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Everytime I've got 3200x1800 laptop, I wanna go back to 1920x1080 or 1920x1200.. Why well, personally, it's not worth going more than that. There is VRAM being
by malkia 11y ago
Everytime I've got 3200x1800 laptop, I wanna go back to 1920x1080 or 1920x1200.. Why well, personally, it's not worth going more than that. There is VRAM being wasted, gpu, cpu cycles, etc. and then software is not perfect - some of it would scale well, some others won't... Bought for my son Windows 10 laptop with 3200x1800 - lots of Qt applications would not scale properly, the minecraft launcher too. Maybe it'll be better on linux, chrome, and surely it was solved problem on OSX, but I still don't see the point.
The big thing was moving from 1024x768 to 1920x1080, and 4K displays are great - but when they are big, not for laptop.
- lmm 11y agoI recently switched to the 3000x2000 Surface Book. Worrying about capacity being "wasted" is nonsense - how would it be better to not have that capacity? Some software looks bad, but I'm sure that'll be fixed as time goes by. Games look great, text looks even better, particularly if you read a lot.
- usefulcat 11y agoI think at least part of the implied tradeoff is resolution vs. battery life. More pixels == more GPU computation == more power required.
- lmm 11y agoAIUI the backlight dominates the power consumption, so more pixels at the same physical size makes very little difference. But sure, that's a lot more concrete. So are you unhappy with the battery life on this device? Does the laptop the grandparent was talking about have worse battery life than comparable models? Certainly I'm very happy with the battery life of my Surface Book (which is a lot better than that of the laptop it replace), so to my mind it's not a problem in practice.
- tracker1 11y agomore pixels requires more light, even on the same size display... So a 4K display the same size as a 1080p display will require 2-3x the light behind the display... I don't recall the exact amount extra, but it's not insignificant.. let alone the processing power to push those extra pixels.
- ThisIs_MyName 11y ago>more pixels requires more light [citation needed]?
- wtallis 11y agoMore pixels means more circuitry in front of the backlight blocking light.
- mark-r 11y agoBut to what degree? Blocking 2% vs. 1% of the light probably isn't noticeable; blocking 50% vs. 25% probably is. This might also be something that improves over time as process improvements reduce the overhead.
- to3m 11y agoCost of display scanout in terms of power? When nothing's moving, more pixels = higher bandwidth requirements, and the thing has to be clocked higher. (I guess it runs constantly. The new non-scanned LCDs will help I suppose.) You also need more RAM, and that needs refreshing. And any time anything is moving, there's 4x as many bytes being shuffled about, and they have to be shuffled about 4x as quickly, because the display area is the same.
- nogridbag 11y agoI also have a Surface Book. The display is stunning when viewing photos and I have no issues browsing the web but I find using IntelliJ a bit difficult at the default 200% scaling. It's all a bit small and adjusting the font sizes is not as easy as it sounds (you get big fonts but everything else remains small). I also tried increasing the OS scaling to 225% or 250% but that introduced other issues (like when watching fullscreen videos you get a border).
- lmm 11y agoI found I adjusted quickly to how Eclipse looks on it FWIW. The icons come out undersized but everything else works correctly, and I've grown to like the result - it feels like more space for the actual code.
- nogridbag 11y agoI'll take back my previous comment. I just now attempted to customize the two font settings in IntelliJ and wow... it looks absolutely amazing. I changed the editor font to Consolas and increased the size a tad. When I first got my SB I remember attempting this but I encountered odd glitches like fonts overlapping in the Project view.
- msbarnett 11y ago> Maybe it'll be better on linux, chrome, and surely it was solved problem on OSX, but I still don't see the point. Most of my use of a laptop is for programming, which means a lot of time starring at text. The far crisper text display on Retina/UltraHD/4k/whatevermarketingterm monitor feels much nicer to read for hours on end, for my money. It's a lot more like reading print. I feel like I'm squinting when reading jagged lower rez text on my 1920x1080 external monitor, in contrast Diclaimer: I use OS X, so I don't run into the scaling downsides you see in other OSes, and those are significant and would probably turn me off of 4k displays.
- malkia 11y agoSo Chrome & OSX probably solve this somehow, but all my chromebooks have crouton, and yes Windows'10 support for 4K displays is not there yet. Most of the apps work, but then there are some that don't (Electronic Arts's Origin client, which is written in Qt was not scaling properly, same for Minecraft Launcher, there are other examples too). Also in the "4K" mode I would often see screen tearing in some games (if they can't stick to 30 or 60fps), but that's more due to the 4x pixels that needs to be drawn. For that I've hard switched my son's laptop back to 1920x1080 - so it still looks kind of crispy, and things look well.
- vox_mollis 11y agoI think you're missing parent's point. The benefits of staring at text all day with >30yo eyes also applies to Linux. I use Arch and Fedora on high-dpi displays and I'd sooner give up programming than ever return to ~72dpi. Parent isn't talking about most apps, they are referring to terminals and IDEs, for which use case high-dpi is absolutely critical, and outweighs the occasional inconvenience of poor scaling outside those apps.
- malkia 11y agoBut that's where I disagree, especially when comes to terminals. I'm so used to seeing the pixels, that it doesn't bother me, but even then hinted anti-aliasing helped quite a lot to solve this. What I'm really missing (and hence my heavily opinionated answer) is that there are lot of people that might just started coding on higher DPI monitors/devices, and to them going back would be terrible. I started on Apple ][ :)
- mkozlows 11y ago3200x1800 is 282 dpi. That's about on par with high-end tablets, worse than good phones (440 dpi or so), and worse than jaggie-free laser-printing (600 dpi, although that's not strictly comparable). Text on high-DPI laptop screens looks enormously better than on low-DPI ones. And whatever issues Windows has with it, ChromeOS scales everything great.
- malkia 11y agoSure, at work I have two 1920x1080 24" monitors, and used such configuration for several years (had exact same config at previous job). I like this better than the other offering of one huge 4K display (30" or was it 36" - I don't remmember).
- qaq 11y ago24" 4K is a really good option though
- kbenson 11y agoWell, if you believe Apple (and in this case I do), then it's less about just DPI, and more about the combination of DPI and common viewing distance. Phones are generally viewed at closer ranges than tables, which are themselves viewed at a closer range than laptops, which are also probably viewed at a closer range than workstation monitors. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display#Technical_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display#Technical_defin...
- bitL 11y agoLinux Mint with HiDPI on looks awesome at 3200x1800, IMO way better than on 1920x10. YMMV Also, even Windows 7 looks way better than Windows 10 when you enable 200% scaling in Intel drivers.
- jacek 11y ago> Maybe it'll be better on linux Nope. Scaling is supported by Gtk3 (but you can only scale by integer - 2x, 3x) and Qt5. A lot of apps are still using Gtk2 and Qt4. It is a mess. I wish I had an FHD display instead of WQHD.
- hansjorg 11y agoCan't you just set it to FHD?
- jacek 11y agoNot without having fuzzy text. I explained it once on reddit: > Is there any difference between FHD monitor and WQHD in FullHD mode? Yes, there is. WQHD is 2560x1440 pixels. If you set your resolution to half that (in width and height) it is 1280x720 (2560/1280=2, 1440/720=2). In that case every software pixel is represented by 4 physical pixels (2x2) and we are fine. If you set resolution to 1920x1080 (FHD): 2560/1920 = 1.33, 1440/1080=1.33 . And we know there is no 1.33 physical pixel! So the image becomes distorted and looks bad.
- hansjorg 11y agoGood point. What about GPU scaling though? Doesn't Nvidia and AMD drivers support that for lower than physical resolutions?
- jacek 11y agoNot that I know of. Screen can be scaled with xrandr (on X11), but that significantly decreases performance. There's a chance of making it work on Wayland (modern replacement for X11) in the future.
- vetinari 11y agoIt doesn't have to look bad. rMBP13 has physical resolution 2540x1600 (i.e. 1280x800 x 2). The control panel offers resolutions 2880x1800 (1440x900 x 2) and 3360x2100 (1680x1050 x 2), that the GPU will scale down to 2540x1600. And these resolutions look good and sharp. In fact so good, that the final resolution depends only on what physical size / working space you prefer, not which one looks good and which one doesn't.
- elcct 11y agoYou are buying wrong laptops for the job and then being upset about them instead of blaming yourself for the poor choices.
- malkia 11y agoThe job was one for my father to use some CAD tools, and he switched to 1920x1080 (for other reasons) - and kept switching between Window 7, 9, 10. I thought it would please him better, but he just complained :), and then for my son - I just couldn't find same laptop with lesser resolution (after having exp with my father). First was from Fry's, and the deal there (few years ago) was to get a laptop with dedicated GPU (8GB) + 12GB RAM, current one is only with 4GB but enough for gaming, but comes with 16GB RAM. I myself am using an old ACER Chromebook (the one with PageUp/PageDown buttons), and crouton on it. It was the reason I started this conversation. I love chromebooks, croutonized or not, but I fail to see the reason for bigger resolution. I might come to my senses :) The only monitor that works correctly with resolutions, is the OSX laptop my company gave me, out of choices for chromebook, linux, or maybe even windows (rare).
- wvenable 11y agoI was looking for a specific laptop for my daughter that came in both 1920x1080 and 3200x1800 and the former was almost completely sold out everywhere. So I guess a lot of people prefer the lower-res. I felt the same way because if you have two laptops with identical specs but one has 4x as many pixels to push -- that's quite a trade off.
- malkia 11y agoIt's also the price difference - 4K have their use, and people appreciate them for different reasons, but yes I was in the same situation, and I felt ripped off for not buying the cheaper 1920x1200 or was it 1920x1080 option. This money could've go for a bit bigger SSD, or maybe more RAM. He really doesn't need more than that.
- wvenable 11y agoIn my case, the price difference was actually negligible. I just felt the lower-res display was the better choice given all the variables: weight, battery life, performance, RAM, thickness, etc.
- SimeVidas 11y agoCan’t you switch to some form of “Retina scaling”, e.g. 2x which result in an effective Retina resolution of 1600x900?
- malkia 11y agoI got confused finding that option. It's on laptop with intel/nvidia gfx cards. I've seen something while back, where the gfx card provider would provide such scaling (e.g. done a bit deeper, hence probably working more as intended that not). Yes, my concerns are primarily now on Windows 10 (Home Edition if that matters), since I'm not really bothered (but can see) such cases with my linux installs (where I work). It bothers my son though, as some of the windows are very small (like as I said before EA's Origin client) :)
- SimeVidas 11y agoI use Windows 10; I’ve found something under Settings > System > Display > Advanced display settings > Advanced sizing of text and other items > “set a custom scaling level”. It lets you do 200%, but I haven’t tried it out, sorry.
- malkia 11y agoI would try this sometime this week. Thanks!
- bonyt 11y agoI feel the same way - though, it's all about DPI. A 1080p display at 22" is not very good, but a 1080p at 13" is very very nice. I have a 13" retina Macbook Pro with god knows how many pixels, and I'm left with a choice between full HiDPI where everything is giant, or "scaled" mode where the GPU renders even more pixels and then scales it down. This is because the UI components in OS X are bitmaps, and there is a set of 2x HiDPI bitmaps, and a set of 1x regular ones that are too small to read on a retina display. I use the scaled mode where it renders everything as if I had a giant monitor and scales down the whole screen to a normal size. Since I have the 1st generation 13" retina, it understandably struggles at times with its Intel GPU. It does look great, though. I recently got a Dell Chromebook 13" with a 1080p IPS display, put Debian on it over Chrome OS, and now it's all but replaced my Macbook for everyday use. Everything is a decent size, and there is no need for the OS to do any scaling or anything weird, so everything works nicely. I mainly got it so that I wouldn't have to lug such an expensive laptop on the subway, but I've really grown attached to it. The DPI is high enough that I can't really discern the pixels, IPS displays tend to look great, and I forgot how much I missed using Linux while I was on OS X. :)
- mrmondo 11y agoA) Windows doesn't handle modern displays properly and has a huge library of problems relating to desktop scaling etc... B) What was the context of your use of the computer? I.e. Are you gaming or logo branding etc...
- malkia 11y agoWindows 10 - gaming - and some apps/websites. Another example was the mouse driver (after 3 deep down dives into the settings menu) - now its window look ridiculous. Out of place :) - first it looked a bit like Win95, or maybe Win2000/XP - then it was smoothed (blurred for some reason), and the size was completely wrong. That was not a big deal, though. Really the big deals are the windows that come very small, and I've tried backward compability for them (individually) and it didn't help. The only thing that helped as I've said, was to set up to exactly 2x lower resolution (1920x1200 or was it 1920x1080 - not in front of that computer to say exactly). Funnily it now looks a bit more blurry (not sure why, I was expecting integer scaling), but after some adjustments it looks almost good now (not as crispy as before, but good enough). Also for some games, no more tearing. Mainly games that don't real fullscreen (possibly with custom resolution), but somehow expand the window, and remove toolbars, etc.
- davidw 11y agoI'm a "moar pixels!" kind of guy. I'm very happy with the latest generation of the Dell XPS 13, which has... lots of pixels and works great with Ubuntu and xfce. I was worried that there might be some issues, but I'm very happy with it. I'm glad to see we finally broke through that wall of no resolution improvements that lasted several years.
- agumonkey 11y agoExcept for a few webpage/manual/latex, I'd be happy with orange/black text mode. Yay for symbols.
- stordoff 11y ago2560x1440 is the sweet spot for me currently. It's a notch crisper than my old (now secondary) display (27" 2560x1440 vs 24" 1920x1080), but is perfectly usable without any scaling and is relatively inexpensive. My MacBook Pro (13" 2560x1600) is noticeably nicer looking, but not really worth the additional hardware costs and scaling hassles (Windows 10 is better than previous versions [my Surface Pro 3 is set 150% scaling IIRC], but its far from flawless) IMO.
- astrodust 11y agoRetina screens on MacBooks look amazing. As for VRAM being wasted, that's utterly irrelevant, there's memory to spare on any machine capable of 3D. Windows 10 has better High-DPI support, but it's far from flawless. The real problem is the Windows software ecosystem is full of junk that hasn't been updated properly or was never programmed correctly in the first place.
- frik 11y agoIt's all about DPI. Eg. 12" notebook with 1080p is great.