Given that 1080P is basically the minimum standard for desktops, why not laptops?

[VirtualLarry]

Why, is 1366x768 still the standard for laptops? It really doesn't make much sense, does it?

If 1080P became the default standard for laptops (budget laptops included), then the economies of scale would make the panels for that resolution, nearly just as cheap as current 720P panels, wouldn't they?

So why not change? Entrenched mfg infrastructure? No laptop makers willing to go out on a limb to change the status quo, and put 1080P panels in their budget laptops?

Not to mention, the PITA issues hooking up an external desktop display to a laptop, and the laptop's native display is 720P, and the desktop display is 1080P. Most laptops have issues driving two disparate resolutions in clone mode; they won't do it.

 

[XavierMace]

I know plenty of people that deliberately didn't buy a 1080p laptop because they found the text too small to read.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Low prices = low expectations, rinse and repeat.

 

[IntelUser2000]

If 1080P became the default standard for laptops (budget laptops included), then the economies of scale would make the panels for that resolution, nearly just as cheap as current 720P panels, wouldn't they?

I'd have to say #1 is cost. $50 for a person who doesn't care means $50 he doesn't want to spend.

First, to get that "economy of scale" you need greater volume. The people who'd want to make FHD panels cheaper with greater volume would need to convince manufacturers to do so. It might not be unreasonable to expect volume differences between the two displays are 2x. Even at 50% that's lot of work.

Also computers are on a decline. When the market was growing like in the 1990-2000s, that made sense. Nowadays, the no effort way for manufacturers to sell 2x FHD laptops were if they could grow the TAM by 2x, and that likely means total population of the earth would have to be 2x too...

The ultra-low margin of selling computers are likely a contributing factor too. They'd use <$600 720p laptops to cover their revenue but everything else may be extra. FHD panels, SSDs, Core i7 chips, better sound, better battery. I'm pretty sure at this rate we'd have 1080p panels common in about 10 years.

 

[stateofmind]

1. Even those who "wanted" 1366x768 displays in their laptops (based on what? you can zoom icons), could get 1366x768 IPS displays.
2. The real reason is differentiation which is done to extract more money. The same reason that the Dell 7559 has an IPS display, but a (relatively) lousy one, and same for speakers and keyboard. All these things will cost Dell few bucks really (which customers even be willing to pay), but they won't do it.
3. Same with eGPUs, for example. There was no real reason to have from the start of real consumer level, gaming GPUs, back in the dreamy 90's
4. Remember that they would sell you a garbage if they can. They would all or almost all, sell you an old model for higher price than a newer model, without blinking, if you are willing to pay, for instance

 

[DaveSimmons]

If your profit on a laptop is $20, "nearly" as cheap for 1080p vs. 720p is still too much.

I'm a geezer so I still think of anything under $500 for a laptop as cheap, and anything under $300 as dirt cheap. It seems very reasonable to me that they are going to shave every possible nickel in costs for under $500 laptops.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Rather sad as we've had 1080P in mid range smartphones for several years at least. Of course, I'd wager Intel processors eat up a sizeable chunk themselves.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Rather sad as we've had 1080P in mid range smartphones for several years at least. Of course, I'd wager Intel processors eat up a sizeable chunk themselves.

The cost of an i3 alone for a PC OEM is probably the entire BoM for a Xiaomi phone with Octacore Mediatek and 1080P IPS screen that retails for ~$100.

It's rather amazing what the market can do without being dragged down by a defacto monopoly, isn't it.

 

[Zodiark1593]

The cost of an i3 alone for a PC OEM is probably the entire BoM for a Xiaomi phone with Octacore Mediatek and 1080P IPS screen that retails for ~$100.

It's rather amazing what the market can do without being dragged down by a defacto monopoly, isn't it.

True enough though there isn't a lot that can be done right now unless we get ARM processors fast enough to emulate x86 at similar speed(typically, 1 order of magnitude is needed at minimum ) or AMD makes a hybrid ARM compatible x86 processor or some other voodo that can do both instruction sets.

 

[arandomguy]

Does Intel force different pricing for Atom with Windows vs Android systems?

The correlation is really the Wintel combination in budget devices and not just Intel.

Tablets would be the market with most comparisons over the last few years. The Androids released using Atom would typically have better displays and also display/bezel ratios, due to having larger dimensions including thickness, at similar price points.

Take a look at the Lenovo Tab S8, this launched with a $200 MSRP - http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Lenovo-Tab-S8-50_id8885

I looked at the time and there was nothing remotely comparable carrying a x86 device at that price point even if you factor in an extra $50, which is a high markup already, to get from 16GB eMCC to 32GB for Windows.

Or why did Acer release this for Android - http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Iconia-Tab-8-A1-840FHD-Tablet-Review.126448.0.html

But for Windows the price and chassis dimensions end up skyrocketing while resolution goes down - http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Iconia-W4-820-2466-Tablet.114871.0.html

 

[blankslate]

midrange laptops are offering that resolution more and more. Nearly all "gaming" laptops have at least that resolution now


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[Commodus]

Why, is 1366x768 still the standard for laptops? It really doesn't make much sense, does it?

If 1080P became the default standard for laptops (budget laptops included), then the economies of scale would make the panels for that resolution, nearly just as cheap as current 720P panels, wouldn't they?

So why not change? Entrenched mfg infrastructure? No laptop makers willing to go out on a limb to change the status quo, and put 1080P panels in their budget laptops?

Not to mention, the PITA issues hooking up an external desktop display to a laptop, and the laptop's native display is 720P, and the desktop display is 1080P. Most laptops have issues driving two disparate resolutions in clone mode; they won't do it.

It really ties back to the core problem the Windows PC market has had: the race to the bottom. A 1080p screen might only cost a little bit more, but that little makes all the difference for a PC vendor trying to make a tiny profit from a $300 laptop. That's especially true when you need a higher-capacity battery to offset the higher resolution.

Until 1080p screens are so ridiculously cheap and efficient that there's no point to going for less, you'll probably see 768p screens sticking around at the low end.

 

[MongGrel]

midrange laptops are offering that resolution more and more. Nearly all "gaming" laptops have at least that resolution now


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Pretty much this I imagine.

Do you need 4K res on a laptop ?

 

[JeffMD]

Lol at OP for such a silly question. I am not sure if you were hoping to uncover some illuminati secret, but 4 seconds of thought should have all come down to cutting cost.

Mong, I think 2k would be good for 17" (I'm having no problem with 1080p on my 15" IPS). 4k for anything that isn't a large tv screen is silly (Unless you are blowing the image up, ala VR goggles).

 

[sm625]

In 2016, I'm pretty sure a 15" 1080p panel only costs about $20 more than a 768p panel. There is no rational reason to be using 768p in 2016, unless they are sitting on millions of 768p panels.

 

[kommisar]

I will only use 1080p if the screen is 27" or larger. Any smaller and its too hard to read.

 

[JeffMD]

sm625, the thing is that is $20 profit per unit, and when you consider their target audience probably does not know what a resolution is, slapping HD on it is good enough. Hell I still have the imprint on my face on how hard I face palmed when a "pc gamer" I sold my fx6300 setup too couldn't tell me his monitors resolution.

 

[skriefal]

In 2016, I'm pretty sure a 15" 1080p panel only costs about $20 more than a 768p panel. There is no rational reason to be using 768p in 2016, unless they are sitting on millions of 768p panels.

The rational reason is that the manufacturer can avoid paying that $20 (heck, they'd do the same thing to save $2). As others have stated, most buyers are uninformed and don't care about screen resolution (or even know what resolution is). They'll buy whatever is cheapest -- with the possible exception of a few who might spend a little more for added HDD/SSD space. We are not the norm.

 

[Eug]

1080p sucks on a smaller panel with Mac OS X or non-tablet Windows. I'd rather have 768p, or else 1536p. The in-between 1080p resolution just isn't ergonomically suited for them on say a 13" LCD.

 

[StrangerGuy]

sm625, the thing is that is $20 profit per unit, and when you consider their target audience probably does not know what a resolution is, slapping HD on it is good enough. Hell I still have the imprint on my face on how hard I face palmed when a "pc gamer" I sold my fx6300 setup too couldn't tell me his monitors resolution.

Average non-Apple PC per unit profit in Q3 2013 = ~$15. Reasonable to say that has dropped even lower by now due to falling volumes = diseconomies of scale.

Easy for us to say "add 1080p $20 to the BOM and I pay for it!" when raising the cost even for like 10% of their laptops by $20 is a huge gamble from the OEMs PoV because the margins are razor thin to begin with.

Sidetracking: Wanted to know why profits are important? There you have it.

 

[Commodus]

Average non-Apple PC per unit profit in Q3 2013 = ~$15. Reasonable to say that has dropped even lower by now due to falling volumes = diseconomies of scale.

Easy for us to say "add 1080p $20 to the BOM and I pay for it!" when raising the cost even for like 10% of their laptops by $20 is a huge gamble from the OEMs PoV because the margins are razor thin to begin with.

Sidetracking: Wanted to know why profits are important? There you have it.

That's one of the things that drives me nuts about the Windows PC market... it's an endless "ever cheaper, ever crappier" cycle where companies cut quality and profit in hopes of getting a little more market share.

The only way to win that game is not to play it, really. That's part of why Apple is doing relatively well. We may gripe that its gear is expensive, but this also saves it from having to compete primarily on price. The only 768p screen it has is on the 11-inch MacBook Air, and that's because of size more than cost.

 

[StrangerGuy]

That's one of the things that drives me nuts about the Windows PC market... it's an endless "ever cheaper, ever crappier" cycle where companies cut quality and profit in hopes of getting a little more market share.

The only way to win that game is not to play it, really. That's part of why Apple is doing relatively well. We may gripe that its gear is expensive, but this also saves it from having to compete primarily on price. The only 768p screen it has is on the 11-inch MacBook Air, and that's because of size more than cost.

It's quite funny actually. Intel doesn't want to erode margins on Core CPUs but OEMs want even cheaper chips to cut costs so Intel sells crappy Atom rebrands and the resulting "PCs" gets even crappier and appeal to even less consumers. In the end, entire industry is worse off.

 

[blankslate]

That's one of the things that drives me nuts about the Windows PC market... it's an endless "ever cheaper, ever crappier" cycle where companies cut quality and profit in hopes of getting a little more market share.

There is a niche market that avoids that for the most part... but most of the models would be "garish" for business use. Gaming laptops have decent build quality depending on the brand. And the internals components are good for the price. As stated before nearly all current gaming laptops have the 1080p screen. And they don't rely on passive cooling because active cooling disrupts the look of the laptop.

these days the added OEM software doesn't impact the performance (other than boot times or pop-ups) of the gaming laptops in a noticeable manner because many if not most come with an i7 processor and no less than 8GB of RAM with 16GB being the norm.

I've played around with one of the newer ones and having a media player going on in the background, 2 browsers with several tabs in each open, while playing an mmo the cpu rarely went up to 50% and the memory was around 50% utilized.

If you really need one that would be more acceptable in a business environment then the MSI Prestige line would fit the bill but still pack beefy internal components
http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews...netbooks/msi-prestige-pe60-2qd-1297738/review


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[Commodus]

There is a niche market that avoids that for the most part... but most of the models would be "garish" for business use. Gaming laptops have decent build quality depending on the brand. And the internals components are good for the price. As stated before nearly all current gaming laptops have the 1080p screen. And they don't rely on passive cooling because active cooling disrupts the look of the laptop.

these days the added OEM software doesn't impact the performance (other than boot times or pop-ups) of the gaming laptops in a noticeable manner because many if not most come with an i7 processor and no less than 8GB of RAM with 16GB being the norm.

I've played around with one of the newer ones and having a media player going on in the background, 2 browsers with several tabs in each open, while playing an mmo the cpu rarely went up to 50% and the memory was around 50% utilized.

If you really need one that would be more acceptable in a business environment then the MSI Prestige line would fit the bill but still pack beefy internal components
http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews...netbooks/msi-prestige-pe60-2qd-1297738/review

Oh, I'm not doubting that there are high-end Windows systems that avoid those pitfalls, like in the business and gaming markets. The issue, I'd say, is that a large chunk of Windows vendors are focused primarily on cost. Dell offers good systems like the XPS and Precision lines, but its bread-and-butter line is the Inspiron series. Ditto HP for the Pavilion range, or Lenovo's IdeaPads.

My beef, I suppose, is that you don't really see many PC makers beyond Apple that are focused primarily on high-end buyers. Many spent decades gleefully racing to the bottom on price, and they're being burned as people forgo those crappy starter PCs in favor of smartphones and tablets. You won't see 1080p as a standard soon unless there's either a big dip in price or more PC makers are willing to sacrifice market share in the name of quality.

 

[blankslate]

My beef, I suppose, is that you don't really see many PC makers beyond Apple that are focused primarily on high-end buyers.

yeah, the windows Laptop market is flooded with race-to-the-bottom products. Just pointing out a niche market that avoids that race for the most part.



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