Skip to content

Big Displays, Small Resolutions

by aaron on May 12th, 2007

Last night, I commented to my girlfriend that I had to have a new Apple laptop immediately due to the increasing decrepitness of my poor, old iBook G4. As if
on cue, the laptop’s battery indicator dropped below 70%, and the computer lost power. This poor little thing has served me very well over the past few years, but it is more than ready to be put out to pasture. One of the feet on the bottom is missing, the laptop won’t last more than 20 minutes on battery, and this poor thing chugs along while trying to run Xcode, Interface Builder and Mail in tandem.
One of the key issues I have with my iBook (affectionately named Beep 2) is its pathetically small screen resolution. At 1024x768px, this poor guy stumbles at displaying applications like Quartz Composer, Microsoft Word, Interface Builder, Xcode, and a whole host of other applications. I’ve never understood why Apple doesn’t beef up the screen resolutions on their laptops.

My Acer Ferrari (also known as the space heater, during the winter) has a wonderful, 15.4″, super-glossy screen that kicks out 1680×1050 pixels of Vista-y goodness.
In order to get a commensurate screen resolution on a Mac laptop, you’d have
to shell out a minimum of $2800 for a 17″ PowerbookMac Book Pro. If you decide to pick up a Mac laptop with an equivalent screen size, you’ll be stuck with a resolution of 1440x900px.
For a while, I had been considering replacing poor Beep 2 with a MacBook, but the screen resolution on those laptops is a paltry 1280×800, which is barely larger than what I’m using today! As it stands, in order to be able to effectively use Quartz Composer, you need at least a 1280x1024px display. Trying to build compositions on anything smaller is a frustrating experience at best.

too much stuff

I have no idea why Apple’s laptop screen resolutions don’t measure up to their Windows equivalents. It makes me sad, especially considering how beautiful Apple’s hardware is.  Nevertheless, Apple still makes some of the nicest laptops available, even if they do have their occasional failing (I won’t get started on the one button mouse thing).

With any luck, Apple will release new MacBook Pros on Tuesday featuring Intel’s new Santa Rosa platform. I’ll be first in line to pick one up, unfortunate screen resolution or not.

Possibly Related Posts:


From → Apple

  • http://www.conceptfusion.co.nz Simon Pritchard

    I’m in the throws of selecting a new PC laptop and am having the same issue with screen resolution. It seems that there is a noticable devide between the readily available “consumer” laptops in high street stores topping out at a weak 1280×1024 and the rather more expensive “business” models offering (W)SXGA and (W)UXGA screen resolutions.

    The problem seems to be that the screen makers have flooded the market with the lower resolution (W)XGA screens and here in New Zealand at least there are almost none of the higher resolution screens available… even the Acer Ferrari is only offered with the WXGA screen option in most instances. The situation may of course be different in the US.

    With regard to 17″ laptops (ala MacBook Pro). I’ve toyed with the idea of moving to the dar… I mean “light” side ;-) and purchasing a Mac, but I don’t think I’d even consider anything bove 15.4″ as at that point you may as well just throw your desktop into a suitcase and lug THAT around with you :-)

  • http://brethorsting.com aaron

    haha, yeah. I feel your pain all too well. A fairly mainstream computer-using friend of mine recently purchased a new Mac laptop, and it turned out to be a 17″ MBP. I was kind of shocked; her reply was simply: “well, I did tell you I bought the best one.” The thing is approximately the size of a small country :) Let me know what you end up buying; I’d be curious to know.

    Also, if you have any issues/concerns with VS on Vista, feel free to let me know. I owned that problem here at Microsoft for quite a while.

    Cheers,
    Aaron

blog comments powered by Disqus