Is this laptop worth getting? Can you use 1080p on a 4k screen?

[TechnologyNewbie]

Hi all, I have been considering purchasing this laptop: http/www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7548-laptop/pd

The 1TB HD version with the 4k Screen. With discounts I could get it for £629. I was wondering if it was worth purchasing. Unfortunately I need a laptop rather urgently and therefore with discounts present at the moment this looked quite appealing. I was firstly wondering what you guys thought of it.

I basically want a laptop that's reasonably portable, nothing HUGE, a 17" is out of the question, and this seems a manageable albeit slightly heavy laptop. I do however want to make this laptop last, don't really want to replace it for another 3ish years minimum.

I was also wondering about the 4k screen, I have been reading reviews and have found some people to have issues with compatibility, that being that nothing really supports 4k at the moment, however for £20 over the full HD version I was wondering if this would be a worthy investment to help futureproof the system and if it would not just be possible to run it at 1080p when required?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm not that familiar with computers but any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[velo3100]

It really depends on what you do with it. If you are going to use the 4k screen for viewing images and movies then, definitely yes. You will notice the difference in screen quality in the movies which will make it more enjoyable.

But windows is not very good at display scaling for high resolutions. This means that the icons will be very small and when you apply the scaling, it makes it look like you are viewing a 720p screen rather than a 4k screen. This is a minor issue if all you will be doing is surfing the web though.

Then comes the intense software. I don't think there is any laptop that can handle 4k gaming very well or anything related to 3d as the gpu is too weak. Also some software like adobe don't scale well which make their icons really small which make it hard to read. This may change in the future though.