14-inch wide screen or 14-inch standard?

Hi all,

I'm planning on buying a Lenovo T61 but I can't decide which is better: 14-inch widescreen or 14-inch standard. Is there a weight difference, or could someone possibly list the pros/cons of the widescreen over the standard? Thanks so much!

 

Well, the 14.1" standard SXGA+ screens have: lower brightness - only 150 nits (vs 200 for WXGA+), lower contrast and narrower viewing angles, so keep in mind these details. Some people get a headache from screens like that, no kidding, that's not for everyone...

 

I see. Thanks! Also, will the 14.1 widescreen make the laptop less portable or weigh more? Thanks again.

 

Hi Hammypants,

I moved your thread to the Lenovo/IBM forum, you will get more specific results there, as you've already narrowed down to Thinkpads .

Sam

 

Weight shouldn't be a factor between widescreen and standard...maybe a few tenths of a pound either way, but in general, its a wash.

Portability wise, the widescreens seem to be a bit more handy than the standards due to the lesser height of the screen/bezel combo. Most laptop bags these days are configured for widescreens, standard screens have a tougher time fitting in them.

 

Keep in mind that the 9 cell battery is only offered in the standard screen. The largest battery for a wide screen is a 7 cell.

 

You do lose the Firewire port and the possibility of having a card reader on the standard T61.

Standard also has slightly more pixels than widescreen (i.e. 1400x1050 has pixels than 1440x900). But as dreamer and others have said, the standard isn't for everyone. Be sure that you can handle the screen.

 

I find the 1050 vertical resolution of SXGA+ to be much more useful for things like Office and Internet. I would agree the standard display is kind of dim. Cranked up it looks fine, but anything below 4/7 is kind of hard to use. It's really my only major complaint about my R60. I guess it will depend on your needs. If you do a lot of movies or Excel spreadsheets with a lot of columns then perhaps wide is the way to go though SXGA+ is almost a wide as WXGA+.

 

I use both 14 inch WXGA+ and also a regular 14 inch 1028 x 768. My preference is for greater real estate but sometimes the fonts are too small. Yet one can adjust the size if its a major issue. If you do a lot of spreadsheets and multi-tasking then go with the WS. On the other hand, writing documents is much more enjoyable on a regular screen.

 

SXGA+, imo, is "almost" widescreen anyway: after all, we're only talking about a 40 pixel horizontal difference here - 1440 versus 1400 for the 14.1" models.

But, you do get all that extra vertical pxls with SXGA+.

However, what you don't get with SXGA+ is the webcam option.

That does kinda suck.

And, I agree with what TheCynical1 said above - it is slightly easier to find bags and stuff for widescreens than tallscreens. At least, I found it to be so.

 

I'd say that widescreen is best for laptops.

 

Therefore, if I understood correctly:


14' standard is only good for office work
14' wide is good for general computing, image editing, gaming, dvds


so if I want to buy a t61 mainly to write documents, I should go with 14' standard?

 

I wouldn't recommend Standard unless you are planning to use your computer for 90% word processing or something. Widescreen is much better overall because it decreases the chance that you have to scroll horizontally since it has more horizontal pixels than standard and scrolling horizontally is annoying IMO.

 

Wide screen 14 inch, 6 cell battery will protrude (4 cell will not)
Standard screen 14 inch, 6 cell battery will not protrude

 

FWIW, I regularly use both screens.

From the battery standpoint, I do like the fact that the std screen allows for a larger battery without protruding. I just do not like batteries sticking out the side of my laptop.

At times the brighter WS panel is an advantage but not not an issue in most indoor settings. The SXGA+ is fine most of the time. In fact, I rarely use max brightness.

As far as screen real estate goes:
As stated above sxga+ is almost WS in pixel count. While there are a few occasions where I do find the WS advantageous, I much prefer to have the added vertical space of the SXGA+. I find myself doing way to much vertical scrolling with the WS. This is not only with doc's but also with ordinary web browsing. In my opinion the std screen is far superior for my uses and in fact I feel the wide screen should be more accurately called SS or 'short screen'. With SXGA+ I can display an entire page of an 8 1/2 X 11" manual in pdf in a legible scale. No way the 14" WS will do this. That's not to say they do not have their uses, it's not for me. I do believe that many people like them because they are more 'modern' and convince themselves they are better in part to marketing hype. Underlying this change over is the basic fact that manufacturing the WS panels is more profitable and they are more available at lower prices.

It is not that I don't like WS. Too me, with the exception of some airline tray table situations, the SXGA+ is far more usable. I would give up any options such a built in cameras for SXGA+. I do hope that when I need to replace my T60 that I will be still able to find a std screen other wise I may have to buy discontinued or used as long as I can. For those that prefer WS, availability is one thing they don't have to worry about. I hope Lenovo does continue to recognize that for many user, WS is not a substitute for std. screen.

 

Could anyone show us examples of the two screens side by side? Or link to somewhere where they've already been posted? I'm still having trouble picturing the difference. Thanks.

 

Someone said that std can have a bigger battery, but afaik they now offer a 9-Cell for the WS too.

 

I know this wasn't your question, but if you are considering the standard screen 14", you may also want to look at the 15" widescreen. To me there is less difference between the 14" standard and the 15" than the 14" widescreen. Heres the logic. When I was shopping, width was not a problem, the depth was. The 14" standard screen and the 15" are the exact same depth, Also, the 15" offers a beautiful 1680 x 1050, (the middle size), that is the height of the 14" standard screen with more width and its bright like the 14" widescreen. It is kind of the best of both if you can take another ~1" width.

 

http://www.51nb.com/viewnews-7000-page-2
Here there are some pics. T43 (same size current T61 standard screen) and T61 wide screen.
In my opinion they are very close in size, except for the battery, it could be bigger (6cell) in the T61 Standard than the T61 Widescreen (4cell) without protrude.

 

i have a 14.1" standard, and i dont have any problems with the screen brightness. well...i have them on at full.but my battery lasts 3+ hours at max so im happy lol.

between the standard and wide, i think id go with a standard for a laptop. idk. my dad has an r61 widescreen and it looks kind of..stubby next to mine lol.

 

Thanks for the pics, ferossan...wish I could have understood the captions, though!

I've been hoping to see the two in person before making my decision, but so far I haven't had any luck.

 

therefore for 90% word processing


sxga or sxga +

some told me that sxga + was not very user friendly to read text on screen, is that true?

 

well its res is much higher. If you have bad eyesight then I would avoid it. Im a resolution junky so the more the better, but if I have the laptop more than 3.5 feet away from me, I really have to apply my eyesight in order to read at normal speed.

mine is an sxga+

 

I was really worried about getting an SXGA+ on my T61p since I wanted a widescreen for movie playback. But now that' I've used my laptop for arounf 4 months... I love the 4:3. I didn't know how much I loved it until I picked up my friend's widescreen laptop one day and started working on it... I had to scroll so much.

The screen is a bit dimmer but I don't mind it too much. I play a lot of games and movies as well... and both are fine on the 4:3. I use an external monitor most of the time for movies anyway though.

FWIW, I would have picked the 4:3 again if I had to choose. The pixel count by itself is reason enough.

 

I just got a 14" 4:3 T61. Why I went 4:3 screen?

- 9 cells battery (it may now be available for wide models, I haven't checked)
- I do a great deal of document writing (Word editing and PDF reading)
- Slightly lighter PC
- The PC is also less wide by about 1 inch which I would think makes it more portable in narrow environments.

The pluses:

- pretty high resolution (may be a down side as font can get very small.. you need to boost it from the OS config). This screen is gorgeous and feels more readable even with smaller fonts.
- longer battery life (at the time I bought there was no 9 cells option for wide screens)
- less scrolling (vertically) which applies to a great deal of media and documents.
- I haven't researched much but from the specs and my readings, it seemed like the energy consumption was different on the 4:3 and wide screen models. The T61 4:3 seems to be based on the T60 platform whereas the T61 WS may be a new hardware design totally. With same battery, it looked to perform poorer on the battery life domain. Read below for a possible explanation of this.
- bigger batteries protrude less since the laptop is deeper by design (it is more square in its dimensions).

The down side:

- no web camera
- less brightness
- narrower cone of view
- less suited for DVD watching
- may be an easier to carry format width / depth ratio wise.

The brightness and narrow field of view issues raised by some posters are IMO not that much of a concern. I’m used to a 2004 Toshiba laptop and these characteristics are pretty much the same as I was used to with the previous laptop. Maybe if you are used to more recent models, you can then note differences but it remains very usable from what I see.

Someone said the brightness difference was 150 vs 200 nits... That may explain the better battery life performance of the 4:3 models actually. More brightness = more energy required. The T61 WS specs state a 22 Watts idle consumption. I get under 13 with my 4:3 T61... and that with a dedicated NVidia card MVS 140M (and a better energy efficient T9300) to top it. In my book, that is pretty decent power usage. I haven’t used it outdoors yet but for indoor uses, it’s plenty enough as I never run higher than ½ full brightness unless during bright sunny days.

The bottom line:

-If you are a document writer type, go for the 4:3 models
-If you are more multimedia oriented (games, spreadsheet work, DVD watching,...), go for the wide screen models.

For me, the ThinkPad is a business laptop and less of a multimedia powerhouse by design...

Hope this helps a bit.

 

For autonomy, technically the X3100 integrated graphics is the way to go... Especially if you do not need heavy 3D graphics or playing games.

Regarding screenshots, here is imo the best picture to see the differences between screen sizes and ratios:

15" wide vs 14" 4:3 vs 14" wide



The picture above shows you that the 14" 4:3 is actually as tall as the 15" wide thus greatly effective for Word processing. The 14" wide is smaller than the two above, although a bit wider indeed.

 

The 14.1 R61 widescreen is built better than the standard 14.1" R61.

 

There is no standard R61...

 

Do yourself a favor and go widescreen. If you've never used widescreen before, and I'm assuming that is the case with you, you will probably have to go through an adjustment period. It will be well worth it though. I think you should find it much easier to multi-task, as you'll be able to see more open windows and applications.

 

The more multi-tasking argument is not founded imo. In real the surface area available on all 3 screen sizes (14 std and wide and 15 inches) is as follow I believe:

from the smallest area to the largest:

- 14" wide
- 14" std
- 15" wide
- 15" std

The picture I posted above partially shows this for two of these four configurations.

It is not because you have a wider area that you can multi-task more... unless you insist on having all your windows side by side horizontally. It can provide a slight advantage in some circumstances but I prefer to consider the overall screen area real-estate that it's ratio purely.

The morale of this is that you cannot advice someone to go wide or std without considering its needs. Both ratios offer advantages and inconvenient. People should understand that both these ratios are made for totally different uses. I admit wide is "trendy" but not all media are made to be wide. Buying a wide screen just because it’s currently trendy is not a good way to go imo.

 

This may be true in some cases depending on your preferences. Truth be known though, the sxga+ does allow for more screen area. It all really depends on how you multi-task.

What you really need to ask yourself is: how will I use the machine the majority of the time? As far as the 15" WS goes, it as a good solution in that you don't get a vertically reduced screen like the 14" WS and you still get the extra horizontal space if you use it, which I rarely do. The downside is - dealing with the extra bulk and weight of the 15".

 

i just got the 14inch widescreen wxga+

it's a beautiful screen. brighter than the standard screen and the resolution is a lot better than my old emachines m6805.

 

I just updated a prior post I made with a better picture that shows 14" std vs 14" wide vs 15" wide.

it's at:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3181430&postcount=26

 

your picture isn't quite accurate, the 14" wide gives you only 40 more pixels in width, but you lose 150 in height, but it does give the idea

 

Well, actually, if you look closely the picture, you will see graphically more or less what you said. Basic geometry surface area stuff. The pixel ratio is probably different from a screen format to the other thought. Look at the surface of the vertical and horizontal bands and you see the wide screen total surface is a bit less indeed. The actual horiz and vertical pixel count is an other story as you said.

 

Here is a good screenshot of the small horizontal difference between SXGA+ and WXGA+,


source: wikipedia

I circled the bottom right corner of each resolution. You can see how minute that 40 pixel horizontal difference is. It is much more logical to get the SXGA+ in this case. But that is only if you're basing your reasoning on resolution; you gain much more more vertical real estate than horizontal. If you take in account of quality (brightness, contrast, etc.) then the widescreen is the way to go.