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On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:58 AM, John Blinka <john.blinka@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> Hi, all, |
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> |
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> My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a |
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> new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. |
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> |
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> I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly |
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> prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. |
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> Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much |
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> more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. |
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> And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less |
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> portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a |
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> machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I |
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> cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - |
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> they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. |
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> |
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> So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? |
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|
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Basically all laptops are widescreen (or shortscreen <g>) now, your |
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best bet is to try to find one that is 16:10 instead of 16:9, it will |
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at least give you a little bit more vertical screen space. |
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|
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If money is not an option: there is a 15.X" WUXGA which is 1920x1200, |
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16:10 ratio. It will probably be very difficult to find one with this |
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screen and the laptop will probably cost a fortune (or be old). I |
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think Lenovo and Asus made laptops with this resolution screen at a |
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sub-17inch size. Maybe Apple, too. |
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|
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The most bang-for-your-buck will probably be 1920x1080, they are |
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mostly 17" models as well (lower pixel density) but it's easier to |
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find a 15.X" version of these than the above. Asus had a "gaming" |
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laptop about 6 months ago which sported a 15.X" 1920x1080 screen and |
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Core i7 processor for around USD$1500. |
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|
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Since 16:9 panels are the same shape as the ones TVs use, I assume |
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that's why they are cheaper and why the industry prefers them. |
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|
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I care deeply about vertical pixels, but also about DPI. I really |
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don't like using a tiny monitor, nor do I like to use a monitor with |
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less than 100dpi. This requirement usually makes the rest of the |
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details worth themselves out naturally. :) |
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|
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My laptop, which is a few years old now, has a 1400x1050 (116? dpi) |
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and that is a very comfortable resolution for me. In order to get the |
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same vertical pixels on a new laptop I'd have to go up to 1680x1050 |
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(16:10) or 1920x1080 (16:9) and it would probably be at least an inch |
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wider than my current laptop, which is 13" wide. |
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|
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At home on my desktop machines I have a 4:3 20" 1600x1200 (100 dpi) as |
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well as a 16:9 23" 2040x1152 (100 dpi). The latter is essentially the |
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same height as the former, but wider. The 1600x1200 can be rotated, |
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often times I use it in 1200x1600 orientation if I'm mostly browsing |
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WWW or working on documents. (The particular graphics card and/or |
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drivers on that computer don't support acceleration in rotated mode, |
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though, so performance suffers.) |
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|
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I also have in my pocket a Nokia N900 which has a 800x480 screen (5:3 |
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aspect ratio) with 256 dpi in a roughly 3.5" screen. I haven't tried |
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to install Gentoo on it... yet. :) |