is out ... again.

so in terms of usable space how would 1366x768 on a 13" compare to 1440x900 on a 15". I would assume the highres 15" is a no brainer with regard to real-estate. not sure yet though if i'll spring yet another EUR150 for the HR AG though.
 
If you have a 10" or 13" or 15" with the same resolution the size does not matter at all. Things on the screen are just smaller or larger. I wouldn't want to much dpi though because I still want to be able to read the stuff I have on my screen. Be aware of that.
1366x768 might be almost as wide as 1440x900 it lacks quite a bit in vertical space though - and that's what I want to be honest esp. with OSX. For normal browsing I find 1280px sufficient as most websites are best viewed at 1024 or 1280.
 
BeamWalker said:
For normal browsing I find 1280px sufficient as most websites are best viewed at 1024 or 1280.
Click to expand...

well doesnt OSX maximize only vertically anyway? just expanding from top to bottom but not filling the screen like in linux or windows?

i am also kinda worried about vertical space on OSX on a MBP (especially 13") with the menu bar at the top and the large dock at the bottom (which does hide, but kinda looks funny with a maximized safari underneath).

horizontal space doesnt seem like much of an issue to me, either 1440 or 1680 would be fine i believe.

S.
 
Your really comparing very different things, for instance your comparing a dell with ULV, macbook pro with core2duo, and macbook pro with i5

The 'real estate' thing.

The higher the pixels the less scrolling you would have to do and the more you would fit on a screen.

example. say a webpage is 1000 pixels long, on the eee your only getting 600 without scrolling, macbook pro 13" 800 without scrolling and macbook pro 15" 900 without scrolling.

Now the size of the screen.

Imagine you had all those resolutions on the eee pc, having the higher res would mean less scrolling as more is squashed into the same space, this means everything is smaller.

Now if you increase the size of the screen you will have the same amount of pixels but everything isnt as 'squashed' so it will seem bigger.

This means that on a 13" mbp and 15"mbp the text will seem about the same size as there is the same amount of dpi roughly. But you are still getting more on the screen at once on the 15", its just bigger aswell.
 
16x10 is BETTER for vertical space compared to 16x9. 16x9 screens are pretty much worthless except for watching widescreen movies which are in that format.

1280x800 (800 is vertical) is better than 1366x768 (only 768 vertical pixels).

1440x900 (900 vertical) is identical vertically to 1600x900 (still 900 vertical).

1680x1050 (1050 vertical) is better than 1600x900 (900 vertical).

1920x1200 (1200 vertical) is better than 1920x1080 (1080 vertical).

Given a choice, always go for a 16:10 screen for a computer. 16:9 is meant for your TV.

There used to be plenty of 4:3 format screens but these are super rare now, they have more vertical space as a ratio to horizontal space. An example would be 1400x1050 (only 1400 horizontal, but a full 1050 vertical pixels). It leads to a closer to a square vs. a rectangle look of the screen.
 
ag227 said:
Your really comparing very different things, for instance your comparing a dell with ULV, macbook pro with core2duo, and macbook pro with i5
Click to expand...

yeah i know they are all three quite different options. i had already written off the MBP13 C2D for it's money to hardware ratio.

So now it's either an i5 MBP15 which is great screen and performance wise or just €600 for a pc laptop with linux, like the dell m301z. which is nowhere in the same league as the MBP15, but more value for money then the MBP13 and cheap enough to write off after a year or two, whereas the MBP15 will have to last me twice that.

a 1366x768 ratio on a 13" laptop seems like a nice compromise to me, since the size is perfect for couch usage compared to the 15", but it's 16x9.

guess i am working my way towards the highres 15", since i now believe i would prefer a matte too, the glossy in the store was like a mirror.

S.
 
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