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Dell Widescreen 15.4 inch Laptop
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As many have stated already, it isn't necessary to equate high resolution with small text, since you can just change the font size. OS X goes much further than this, though, since Quartz cares little about the resolution of the output device and will happily resample images as necessary. OS X already has all the infrastructure necessary to effectively upsample the entire display. For example, a future version of Safari could provide the option of viewing web pages at increased resolution. Web pages have their own native resolution (loosely defined by the raster graphics they contain), but there is nothing that says those graphics can't be upsampled along with the text. That way, the text gets bigger, clearer, and easier to read, while the graphics appear with the same size and quality as they would on a display of lower resolution.
If you can do this, then higher resolution is always better, provided the graphics chip can handle it. Nothing needs to get smaller. It can just get clearer (in the case of vector data), or stay about the same (in the case of raster). Apple is far better equipped to make good use of resolution than Dell is, so I wouldn't expect them to lag behind for long.
If you can do this, then higher resolution is always better, provided the graphics chip can handle it. Nothing needs to get smaller. It can just get clearer (in the case of vector data), or stay about the same (in the case of raster). Apple is far better equipped to make good use of resolution than Dell is, so I wouldn't expect them to lag behind for long.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Morons...
You people complaining about the resolution being too high are disallusioned idiots who would be bragging about this 223% increase in pixels if the tables were reversed. All it's going to do is make tiny text more readable. Surely you don't complain that the copies from your laserprinter are at 1200dpi and you wish they were 72 dpi do you? Apple's always been behind in this area, but it's a shame it's a Dell that they have to strive to equal in the display department...
You people complaining about the resolution being too high are disallusioned idiots who would be bragging about this 223% increase in pixels if the tables were reversed. All it's going to do is make tiny text more readable. Surely you don't complain that the copies from your laserprinter are at 1200dpi and you wish they were 72 dpi do you? Apple's always been behind in this area, but it's a shame it's a Dell that they have to strive to equal in the display department...
These high resolution Dell laptops are terrible
We bought a Dell 1400 x 1200 1.2Ghz or whatever resolution for someone to replace an IBM small thinkpad 500 Mhz Celeron with a 1024x768 screen. We could never get the Dell screen to show readable text (too small). Changing XP to show larger fonts only helps certain things.
Eventually, the person put the res to 1024x768 which looked better, but had the LCD fuzzies.
After another month, he was back on the IBM. The Dell went into use as a windows machine for QA work.
Dell seems more interested in selling specifications than computers. More is always better ;->.
--knobs
We bought a Dell 1400 x 1200 1.2Ghz or whatever resolution for someone to replace an IBM small thinkpad 500 Mhz Celeron with a 1024x768 screen. We could never get the Dell screen to show readable text (too small). Changing XP to show larger fonts only helps certain things.
Eventually, the person put the res to 1024x768 which looked better, but had the LCD fuzzies.
After another month, he was back on the IBM. The Dell went into use as a windows machine for QA work.
Dell seems more interested in selling specifications than computers. More is always better ;->.
--knobs
First, on an LCD, you have no choice. Either you run at the native resolution or it looks like crap; plain and simple.
Secondly, there are more factors than just resolution involved in this. A good friend of mine has a Dell with a 1600x1200 15" screen, and it's awful. First, the brightness simply isn't as good as the TiBook (I have a DVI 667) screen. Secondly, the viewing angle is awful. Personally, no matter what the font size, I think the quality of the text on that screen sucks as well.
Just remember - Apple makes laptops that provide a quality experience for the graphics & video professionals who buy them. This means more than resolution!
Some Perspective
You guys need to get some perspective on this thing:
0) Yes. It is ugly. I don't care much for the milky white iBooks, but I think the TiBooks are super-sexy. I wish Apple made a TiPod...
1) It's not targeted at the same market as any of the Apple laptops. It's a desktop replacement and a mobile workstation. I have an Inspiron 8200, which was Dell's highest end model before this one. I use it to do 3D graphics and CAD while I'm on the go. Do I wish it were lighter and thinner (the new 8500 is lighter and thinner than my 8200)? Hell yes, especially when all I need to do is type a document or write some code. Do I wish it were built as solidly as a TiBook? Again, yes. Would I trade it in for a TiBook? No. I simply can't do the things I need to on light portable like that.
2) Don't even pretend that this thing isn't wicked fast. The GeForce4 Go 4200 is basically a desktop GPU stuffed into a laptop. It's about twice as fast as a Radeon 9000. And the "it's not all about clock speed, but data flow" thing I heard was hilarious. First, clock speed is important. Even with the architectural improvements of the G4, the P4 has 2.4 times the clock speed. The G4 would have to be more than twice as fast at the same clock speed. Look at the design specs of the G4, that's not even *theoretically* possible! Also, data flow matters, particularly for media apps. That's why the 2.1GB/sec memory bus on the 8500 blows away the 1.3GB/sec memory bus on any Apple laptop. Of course speed isn't everything. Especially in a notebook. The 8500 pays the price by being not only thick and heavy, but quite hot as well. Still, it's a tradeoff many are willing to make.
3) The screen thing is just silly. More resolution = better. Always. If you're OS gives you weird results turning up the resolution, then it's font handling sucks. Windows XP is this way. You get all sorts of weirdness at 133 dpi. Hopefully, OS X isn't this way. The whole point of basic Quartz on DisplayPDF is that vector graphics scale to any resolution. Fonts are inherently resolution independent. That's the whole reason we got away from those stupid bitmap fonts in the early 1990s. 12pt == 1/6th of an inch, not 12 pixels. I adore my 1600x1200 screen. I simply set X (I use Linux pretty much exclusively) to run at 133 dpi, and set the thing to use large fonts. All my apps scale perfectly, and most websites do as well. The ones that don't suck anyway, because depending on a particular font size also implies that it breaks for people who need accessibility features. The payoff for putting up with a little bit of weirdness in the web is gorgeous fonts to look almost paper-quality. I can't stand going back to low-res displays anymore, with their 1-pixel thick fonts. On this screen, letters are often 2 to 2.5 pixels thich. This is great for an antialiased display, because it's hard to notice the fuzzy edge pixels when they're so small relative to the solid main lines. Further, the extra pixels really allow the design of a font to be expressed, which makes them much more pleasing to look at. I went out and got Adobe's basic font collection just so I could take advantage of how nice fonts look on this screen.
You guys need to get some perspective on this thing:
0) Yes. It is ugly. I don't care much for the milky white iBooks, but I think the TiBooks are super-sexy. I wish Apple made a TiPod...
1) It's not targeted at the same market as any of the Apple laptops. It's a desktop replacement and a mobile workstation. I have an Inspiron 8200, which was Dell's highest end model before this one. I use it to do 3D graphics and CAD while I'm on the go. Do I wish it were lighter and thinner (the new 8500 is lighter and thinner than my 8200)? Hell yes, especially when all I need to do is type a document or write some code. Do I wish it were built as solidly as a TiBook? Again, yes. Would I trade it in for a TiBook? No. I simply can't do the things I need to on light portable like that.
2) Don't even pretend that this thing isn't wicked fast. The GeForce4 Go 4200 is basically a desktop GPU stuffed into a laptop. It's about twice as fast as a Radeon 9000. And the "it's not all about clock speed, but data flow" thing I heard was hilarious. First, clock speed is important. Even with the architectural improvements of the G4, the P4 has 2.4 times the clock speed. The G4 would have to be more than twice as fast at the same clock speed. Look at the design specs of the G4, that's not even *theoretically* possible! Also, data flow matters, particularly for media apps. That's why the 2.1GB/sec memory bus on the 8500 blows away the 1.3GB/sec memory bus on any Apple laptop. Of course speed isn't everything. Especially in a notebook. The 8500 pays the price by being not only thick and heavy, but quite hot as well. Still, it's a tradeoff many are willing to make.
3) The screen thing is just silly. More resolution = better. Always. If you're OS gives you weird results turning up the resolution, then it's font handling sucks. Windows XP is this way. You get all sorts of weirdness at 133 dpi. Hopefully, OS X isn't this way. The whole point of basic Quartz on DisplayPDF is that vector graphics scale to any resolution. Fonts are inherently resolution independent. That's the whole reason we got away from those stupid bitmap fonts in the early 1990s. 12pt == 1/6th of an inch, not 12 pixels. I adore my 1600x1200 screen. I simply set X (I use Linux pretty much exclusively) to run at 133 dpi, and set the thing to use large fonts. All my apps scale perfectly, and most websites do as well. The ones that don't suck anyway, because depending on a particular font size also implies that it breaks for people who need accessibility features. The payoff for putting up with a little bit of weirdness in the web is gorgeous fonts to look almost paper-quality. I can't stand going back to low-res displays anymore, with their 1-pixel thick fonts. On this screen, letters are often 2 to 2.5 pixels thich. This is great for an antialiased display, because it's hard to notice the fuzzy edge pixels when they're so small relative to the solid main lines. Further, the extra pixels really allow the design of a font to be expressed, which makes them much more pleasing to look at. I went out and got Adobe's basic font collection just so I could take advantage of how nice fonts look on this screen.
Who cares ? I mean who really cares what Dell does ?
Let us rather speak about Apple and what good things will come from there.
I buy the Apple experience, not the Dell specifications.
Mac is a pleasure to use, Windows is not.
Oh, here is a good one - a friend of mine just called me and asked me which digital camera I am using, so I told him. The next thing he said was - Do all the necessary drivers come with it ? I said I never really looked in the box, because for me it was just a 10 second thing of plugging it in and my Mac talking to the Nikon. So he was grumbling about his Sony Laptop and now he is going over to the Mall to check out the 17' i-mac (and the camera of course).
Sorry but I wanted to share this with you - I know it has little to do with the topic at hand, but that is what is a Mac for me - I would not buy a Dell or a Toshiba, or whatever. Even if they had 25' collapsable folding whatnotscreens, with RAM galore - it is that I feel at home with my Mac. Sorry for my incoherent message
Let us rather speak about Apple and what good things will come from there.
I buy the Apple experience, not the Dell specifications.
Mac is a pleasure to use, Windows is not.
Oh, here is a good one - a friend of mine just called me and asked me which digital camera I am using, so I told him. The next thing he said was - Do all the necessary drivers come with it ? I said I never really looked in the box, because for me it was just a 10 second thing of plugging it in and my Mac talking to the Nikon. So he was grumbling about his Sony Laptop and now he is going over to the Mall to check out the 17' i-mac (and the camera of course).
Sorry but I wanted to share this with you - I know it has little to do with the topic at hand, but that is what is a Mac for me - I would not buy a Dell or a Toshiba, or whatever. Even if they had 25' collapsable folding whatnotscreens, with RAM galore - it is that I feel at home with my Mac. Sorry for my incoherent message
powermac display drivers
Don't know which thread to put this in, but since someone mentioned earlier that the new powermacs were shipping.... I picked up a factory G4 1.4 at the Apple store yesterday. I am about to go buy the NVIDIA Geforece 128 card at CompUSA. Is this a good idea or should I hold out for the ATI card? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Don't know which thread to put this in, but since someone mentioned earlier that the new powermacs were shipping.... I picked up a factory G4 1.4 at the Apple store yesterday. I am about to go buy the NVIDIA Geforece 128 card at CompUSA. Is this a good idea or should I hold out for the ATI card? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Is it too much to ask of Dell to make a notebook that is actually nice to look at and work on? ****, they've got the specs (well, I'll be waiting for the new notebook Pentiums centurino-something) but the design is worse than a Tron prop! Alienware makes a better notebook anyway.
This does bring up one of my peeves with Apple though and that's the lack of true customization. I mean, I want to pay 99 bucks more and get a better video card not the one they think I should have, I want it with OS 9 and X, and I want an ugly snap on thingy for the track pad...well maybe not the last thing. Oh but CRIKE, whats with the cost of RAM?!?! Dang!
This does bring up one of my peeves with Apple though and that's the lack of true customization. I mean, I want to pay 99 bucks more and get a better video card not the one they think I should have, I want it with OS 9 and X, and I want an ugly snap on thingy for the track pad...well maybe not the last thing. Oh but CRIKE, whats with the cost of RAM?!?! Dang!
Re: Dell 8500 vs. PowerBook 15inch
No offense, but it really hacks me off when people try to do this. The Mac is *NEVER* going to be cheaper than the PC when you make a fair comparison. Your comparison is flawed on several levels:
(1) Resolution: Do you realize that with the Dell, you get 111% more pixels? Yes, that's right, OVER TWICE AS MUCH real estate to use.
(2) Three year warranty on that Dell puppy...add at least $300 for AppleCare to your Mac if you want to be fair about it.
(3) You just had to pick the 2.4 GHz on the Dell, didn't you? Guess what? The 2.0 Ghz will be cheaper and will still be considerably faster than the Mac.
(4) DDR-RAM on the Dell. Even when the 15" is upgraded, it will still be using Motorola's crappy old CPUs and won't take advantage of DDR's extra bandwidth, so it'll be a waste. Dell's laptop does take advantage of DDR for the processor.
Let's try to be objective in our comparisons, shall we? We all love Macs, but let's not spin a yarn to praise their virtues, eh?
No offense, but it really hacks me off when people try to do this. The Mac is *NEVER* going to be cheaper than the PC when you make a fair comparison. Your comparison is flawed on several levels:
(1) Resolution: Do you realize that with the Dell, you get 111% more pixels? Yes, that's right, OVER TWICE AS MUCH real estate to use.
(2) Three year warranty on that Dell puppy...add at least $300 for AppleCare to your Mac if you want to be fair about it.
(3) You just had to pick the 2.4 GHz on the Dell, didn't you? Guess what? The 2.0 Ghz will be cheaper and will still be considerably faster than the Mac.
(4) DDR-RAM on the Dell. Even when the 15" is upgraded, it will still be using Motorola's crappy old CPUs and won't take advantage of DDR's extra bandwidth, so it'll be a waste. Dell's laptop does take advantage of DDR for the processor.
Let's try to be objective in our comparisons, shall we? We all love Macs, but let's not spin a yarn to praise their virtues, eh?
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Re: Re: Dell 8500 vs. PowerBook 15inch
Apple's horizontal resolution is just 80 pixels bigger than Dell's vertical resolution....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
It even has 1.7 times as many pixels as the 17" AlBook...
That's something like 147ppi....
SWEET!!
Apple's horizontal resolution is just 80 pixels bigger than Dell's vertical resolution....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
It even has 1.7 times as many pixels as the 17" AlBook...
That's something like 147ppi....
SWEET!!
Based on this happy customer the dell is a winner!
Man shoots Dell laptop four times after it crashes once too often
Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 10:05 AM EST
"George Doughty hung his latest hunting trophy on the wall of his Sportsman's Bar and Restaurant. Then he went to jail. The problem was the trophy was Doughty's laptop computer. He shot it four times, as customers watched, after it crashed once too often. He was jailed on suspicion of felony menacing, reckless endangerment and the prohibited use of weapons. 'It's sort of funny, because everybody always threatens their computers,' said police Lt. Rick Bashor, seconds before his own police computer froze at police headquarters. Doughty was released Monday evening after spending a night in jail and is due in court Wednesday. In police reports, Doughty said that he realized afterward that he shouldn't have shot his computer but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do," reports The Associated Press.
According to the Boulder Daily Camera, Doughty, 48, owns the establishment. He entered the bar from his office, announced he was going to shoot his computer and returned to his office. After 30 minutes, police said, Doughty set his laptop on the floor 4 to 6 feet away from him, warned two customers at the bar to cover their ears and fired away. The computer took all the bullets and no one was injured.
Unfortunately, they left out two important bits of information of interest to MacDailyNews and our readers.
Paul Schultz, Lafayette's Chief of Police told MacDailyNews that the laptop Doughty shot was a Dell. Lt. Rick Bashor's police computer that crashed during his comments to AP is a Gateway. Did somebody say, "switch?"
Man shoots Dell laptop four times after it crashes once too often
Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 10:05 AM EST
"George Doughty hung his latest hunting trophy on the wall of his Sportsman's Bar and Restaurant. Then he went to jail. The problem was the trophy was Doughty's laptop computer. He shot it four times, as customers watched, after it crashed once too often. He was jailed on suspicion of felony menacing, reckless endangerment and the prohibited use of weapons. 'It's sort of funny, because everybody always threatens their computers,' said police Lt. Rick Bashor, seconds before his own police computer froze at police headquarters. Doughty was released Monday evening after spending a night in jail and is due in court Wednesday. In police reports, Doughty said that he realized afterward that he shouldn't have shot his computer but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do," reports The Associated Press.
According to the Boulder Daily Camera, Doughty, 48, owns the establishment. He entered the bar from his office, announced he was going to shoot his computer and returned to his office. After 30 minutes, police said, Doughty set his laptop on the floor 4 to 6 feet away from him, warned two customers at the bar to cover their ears and fired away. The computer took all the bullets and no one was injured.
Unfortunately, they left out two important bits of information of interest to MacDailyNews and our readers.
Paul Schultz, Lafayette's Chief of Police told MacDailyNews that the laptop Doughty shot was a Dell. Lt. Rick Bashor's police computer that crashed during his comments to AP is a Gateway. Did somebody say, "switch?"
Hm, am I the only one who got it?
In advance: sorry for my poor english, but now I have to post a thread on my own .
I am wondering why all you people did not got the sence for such a high resolution:
But the reason is quite simple: You need such a high resolution for the best HDTV quality - and for editing it in native resolution.
And am I the only one remembering that Apple HAS an editing software for HDTV?
It was one thing which made me very angry, about the new 17"Powerbook: That is is not possible to view HDTV in the highest resolution.
But if Apple uses the high resolution panel for the new 15" I´ll take this in a minute!
Although we do not have ANY HDTV in Europe at all :-(, excepted from imported videos from the US. I´ll love the possibility to see it !
In advance: sorry for my poor english, but now I have to post a thread on my own
.I am wondering why all you people did not got the sence for such a high resolution:
But the reason is quite simple: You need such a high resolution for the best HDTV quality - and for editing it in native resolution.
And am I the only one remembering that Apple HAS an editing software for HDTV?
It was one thing which made me very angry, about the new 17"Powerbook: That is is not possible to view HDTV in the highest resolution.
But if Apple uses the high resolution panel for the new 15" I´ll take this in a minute!
Although we do not have ANY HDTV in Europe at all :-(, excepted from imported videos from the US. I´ll love the possibility to see it !
The reason the resolution thing cracks me up is that OS X is designed to be a font-scalable OS. That's the point of the font smoothing. And frankly, OS X fonts look like crap on current LCDs. The pixels are so damn big that you get lots of "gray" pixels, because that's the only color that will work for a big square to "smooth" the font.
A much larger resolution is the key to this problem, as it will make all smoothed fonts look good. Your fonts can still be, for example, a quarter of an inch tall, but they will be much sharper and crisper. I for one refuse to use OS X because the smoothed fonts irritate me so much, but if Apple moved to a display on the PowerBook in the range of 1900x1200 or so, I'd be much much more likely to switch...
A much larger resolution is the key to this problem, as it will make all smoothed fonts look good. Your fonts can still be, for example, a quarter of an inch tall, but they will be much sharper and crisper. I for one refuse to use OS X because the smoothed fonts irritate me so much, but if Apple moved to a display on the PowerBook in the range of 1900x1200 or so, I'd be much much more likely to switch...
Hello friendly Apple people.
Just thought I would make a few considered points from a PC users pointof view:
1. I have a Dell notebook. It is ugly as sin, weighs a ton and the battery lasts only two hours.
2. But.......It has a 15" 1600x1200 lcd panel. This kind of high resolution is not for everyone, but for those who like it, it makes using normal displays painful. Even the 23" Apple cinema display is rather jagged and pixelated by comparison. I really wouldn't go back to a normal, low res display now.
3. The guy who said that LCD's have to be run at native res is absolutely right. If you are not comfortable with native res, you should not buy that specification of panel.
4. Dell will have DVD burners available within a month.
5. Pointing out how expensive the Dell is with its memory maxed out is rather silly. Only a lunatic would upgrade his memory by buying it from Dell when its free available for a small fraction elsewhere.
6. In my view, OSX demands higher resolutions than any current apple portable offers. Apple really should have higher res panels available as options at least.
7. All the Apple portables are things of beauty, and if I was only surfing the web, typing stuff up and watching movies then I would go for one for sure. But I also want to play all the latest games, work on my quark layouts and use large picture files in photoshop. Unfortunately, doing all those things on one system is only really possible on a PC based system.
8. A P4 2.4ghz PC is a fair bit faster than a 1ghz powerbook.
9. As before, the Apple's are beautiful, but being super thin desn't make them more useful.
10. XP is ugly, OSX is pretty, but I have used both, and XP is at least as stable as OSX.
Why can't we have a computer that is as beautiful, pleasant to use and well built as an apple, but with the performance and across the board software and hardware availability of a PC?
Just thought I would make a few considered points from a PC users pointof view:
1. I have a Dell notebook. It is ugly as sin, weighs a ton and the battery lasts only two hours.
2. But.......It has a 15" 1600x1200 lcd panel. This kind of high resolution is not for everyone, but for those who like it, it makes using normal displays painful. Even the 23" Apple cinema display is rather jagged and pixelated by comparison. I really wouldn't go back to a normal, low res display now.
3. The guy who said that LCD's have to be run at native res is absolutely right. If you are not comfortable with native res, you should not buy that specification of panel.
4. Dell will have DVD burners available within a month.
5. Pointing out how expensive the Dell is with its memory maxed out is rather silly. Only a lunatic would upgrade his memory by buying it from Dell when its free available for a small fraction elsewhere.
6. In my view, OSX demands higher resolutions than any current apple portable offers. Apple really should have higher res panels available as options at least.
7. All the Apple portables are things of beauty, and if I was only surfing the web, typing stuff up and watching movies then I would go for one for sure. But I also want to play all the latest games, work on my quark layouts and use large picture files in photoshop. Unfortunately, doing all those things on one system is only really possible on a PC based system.
8. A P4 2.4ghz PC is a fair bit faster than a 1ghz powerbook.
9. As before, the Apple's are beautiful, but being super thin desn't make them more useful.
10. XP is ugly, OSX is pretty, but I have used both, and XP is at least as stable as OSX.
Why can't we have a computer that is as beautiful, pleasant to use and well built as an apple, but with the performance and across the board software and hardware availability of a PC?
Screens
Even though Apple has always had nice lcds, I just wanted to mention that I used to only buy Dell 'cause I loved their screens before. Pretty high quality stuff, even against Sony or Apple. This is just even better. I mean, I don't have any animosity towards Dell, I just like my Mac better
Even though Apple has always had nice lcds, I just wanted to mention that I used to only buy Dell 'cause I loved their screens before. Pretty high quality stuff, even against Sony or Apple. This is just even better. I mean, I don't have any animosity towards Dell, I just like my Mac better
Re: Re: Re: Compared to a 17inch AlBook
Like I said, the GF4 4200 and the P4 2.4Ghz is much faster than the G4. The computer is running on a 533Mhz fsb and the GF4 gets a much higher data flow from its faster ddr ram chips than a gf4 440 go. Going into what you use it for is just going completely off topic.
Personally speaking, the Albooks look much better than the Dell and I'd probably get one if I was going to get a new laptop soon but speedwise, the Dell is clearly superior and slightly cheaper.
Like I said, the GF4 4200 and the P4 2.4Ghz is much faster than the G4. The computer is running on a 533Mhz fsb and the GF4 gets a much higher data flow from its faster ddr ram chips than a gf4 440 go. Going into what you use it for is just going completely off topic.
Personally speaking, the Albooks look much better than the Dell and I'd probably get one if I was going to get a new laptop soon but speedwise, the Dell is clearly superior and slightly cheaper.
Res
Yeah resolution is still a problem. Higher does not equal better and I know this from my friend's PBook...
Yeah resolution is still a problem. Higher does not equal better and I know this from my friend's PBook...
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Re: Res
Maybe not, but it's a very important factor, probably more so than viewing angle and brightness.
Higher equals sharper (in lcd's).
Lower equals softer.
Watch out for that PBook. It's lying to you...
Maybe not, but it's a very important factor, probably more so than viewing angle and brightness.
Higher equals sharper (in lcd's).
Lower equals softer.
Watch out for that PBook. It's lying to you...
