I was originally looking for a standard res 15" because at 1440x900 it would be the same resolution as the 17" 1440x900 I was coming from, so everything would be a bit smaller but I wouldn't lose any screen real estate. When I went to pick up the notebook (craigslist) it turns out I read the ad wrong and it was actually 17" which is 1920x1200. The price was great for a 15" so it was even better for a 17" so I took it anyways ($1,500 sealed/brand new with applecare, some rich kid selling her xmas gift).
Because of the resolution I have to set chrome to a 120% zoom by default, increased the font size in textpad and pathfinder to 15, and in word and excel documents set the zoom to 150%. It's not a pain because it's done and everything looks great now, but if I buy an external monitor, like say the Dell U2311H 23" 1920x1080.. since the resolution is essentially the same but the dpi is much lower, won't everything everything I've zoomed in now look too big? So I'd be forever reseting zoom levels everytime I plug in the monitor? Whereas if I'd bought the 1440x900 15" I wouldn't need to zoom anything or change font sizes, and could just plug it in and everything would be the right size on the monitor, I'd just have more screen real estate?
And finally, one beautiful thing about my new Mac is when I plug in a new audio source it switches to it automatically, it's awesome because on my PC I had to manually switch my audio output via menus every time I plugged in my firewire audio interface. Same thing when I plugged in a monitor, it wouldn't automatically switch, I'd have to go into the videocard settings, pain in the ass. Are Mac's equally awesome when it comes to external monitors? Plug it in and it switches automatically?
Because of the resolution I have to set chrome to a 120% zoom by default, increased the font size in textpad and pathfinder to 15, and in word and excel documents set the zoom to 150%. It's not a pain because it's done and everything looks great now, but if I buy an external monitor, like say the Dell U2311H 23" 1920x1080.. since the resolution is essentially the same but the dpi is much lower, won't everything everything I've zoomed in now look too big? So I'd be forever reseting zoom levels everytime I plug in the monitor? Whereas if I'd bought the 1440x900 15" I wouldn't need to zoom anything or change font sizes, and could just plug it in and everything would be the right size on the monitor, I'd just have more screen real estate?
And finally, one beautiful thing about my new Mac is when I plug in a new audio source it switches to it automatically, it's awesome because on my PC I had to manually switch my audio output via menus every time I plugged in my firewire audio interface. Same thing when I plugged in a monitor, it wouldn't automatically switch, I'd have to go into the videocard settings, pain in the ass. Are Mac's equally awesome when it comes to external monitors? Plug it in and it switches automatically?
