Reply to: Laptop Screen Sizes

[Joe Black]

As a database developer which is best?
12, 15 or 17"?
Assuming best possible resolution on each

I really can't make my mind up

Depends on how good your eyesight is.

To that of course can be added how often you will be using it (if you have another PC), and any other concerns, e.g. weight, size etc.

Had to make the same choice end last year, my previous notebooks having always been ultra-portables. In the end, though I fancied something similar, I decided to take a screenshot of my typical environment and resized it to show how it would look on a few screens with various dpi and printed them off to see what I was comfortable with.

May seem a bit ott, but in the end though the various sizes or dpi may sound good, if it means a 10pt font is only a few millimetres tall...

[Spacecadet]

Just refresh a couple of times and it will appear as a banner at the top

tried that, no joy either... i'll be in touch if i do decide to go for alienware

[Ardesco]

Just refresh a couple of times and it will appear as a banner at the top

[Spacecadet]

Well if you do buy an Alienware one you could always do it through the banner link on my webby

I would if i could find it!

[Ardesco]

Well if you do buy an Alienware one you could always do it through the banner link on my webby

[Spacecadet]

Yup, it's a Area-51 M5550. Nice little beasty, but whatever you do DON'T get the ATI gfx card, the drivers are crap. When I install the catalyst drivers it messes up standby and the screen won't turn on when it comes out of standby. Fine if I hibernate and fine if I turn on and off just standby thats knackered. All works fine if I remove the catalyst drivers.

Cheers for that think i've got it down to 3 laptops now and still got to choose between 15 and 17"
The M5550 is looking like the best buy

[Ardesco]

what laptop is that? I've got a 15.4" now but the resolution is crap (along with everything else)

Edit: still on Alienware right?

Yup, it's a Area-51 M5550. Nice little beasty, but whatever you do DON'T get the ATI gfx card, the drivers are crap. When I install the catalyst drivers it messes up standby and the screen won't turn on when it comes out of standby. Fine if I hibernate and fine if I turn on and off just standby thats knackered. All works fine if I remove the catalyst drivers.

[scooterscot]

I have an imac 24" screen and it's beautiful for all the numbers I must look it, when going portable I use the 11" screen viao VGN-TX2P great res perfect when moving about.

[ASB]

what laptop is that? I've got a 15.4" now but the resolution is crap (along with everything else)

Edit: still on Alienware right?

I have an inspiron 8600 dell on WUXGA. You can find the current range with WUXGA on dells website.

My other notebook is 1024 x 768. It's damn near impossible to do any development on it, just hasn't got the resolution.

[Spacecadet]

I have a 15.4” WUXGA screen on my lappy that does a native resolutions of 1920 x 1200. Wonderful for messing about with a load of lines of PHP

what laptop is that? I've got a 15.4" now but the resolution is crap (along with everything else)

Edit: still on Alienware right?

[angusglover]

I have a 17 inch ( I almost never get to say that) Apple MAc Book Pro....it is superb.

[dogzilla]

The bigger the screen the better but thats not always practical for a laptop.

I can understand why people but 17" widescreens if they intend on doing web-dev/graphics because you really need the space to work but a database developer? Surely you spend most of your time looking at text. Whether thats a console or some kinda front end application to the DB.

I do alot of linux systems administration and previously had a 12" Powerbook, all i needed really but reluctantly i upgraded to a Macbook 13" Widescreen as i needed the extra power.

Smaller the better for me, am looking forward to the Mac ultraportable that will be here sometime this year, its terribly annoying having such a huge laptop when you are hunched behind a rack somewhere trying to diagnose

[Sockpuppet]

I have a 17" laptop screen that is 1680 x 1040 (i think) and it is nice.

As I spend a lot of time on AutoCAD, Excel and generally lots of numbers on the screen I find it helps to have more real estate to play with.

[Ardesco]

I have a 15.4” WUXGA screen on my lappy that does a native resolutions of 1920 x 1200. Wonderful for messing about with a load of lines of PHP

[Cowboy Bob]

Personally (as a coder) I prefer a widescreen laptop as it's the width that matters to me. Beats a 17" luggable as well.