Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (
More info?)
Actually, your statement is not correct. It's possible to operate the
video display of a laptop at a resolution other than that of the LCD
panel. In which case, depending on the video circuits and the software,
the laptop MAY "scale" the display to fit, producing the same type of
distortion presnt on a desktop display run at a resolution different
than that of the panel. [Some laptops won't scale the display, but
rather will either give a small image on a larger screen with a black
border, or give a virtual desktop that can scroll horizontally and
vertically).
The behavior here is no different on a desktop vs. a laptop, and it's
not a questions of DVD (digital) vs. VGA (analog) interface. There is
no law that says that panel pixel resolution and the resolution at which
the video card is run have to match, for either laptop or desktop, for
either analog or digital interface.
However, I agree with your point that "in terms of raw, actual
sharpness, a laptop display is as good as you can get", at least for any
given combination of VGA and LCD parameters. However, the panels used
in desktop LCD displays have some advantages in terms of the
availability of power and size, so while sharpness won't be any better,
brightness, contrast and response times may be.
Jeff Williams wrote:
> "Dan Koren" <dankoren@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<40719cf6@news.meer.net>...
>
>>Sorry to butt in, but however good the ThinkPad's LCD screens are,
>>they don't even come close to the sharpness and detail of good
>>standalone LCD displays such as Sharp or Viewsonic, let alone
>>that of top of the line CRTs such as Viewsonic's P225fb which
>>can display 2048 x 1536 at 90 Hz non-interlaced.
>
>
> Well I couldn't let this pass.
>
> Laptop LCD's are by nature digital display devices. A pixel on your
> screen is equal to a pixel being rendered by your video chip. It's
> *impossible* that any laptop display could be any less "sharp" than
> any standalone LCD *or* CRT, because a pixel is a pixel, and you can't
> render a pixel any more sharply than it really is. A laptop display
> will be the sharpest display you could possibly buy; a desktop LCD
> with a DVI input *may* be *as* sharp, depending on whether or not your
> video card is in spec (Extremetech did a test a while back that showed
> that the majority of video cards they tested were not in spec, and
> image quality with the DVI interface could suffer as a result when
> using these cards). A CRT will not be anywhere near as sharp; it
> doesn't matter how good it is, it's not rendering actual pixels.
>
> Now, the appearance of sharpness can be affected by a number of things
> (appearance being the key word), including brightness, contrast, and
> color rendition. In contrast and color, high-end desktop LCD's do
> have an edge over most laptop LCD panels (brightness is not really a
> factor anymore; most desktop and laptop LCD's are capable of being way
> too bright to be either accurate or good for your eyes). CRT's have
> an edge over LCD's too, although the gap is closing, and a high-end
> LCD today will have better color rendition than a low-end CRT.
>
> But in terms of raw, actual sharpness, a laptop display is as good as
> you can get. Any laptop display, as long as it's running at native
> resolution.
>
> I use only
>
>>LCD's in my work, except for extreme graphics tasks which
>>can only be handled by CRT tubes.
>
>
> Some graphics tasks can best be handled properly by LCD displays, such
> as CAD work, which demands perfect screen geometry. That's something
> that only an LCD screen with a DVI interface (or a laptop LCD) can
> provide.
>
> Not to say you *can't* do CAD or similar tasks on a CRT - many people
> do (just as many people do design or photo editing work on an LCD) -
> just that LCD's are better suited.
>
> As to the original question, a laptop can do anything a desktop can
> do. Yes, including video editing, depending on what kind of video
> editing you mean. If you're talking real-time stuff, then no - but
> then few desktops can do this either (there's a reason why Avid
> systems are so expensive). If you're talking opening a project, doing
> your edits, then rendering the result back to a file, then yes. I do
> this all the time with Adobe Premiere, along with image editing, game
> playing, and menial office-type tasks (email, word processing, etc.).
> In short I do everything I could otherwise do on a desktop.
>
> I will say I loathe touchpads. I had a Thinkpad for a long time and I
> love the trackpoint device (it's very accurate once you get used to
> it), but I wouldn't use even that for something like video editing -
> my finger would just get too tired if I had to do a lot of clicking
> and dragging. Touchpads are next to useless for anything other than
> browsing the web; they're just not accurate at all. I can quickly
> move to a general area of the screen but to get that one little menu
> item I want may take me 5 seconds. This is obviously unacceptable
> when you've got a lot of mousing to do. Good thing you can hook up a
> standard mouse to any laptop these days.