Advantages/Disadvantages of going with the hi-res 1440x900 display?

The only issue I've had is at home, when I use an external keyboard. I generally set the laptop 3 feet away from me and some of the smaller text becomes a pain to read. Although this is easily alleviated by plugging in a much larger monitor. Overall, on Vista I doubt you will run into any issues with any text being too small. At the same time you get a lot more workspace. Sometimes when I use my brother's 1280x800 it feels as if the screen is broken =D

 

pitz is of course quite right. the more pixels on a screen the denser any equally-sized image is on the same sized screen. to get the same sized image on a higher density screen you might have to make sure the software settings achieve that, not only for the OS, but also for individual programs. For example, microsoft word, internet explorer and firefox have easily adjustable text size. if you leave the settings as if it were a lower density screen the text etc will be smaller than you may want though you will have more real estate. you will only get "sore eyes" from a higher density screen if you have inappropriate software settings for your eyes, leaving things too small - it's like reading a paperback with tiny print. once set right higher density screens actually are easier on the yes, not worse. with HD, every image, including text is less pixilated, denser, easier to see. 1440x900 is a big improvement for eye strain (as long as text size is correct for each program) compared to 1280x1024.

 

Right, but in Windows 7 you do Win + (plus sign) next to the backspace and you zoom-in into the screen.
Alternatively, just don't don't increase the DPI, and zoom when you need it, and zoom in text in firefox/IE/Opera with Ctrl+ (plus sign) when you want to zoom in just the page (zoom setting per page is saved).

Anyway, in reality all new software should have no problem when the DPI is increased. If you do face off in such situation it's usually because the programming language used is limiting such thing (ie: Java and Flash, to name 2) or the code to support DPI was simply not implemented.

 

I think 1280 x 800 is perfect for a 14.1". 1440 x 900 is perfect for a 15.4".

I like my text big!