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This might be a bit subjective, but I'm curious what the community opinion is on this.

I'm in the market for a new laptop and I've narrowed my choices down to either a 14" or 15.6" model from the same company. I've noticed that even with the larger display size, the 15.6" has the same native resolution (1366x768, specs claim WXGA) as the 14.0".

In trying to decide between the two models, a part of me says "well gee both as a programmer and a web browser, the more screen space the better" - but considering the two display sizes are the same resolution, will the larger display even be worth the extra weight and size?

Am I just as better off with the smaller sized model since the resolution is the same?

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very simple, the screen content looks smaller on the 14" display (although you can fiddle with the DPI settings). but who are you going to blame if you ultimately make the wrong choice? not me! make up your mind between display size and portability, will ya? :) – Molly7244 Nov 2 at 18:10
I can't make up my mind on my own which is why I came to the internet! – matt b Nov 2 at 18:19
@Molly: He wont be blaming you, but theres nothing wrong with doing a bit of research/brainstorming on the internet either. In fact it is a much better alternative to simply trying to decide something by yourself - esp if you have a limited knowledge of the topic in question. – Mostly Harmless Nov 2 at 18:44

1 Answer

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From Monitors - Resolution :

Compare a 15-inch monitor and a 21-inch monitor, both set to 800 x 600 pixels: the 15-inch will have a higher resolution. Larger monitors must contain smaller pixels in order to maintain the same resolution, but when a smaller monitor is set to a high resolution, the images would be much too small to read. A 14-inch monitor set to 640 x 480 is very readable, while a 21-inch needs at least 1024 x 768.

Meaning that a too small resolution on a big screen is as bad as too large resolution on a small screen.

The info in the above article might help you decide, but I believe it claims that on a 14-inch with 1366x768 resolution, the text might be quite tiny.

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Any idea how old this article is? It seems to think that resolutions max out at 1600 x 1200 – matt b Nov 2 at 18:27
It's using the OS9 and Windows 98 display dialogs, so I'd say quite old. – DannySmurf Nov 2 at 19:40
This article was my scientific way of saying "take the larger monitor or be sorry". – harrymc Nov 2 at 20:56
But seriously: Eye-strain should be avoided, and small screen at high resolution is tiring on the eye. Take this seriously. – harrymc Nov 3 at 7:12
thanks for the advice! – matt b Nov 3 at 13:54

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