M6600 and M4600 are coming in Feb.

Not confirmed but the new Precisions might be getting IPS panels like their Elitebook counterparts. If so, it would be a much greater screen than Apple's. Personally, the panel quality is much more important than the aspect ratio.

 

If they can convince panel makers to manufacture IPS panels, couldn't they could at /least/ convince them to manufacture 2048x1152 panels as well? It seems it'd be a lot easier to get them to up the res than to use the completely different (?) manufacturing process required to produce IPS panels.

 

not for me, i am a software developer i don't care about the quality of the screen that much, my Vostro 1700 of 4 years ago is still perfectly fine, no idea what screen that is..

Its not directly about the aspect ratio, its about the lose of pixes (10%) and then more the lose of vertical pixels (horizontal i wouldnt care that much)

But i am currently really thinking about just buying a MacBook 17" and then just remove osx and install Win7 on it, i really need real estate..

 

Yes, I fully agree with that as I use my m6500 for dev tasks as well.

 

I think you miss the point. Panel makers use FullHD for laptops and monitor displays because that resolution is shared with current TV resolutions. So they can lower prices because of higher unit output because of a shared resolution in different product areas.

Producing 2048*1152 or 1920*1200 is likely both causing similar additional costs.

 

Why not use an external screen then? You're probably better off buying a current model Elitebook 8740w or Precision M6500 than a new MBP since running Windows on the latter via Bootcamp is far from optimal (poor driver support, unoptimized hardware, less battery life, etc.).

 

I disagree with your first point, because you don't really see many, if any, 15.6" or 17.3" televisions. Resolution is pretty much based off of PPI, since it's a function of how many pixels there are per unit of area, cut up into the size panel they want. The main reason they went to 16:9 over 16:10 is because it's cheaper; you can use less material to make 16:9 panels than 16:10 panels, because 16:9 panels have less area than 16:10 panels.

Going to 2048x1152 vice 1920x1080, on the other hand, would require them to up the PPI, which means they need to restructure the pixel density in the material itself (of course, 1920x1200 has a different PPI than 1920x1080 in the first place for similar size screens, so they had to do that as well). So the question is, how much is the difference in changing PPI for 1920x1200 compared to 2048x1152, and then on top of that, the extra material you need to pay for to cover the extra area of the 17" 1920x1200 screen compared to the 17.3" 2048x1152 screen. Oh, and as a FYI, the difference in actual area between a 17" 16:10 screen and a 17.3" 16:9 screen is 838 square centimeters for the 17", and 825 square centimeters for the 17.3".

 

My company just purchased 4x M4500. I'm at the top of the list for an upgraded laptop so have to decide if I want to take one of these new machines or wait 3+ months.

It's tough to decide if I should take the M4500 now or wait it out with the potential that something goes wrong and I get a lesser machine in 3 months. =) Do you think Sandy bridge and the features of the M4600 are worth waiting for even with the risk?

 

Why would you get a "lesser" machine? If you're doing anything CPU intensive or want better battery life and can wait 3 months, I'd wait for Sandy Bridge.

 

It's quite likely that Apple hoarded many millions of 16:10 panels a while back -- Apple is known to buy several years worth of parts in a single order. Likewise, Panasonic hoarded lots of 4:3 panels when these panels were still available, which is why they can still make a few 4:3 Toughbooks. Both manufacturers will migrate to 16:9 once their current stocks have been exhausted.