[murbot]

I am deciding today between the 17" and 15" LCDs from Apple to go with a new 733 MHz G4. I previously owned a 15" LCD and liked it alot, but the thought of getting some more screen real estate is enticing (although the price is not...)

I really wish I was able to see one of the 17"ers in person, which would help me to make a decision, but there are none available to me nearby. I was a little concerned that the high resolution would be a little small, but I've been running 1280x1024 on my PC's CRT and think I could get used to it easily. I only have a few concerns left:
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[*]1. Games. I can't see running any games effectively at 1280x1024, so scaling down will be a necessity. I've seen mentioned that to scale down to 1024x768 requires you to either have black bars above and below the newly sized display, or to stretch this new size across the entire screen. Does this really distort the image a great deal? I'm thinking that going down to 800 x 600 to play an intense game would look really bad.
[*]2. Screen dimensions. OK, I'm an idiot. Can someone explain to me what's up with the screen size? I don't know why a 17" screen can't run both 1280x1024 and 1024x768 without the stretching/bars thing. Please assume I am brain-dead when answering this.
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I guess the other big thing is cost, whether it's worth the extra dough to get this over the 15". Any 17" owners out there who are regretful about purchasing this display, or are all of you happy with your choice? Please feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

Thanks guys!

[tweetymac]

FWIW:

I got my 17" LCD about a month ago and I absolutely LOVE it!! I bought it to go with my new Cube (c. March, 2001) and the two together are the most elegant, powerful and fun computing experience I've ever had in about 15 years of computing. Not to mention silent!

The 15" LCD was tempting for the price difference, but I didn't want to suffer "footitis" (as in buying your boat just a few feet too short!), so went with the 17".

I'm not at home now to check, but the one game I played, I don't recall any bars at the top/bottom/sides, and if the image was distorted, I couldn't tell. (Alright, I'm ashamed to say it was Bugdom.)

From what I can remember right now, the 10x7 resolution works well, but you'll be happiest in the screen's 1280 x 1024 native setting. This display is absolutely gorgeous (credit to Jonathan Ive for that adjective).

The width to height ratio of 1280 x 1024 is very slightly different (1.25:1) compared to 10x7 (1.33:1), thus the stretching/bars thing. With an LCD the effect is even more pronounced by the fact that the pixels are "locked in place" so to speak and would be anti-aliased in anything other than the native resolution.

In any case - if your debate is between the 15 and 17, I can't recommend the 17" highly enough - I haven't regretted it, and I won't !

Hope this helps,
Cheers and good luck,
TweetyMac

[Yuri1419]

2. Screen dimensions. OK, I'm an idiot. Can someone explain to me what's up with the screen size? I don't know why a 17" screen can't run both 1280x1024 and 1024x768 without the stretching/bars thing. Please assume I am brain-dead when answering this.

You're not an idiot, this is just something one wouldn't know until it gets explained: We're used to CRT monitors that can resize to many resolutions. You can take a 21" monitor and run it at 640x480 if that floats your boat. Whadda get? Text that even I can read without my glasses. In other words, as compared to that screen at 1280x1024, each pixel is now bigger. CRTs have the ability to vary the size of the pixel.

LCDs don't.

Look very closely at a LCD and you'll see the super-thin lines separating each pixel. The pixels will forever be this size, end of story.

So you want a lower resolution than the native one. What are your options?
1) Just disregard part of the screen. Turn the pixels black, and pretend they don't exist. Older method, but effective.
2) Take what was made of one pixel, and use multiple real pixels to represent it. Lots of color blending comes into play here- what was black text on white now has many shades of grey inbetween the 2 colors.

If this sounds blurry, it's because it is. But in a game, you'll probably never know.

Just found an odd thing- set my pbk g4 to < native resolution and took a screenshot. I didn't get the actual screen pixels, I got the pixels the computer was managing before they were magnified. Interesting. wonder if Snapz pro works the same way....

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

[murbot]

Thanks for the info. I did know that scaling down the resolution means rendering "new" pixels to make the new resolution, I was just curious about the bars mainly I guess. I've had the 15" LCD, and a few Apple laptops, and with the exception of the Ti Book of course, scaling down did not mean having to put black bars in to take some space out. I thought going from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 was just "the next step" in screen resolution progression, unlike the Ti Book's weird wide screen resolution. It seemed odd to me that a 17" LCD running these resolutions would do this.

Anyway, since gaming represents a pretty small portion of my Mac use anyway, I've gone ahead and ordered the 17" LCD. Hope it's worth the $$ like everyone says....

[King Chung Huang]

Originally posted by murbot:
<STRONG>Thanks for the info. I did know that scaling down the resolution means rendering "new" pixels to make the new resolution, I was just curious about the bars mainly I guess. I've had the 15" LCD, and a few Apple laptops, and with the exception of the Ti Book of course, scaling down did not mean having to put black bars in to take some space out. I thought going from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 was just "the next step" in screen resolution progression, unlike the Ti Book's weird wide screen resolution. It seemed odd to me that a 17" LCD running these resolutions would do this.</STRONG>

The reason you get black bars (or stretching if you so desire) on the 17" LCD running at 1024x768 resolution is because 1280x1024 and 1024x768 are different aspect ratios. 1024x768 is the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio used on most monitors and TVs. If this ratio was kept for the LCD, we would have a 1280x960 screen, not 1280x1024. That's why you have to either have black bars, or a stretched screen.

[murbot]

Thanks buddy - everyone here and I get an answer from another Cochranite.

[Herr Newton]

Just measuring the black bars, roughly, on my 17" ASD and it adds a 3/8" black bar to the top and bottom when running in anything other than native resolution. I know it sounds distracting, but it's really not that bad at all, nothing like watching a letterboxed DVD on your TV.