Screen Resolutions 101

Ok, so you are ready for your dream system, and you're trying to figure out what resolution you should choose for the monitor. Naturally you are drawn towards the highest resolution you can get, but in this case the biggest numbers aren't always the best.

The ability for a screen to "pull-off" higher resolutions is all in the detail or "crispness" of the monitor as well as its brightness. All systems built by Killer Notebooks are designed around a good LCD. We realize the best system in the world isn't going to mean much if you get eye fatigue, the screen can not keep up with the refresh rate you want, or is just too dim to be useful.

WUXGA 1920 x 1200 resolution was originally designed for 24" monitors. Unless you are doing work that requires extremely fine resolution and detail on a 17" monitor this yields some pretty small images for normal use.

WSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 resolution was originally designed for 20.1" monitors. This is a pretty good resolution for 17" and higher notebooks, if you don't have an external monitor and you need a little more screen resolution.

WXGA+ 1440 x 900 resolution was originally designed for 19" monitors, but has been widely accepted as a perfect resolution for 17" notebooks. In fact, when we build a 17" notebook, we will add the custom resolution of 1440 x 900 to the display profile and actually set the resolution to that as default because so many people were asking, "How do we turn the resolution down?" when they got the WUXGA resolution in particular.

WXGA 1200 x 800 resolution was originally designed for 15.4" monitors. This is perfect for 14.1" and 15.4" machines for normal use and gaming.

Gaming Applicatoins - We recommend SXGA+ as the overall "best" resolution for systems above 15.4". The higher the resolution, obviously the less frame-rate you will get on your games as the GPU has to render more detail to each screen. There are relatively few games designed to run at higher than WSXGA+ resolutions.

Business and Professional Applications - Tthere are people out there that do need either as much detail or screen real estate as possible. If you work with manipulating images, cusutom graphics, or are a developer that likes to have many windows open at once and be able to see each on the screen, then the higher resolution could be best for you.

What about Glassview vs. Matte? Glassview is a glossy finish making the monitor appear like glass. All monitors are glassview unless noted (only the Executioner SR has a matte option). The matte scree is the old style where the finish does not reflect the light as readily as glassview.

Format: Widescreen or square - All systems at Killer Notebooks are widescreen format. The move to widescreen was more than asthetic, as the human eye sees much more width than height, and studies show that the widescreen format produces less eyestrain.