Laptop Resolution Advice

RockLobster · 6 Jan 2015 at 10:03

Hi All

I'm looking at Dell Precision M4800. I have two options for screens UltraSharp QHD+ (3200x1800) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit Premium Panel Guarantee or UltraSharp FHD(1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit Premium Panel Guarantee

This laptop will be used for dev work (Visual Studio) would the 3200x1800 res be too high on a 15.6" screen? Anyone have experiences with these resolutions?

Heroin · 6 Jan 2015 at 13:27

I've used a Macbook Pro with bootcamp on Windows 8.1 with 2880x1800 if i remember correctly.

It was too small to do anything with unless you scaled everything up, but i was never truly happy when in windows with it. Either i'd run it at 1920x1200 or have to scale the desktop if i was running at full res. Both never felt 'right'.

Now im using a 17.3" Laptop with 1080p which i personally feel is a nice resolution for the size of the display.

I'd say its too much for 15", but i mostly game so you'd maybe be better waiting for a professionals opinion.

1080p gets my vote if it saves you a ton of money.

RockLobster · 6 Jan 2015 at 22:10

Thanks for the reply. After your post and looking at some more comments on other sites I'm going to go for the lower res.

K1LaW8tt5 · 6 Jan 2015 at 22:23

yeah 1080 is about right for a 15" laptop. as mentioned above everything would be very small and need to be scaled if a higher res was used.

rik1301 · 6 Jan 2015 at 22:26

Heroin said:
I've used a Macbook Pro with bootcamp on Windows 8.1 with 2880x1800 if i remember correctly.

It was too small to do anything with unless you scaled everything up, but i was never truly happy when in windows with it. Either i'd run it at 1920x1200 or have to scale the desktop if i was running at full res. Both never felt 'right'.

Now im using a 17.3" Laptop with 1080p which i personally feel is a nice resolution for the size of the display.

I'd say its too much for 15", but i mostly game so you'd maybe be better waiting for a professionals opinion.

1080p gets my vote if it saves you a ton of money.

The icons on a 15" screen at 3200 will be that small you'll barely be able to see them

. You've no chance of reading text at that size unless you rescale.

Heroin, the Mac's do their own scaling when using a retina screen for example so you can use a huge res screen and text size will be automatically adjusted to suit - that's one of the awesome things about them. Unfortunately Windows 8 has no such features and as you've found out, by resizing it you just end up with larger but more blurred text. It is quite an unpleasant experience and one of the reasons why I never went ahead with a 4k monitor I was planning to buy.

I concur that 17'3 with 1920x1080 is a good balance on a laptop. Text is nice and clear/sharp and at a size that makes it perfectly readable without needing to adjust anything.