Laptop Screens Guide
When buying a laptop, screen parameters are as important as CPU or memory,
if not more. A lot depends on your screen - laptop size, weight, image
resolution and quality, power usage and price of laptop.
Types Of Laptop Screens
Generally, there are two kinds of laptop displays - passive (HPA / DSTN) and active (TFT). The first type is rather old and you hardly meet it in new or refurbished laptops anymore. You could meet one in very old, used equipment. The image quality on such screens is rather poor. This kind of screen has narrow view angle and low resolution. Our advice is to beware of it. Today standard laptop LCD screen is Active TFT Matrix. The image quality and view angle of TFT displays are much better. The image is also brighter and sharper than on passive screens.
LCD Size And Why Is It Important
Laptop size and weight depends a lot on screen. Of course bigger screen makes whole laptop bigger and heavier. LCD displays come in variety of sizes from small 12" to huge 17". Sometimes you can buy the same model with different display sizes. For example Dell offers Inspiron laptops with 14.1" or 15" screens. Having big screen is nice but if you are going to use your laptop to read mails and surf the web than you don't need heavy and expensive TFT. The most optimal choice for majority of people should be 14.1" TFT. Viewing area on such display is equivalent to 15" CRT monitor.
What Screen Size To Choose?
If you want to use a laptop as replacement of desktop computer and mobility is not so important for you, than big laptop with 15" or bigger display might be good choice. Bigger screen usually means more peripherals and better equipment because there is more space for them. However, you have to notice that it also makes price of such computer higher. Power usage is also bigger what makes battery lifetime shorter. Laptops with 12" or 13" displays are best choice if you are aiming for very small and lightweight computer. However you have to note that 12" display is smaller than a sheet of letter-sized paper so it is not suitable for every task.
Image Resolution
Image resolution is a parameter, which depends on both display and graphics card. No matter how good graphics card you have, you will never get 1600x1200 resolution on 12" screen. Here is a table of screens sizes and common corresponding resolutions:
| Resolution | Screen size |
| 800x600 | 12" |
| 1024x768 | 12", 13.3", 14", 15" |
| 1280x1024 | 14", 15" |
| 1400x1050 | 14", 15" |
| 1600x1200 | 15", 16", 17" |
Today the most common resolution is 1024 x 768. You can easily read text on such screen because letters are not too small and your desktop is big enough to fit everything you need.
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