Screen Quality of Macbook Pro - 15" vs 17"

[BrutalSpoon]

Hi guys,

Basically the title says it all. My grandpa's looking to buy a Macbook Pro, where screen quality is one of the biggest factors. The 17" has always been considered to have the best quality screen, but the last revision of Macbook Pros apparently upped the quality on the 13" and 15" versions as well. How does the 15" compare to the 17"?

Any help is, as always, greatly appreciated

BrutalSpoon

 

[feelthefire]

The 15" is a beautiful display but most people are right in that it really should be 1680 x 1050 display and not 1440 x 900. however, if your grandfather's eyesight is going, the text on the 15" will appear larger natively than the 17".

 

[BrutalSpoon]

The 15" is a beautiful display but most people are right in that it really should be 1680 x 1050 display and not 1440 x 900. however, if your grandfather's eyesight is going, the text on the 15" will appear larger natively than the 17".

Thanks for the quick reply

It's less the resolution/pixel density, and more colour quality. Sorry, I should have given more information - he's wanting to use it for high quality photo and video editing, so colour accuracy is a must. Obviously both would need calibrating, but he has a spyder colorimiter, so that's not an issue. It's more a question of which has higher gamut values, that sort of thing.

 

[hajime]

My advise is to take him to the store to do a side by side comparison in person.

 

[andrewsd]

There both super nice it depends on how much traveling he will be doing with it. If it is going to stay in the same spot most of the time then I say get the 17 but if he plans to take it out n about then go with the 15. Just my .02

 

[aristobrat]

It's less the resolution/pixel density, and more colour quality. Sorry, I should have given more information - he's wanting to use it for high quality photo and video editing, so colour accuracy is a must. Obviously both would need calibrating, but he has a spyder colorimiter, so that's not an issue. It's more a question of which has higher gamut values, that sort of thing.

One thing to consider is that the 17" has options for matte and glossy screens, whereas the 15" is only glossy.

Seems like everyone has an opinion on how matte/glossy affects color accuracy, so at least the 17" model offers something regardless of your screen preference.

 

[BrutalSpoon]

One thing to consider is that the 17" has options for matte and glossy screens, whereas the 15" is only glossy.

Seems like everyone has an opinion on how matte/glossy affects color accuracy, so at least the 17" model offers something regardless of your screen preference.

Ah, thanks for that - that was the other thing I was going to ask about. Obviously it's largely subjective as to which is "better", but is there are general consensus as to which is better for certain things? Would anybody be kind enough to give a balanced argument for each, as well as their personal opinion? Doing this with photo editing in mind would get an extra 100 points and a gold star

Thanks to andrewsd and hajime for your advice, too. Of course it will probably boil down to going into the apple store for a side-by-side comparison, but I was just hoping to see if we could get a solid answer online first. The portability issue is a valid one, too, although it is more likely to be a desktop replacement as opposed to a machine to be carrying about all the time, so in this respect it's more likely to be a 17".