4 ms·

Even more baffling is that NONE of these new laptops are 13in with high pixel density displays.

josteink 6y ago
Maybe the market just isn't asking for them? High-densisity displays has a cost in term of increased battery level to drive the display, not to mention the associated GPU. Why take the cost, if nobody is really asking for it? Anecdote: I may consider a "downgrade" from my current 2K laptop display to a standard 1080p display in my next laptop, because at 14" that really is enough. I’m certainly not going to limit myself to 2K+ devices only.
- disiplus 6y ago
  i have a 14" with a 16:9 1920 and a 13" with a 3:2 2160 screen, you can barely notice the difference, and with linux and fractional scaling being p.i.t.a i prefer the 14"1080 screen, the 13" i cannot run at 100% its just to small at 2160x1440. i also have a macbook 15.6" that i run at 1920. that is perfect for me. the 4k makes more sense to me at a desktop 27" monitor, but at laptop all those pixels are lost.
  - josteink 6y ago
    > with linux and fractional scaling being p.i.t.a Off topic, but when using Wayland-based window-managers like Sway, fractional scaling is really well supported and works flawlessly. It can even work on a per-display basis in a mixed multi-monitor setup. In fact, I find it superior to Windows in that regard.
    - disiplus 6y ago
      but how many native wayland apps do you run, most of those that i run (even chrome) did not have native wayland support and where run by x, so they are bury.
    - pimeys 6y ago
      Only if all your apps are running in wayland mode. If using x apps over xwayland, the scaling is quite blurry. That being said I'm using sway every day, but just tweak my font size accordingly.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    I have a 4K 14 inch and it’s the perfect size at 2x scaling. Text looks much better then at 1080.
    - disiplus 6y ago
      lcds dont work great in not native resolution, even if its perfect 2x scaling it still little bit bury, so if you did that (set the displa to 1080) on the same display im not sure that's fair, at least that's what i noticed in my experimentation, and i had/have a dell, apple , huawei and asus laptops with hdpi. for me the difference between high enough and 4k on a small laptop display is not that noticeable/important and it comes with drawbacks (at least on linux for now)
      - qlm 6y ago
        I think LCDs look great at 2x scaling, assuming the content is actually rendered at a higher resolution.
        disiplus 6y ago
        that is true. but there is a point about diminishing returns. where at small enough laptop screen the increase in resolution gives you only small improvements, and at least still it gives you some downsides besides battery life.
      - pedrocr 6y ago
        2x scaling is not setting 1080p, it's telling the software to draw at 2x scale. That's sharp and very well supported. True fractional scaling is not yet supported in most Linux software but I do 1.3x scaling for 1440p just by setting font scaling. Has worked fine for many years. Going to 4K from 1440p makes things easier on the software side as 2x is very well supported.
        disiplus 6y ago
        what i meant is setting the lcd display that has the native resolution at more then 1080 to 1080 resolution and comparing it to a native 1080 display would usually would not give the same results, as running the display at lower resolution (not scaling) would usually give you blur. also fractional scaling works ok'ish in linux' but it's "fake" actually in that it uses xrandr to create a 2x resolution and show you scaling of that. and it uses more resources especialy with external monitors with different dpis.

Maybe the market just isn't asking for them? High-densisity displays has a cost in term of increased battery level to drive the display, not to mention the associated GPU. Why take the cost, if nobody is really asking for it? Anecdote: I may consider a "downgrade" from my current 2K laptop display to a standard 1080p display in my next laptop, because at 14" that really is enough. I’m certainly not going to limit myself to 2K+ devices only.

disiplus 6y ago
i have a 14" with a 16:9 1920 and a 13" with a 3:2 2160 screen, you can barely notice the difference, and with linux and fractional scaling being p.i.t.a i prefer the 14"1080 screen, the 13" i cannot run at 100% its just to small at 2160x1440. i also have a macbook 15.6" that i run at 1920. that is perfect for me. the 4k makes more sense to me at a desktop 27" monitor, but at laptop all those pixels are lost.
- josteink 6y ago
  > with linux and fractional scaling being p.i.t.a Off topic, but when using Wayland-based window-managers like Sway, fractional scaling is really well supported and works flawlessly. It can even work on a per-display basis in a mixed multi-monitor setup. In fact, I find it superior to Windows in that regard.
  - disiplus 6y ago
    but how many native wayland apps do you run, most of those that i run (even chrome) did not have native wayland support and where run by x, so they are bury.
  - pimeys 6y ago
    Only if all your apps are running in wayland mode. If using x apps over xwayland, the scaling is quite blurry. That being said I'm using sway every day, but just tweak my font size accordingly.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  I have a 4K 14 inch and it’s the perfect size at 2x scaling. Text looks much better then at 1080.
  - disiplus 6y ago
    lcds dont work great in not native resolution, even if its perfect 2x scaling it still little bit bury, so if you did that (set the displa to 1080) on the same display im not sure that's fair, at least that's what i noticed in my experimentation, and i had/have a dell, apple , huawei and asus laptops with hdpi. for me the difference between high enough and 4k on a small laptop display is not that noticeable/important and it comes with drawbacks (at least on linux for now)
    - qlm 6y ago
      I think LCDs look great at 2x scaling, assuming the content is actually rendered at a higher resolution.
      - disiplus 6y ago
        that is true. but there is a point about diminishing returns. where at small enough laptop screen the increase in resolution gives you only small improvements, and at least still it gives you some downsides besides battery life.
    - pedrocr 6y ago
      2x scaling is not setting 1080p, it's telling the software to draw at 2x scale. That's sharp and very well supported. True fractional scaling is not yet supported in most Linux software but I do 1.3x scaling for 1440p just by setting font scaling. Has worked fine for many years. Going to 4K from 1440p makes things easier on the software side as 2x is very well supported.
      - disiplus 6y ago
        what i meant is setting the lcd display that has the native resolution at more then 1080 to 1080 resolution and comparing it to a native 1080 display would usually would not give the same results, as running the display at lower resolution (not scaling) would usually give you blur. also fractional scaling works ok'ish in linux' but it's "fake" actually in that it uses xrandr to create a 2x resolution and show you scaling of that. and it uses more resources especialy with external monitors with different dpis.