9300 XGA vs UXGA

Getting to buy the 9300 but I can't decide on the screen view.

If I watch a DVD on a system with UXGA does anyone know how large the viewing area will be? Put another way would the viewing area be larger on a XGA system and smaller on a UXGA

Make sense? Hope so, and thanks for your comments.

Michael

 

mjamici,

On the XGA+ screen the maximum resolution is 1440x900 on the 17 inch widescreen monitor.

On the UXGA+ screen the maximim resolution is 1900x1200 I believe on the 17-inch screen.

The "viewing area" would look bigger on the UXGA screen and that one has higher brightness and is a glossy screen.

The XGA+ looks like a normal LCD screen for a desktop, kinda "dull" finish.

 

USAFdude02- I'm trying to make the same decision on the screen and since I'm not used to a very small print you would get with the UXGA screen I'm leaning toward the XGA+ screen as many users on this forum have told me.
So, would viewing DVD movies be not as good as the UXGA+? and would movies on XGA be still good and worth watching?
Thanks.

 

you dont have to run at the 1920x1200 on the uxga. I run at 1680x1050 and everything looks fine.

 

Personally I like the XGA+ and it is much better to run stuff at native resolution...from what I have heard...less work on the vid card. I love my XGA+ the UXGA+ is brighter...but it is personal preference.

 

I thought when you change the res. that text will blur and not look as fine and sharp.

1680x1050 is still pretty small, I guess I need to look at the resolution levels and see what I like- on web pages and email. Can you lower the res more or will the text eventually degrade? I tought it was best to leave res at native setting for best viewing?

 

is there brightness settings on the i9300 WXGA+ screen so you can change for ones preference?

 

i would dare take any LCD out of native. everything looks horrible. as for DVD playback, the resolution woln't really effect the quality of the picture. DVD's are shot in standard NTSC, which is 480 lines, so on either screen their will be provide same image quality. the brighter screen might help with the UXGA. its all a preference thing. if you run your desktop at 1024x768 than i wouldn't get the UXGA screen. i love my UXGA screen and want even higher resolution.

 

Gilby,

Yes you can change the brightness to whatever you want, just like a normal monitor.

 

On UXGA you will be able to watch a full screen of DVD except a very small area of black bars at the top and bottom.

I enjoy very much watching movies on my glossy screen.

 

the black bars have nothing to do with the screen resolution. that is the format that the movie was shot in. very few movies are ever shot in 16:9. thus creating black bars on our 16:9 and 16:10 screens. but again this has nothing to do with WXGA or WUXGA.

 

I was not comparing WXGA and WUXGA, I was simply answering the original poster question about the viewing area of the WUXGA which I have experience with.

 

Thanks everyone for the good replies, they helped.

I'm going with the UXGA.

Michael

 

Unscaled DVDs would be smaller on higher res WUXGA than WXGA+ just as lower res pics appear smaller HOWEVER with scaling they will be the same size on the 17" screen.

I do think however that the WXGA+ is more practical for general pc use while WUXGA is better if your primary use is high resolution graphics.

 

would the wuxga be better for gaming or not

 

Some prefer the WXGA+ to play games with because they claim better Frames Per Second while others like the WUXGA higher res glossy LCD for gaming.

Considering XPS gaming systems are currently only WUXGA, it appears either more people like this LCD for gaming or Dell has some other agenda

 

Since i'm of the general pc use category and sounds like DVD movies and my digital pics will still look very good on the WXGA+ screen, correct? would pics look better on UXGA since the res is higher? but probably not worth it for all the other uses of the laptop where I might want the lower res. sound good?!

-then WXGA+ might be the best choice for me. Also, I'm used to lower res and larger print on my PC monitors at home at work but could probably get used to smaller fonts but I think UXGA might be too big of a change for me.

Again, thanks for all your great replies in helping me make this decision.
I will let you all know my final i9300 config and I might need your expertise in the future!

 

After going down to bestbuy & checking out Sony, Toshiba etc.. WUXGA notebook LCDs even with DPI, font adjustments, cleartype & surfing the net with Opera, I plan to order the WXGA+ because as much as I will be looking at high res graphics, DVDs, HD video etc I want to respect my eyes & avoid eye strain.

I will still have the 1920x1200 to DVI to a larger better spec LCD where text on high res better belongs like the:

http://google1-cnet.com.com/Dell_UltraSharp_2405FPW/4507-3174_7-31335738.html?tag=sub (hopefully that price will come down soon with coupons etc)

I'm very conscious of minimizing eye strain however (even if I can read the tiny stuff unaided).

 

The other consideration I have is that I have some apps (even 2004 ones) that just won't scale larger even with DPI+all other adjustments. Perhaps this will be corrected in Vista but is still a challenge in XP on high res LCDs.