back to article Samsung outs Ivy Bridge notebooks

Two new 15.6in laptops are inbound from Samsung, each bearing an unannounced Intel Ivy Bridge processor, a third-gen Core i7 quad-core to be (a little) more precise. Samsung Series 5 550P Both members of the Series 5 550P family will also arrive with 8GB of memory, DVD-RW drives and 300Mbps (2x2) 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi- …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1366 x 768 - too low for a 15.6in panel

    Indeed.

  2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    WTF?

    1366 x 768 WTF?

    As a Desktop replacement?

    Who are you kidding?

    Ok, so you open Microsoft Office 2010 on a screen that size.

    Then say goodbye to approx 20% of your vertical resolution with that silly ribbon interface.

    When will you laptop makers stop trying to sell us laptops with these silly resolutions? I know the screens are cheap as chips but the CPU you put inside is the latest & greatest and costs a pretty penny. Lets have a proper screen please.

    Oh, the 1600x900 is not much better.

    now for the downvotes.

    1. EddieD

      Simple solution...

      Minimise the ribbon, put the 10-20 commands that are the usual amount most folk use on the QAT, retrieve the screen estate.

      I have to confess though, that I like the ribbon, and most folk here are converts, once they work out (i.e. I tell them) how to customise it.

      Although, I do agree - 1366x768 is a woeful resolution for a 15" screen, even though I do remember being happy with 640x480 on a 14" monitor, and then 800x600 on an 15"er.

      Ain't progress wonderful?

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Re: 1366 x 768 WTF?

      900px isn't too bad, given that a 1280x1024 monitor is just fine... but the 7-year old 2nd-hand DELL Latitude laptop I got for £200 has 1600x1200.

    3. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: 1366 x 768 WTF?

      Why are you expecting downvotes? Yours are commonly held opinions amongst us El Reg commentards.

      That taller screens became rare around the same time as the introduction of the Ribbon interface does seem perverse indeed. That a Mac offers the largest MS Office work space, being 16:10 and ribbonless, is just nuts.

  3. Silverburn

    Why do manufacturers insist on putting the trackpad off to one side? Why can't it be in the middle? Why is it aliigned to keyboard, when it makes more sense to lined up wth the thing it represents - ie the screen?

    1. Paul_Murphy

      Because

      You then don't have to make two different models for left and right-handed people.

      ttfn

      1. Paul_Murphy

        Re: Because

        Actually I totally mis-read that, the trackpad in the middle makes the most sense for most people. If it's off to one side it's probably a design bias by a right-hander.

        ttfn

    2. Joeman
      Pint

      Centered with the keyboard means its the perfect place for your hands to move down from the keys to the trackpad.

      If it was cetered with the screen, it would be a real pain in the @rse to use as you would have to more you entire arm, not just your wrist to get to the track pad.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Because if it was off to one side, you'd keep bumping your wrist into it when you type. And that's REALLY annoying. So instead, it's aligned with the space bar, where it should be between your hands when typing, thus making it less likely you'll bump into it accidentally.

      1. Silverburn
        Thumb Up

        Actually I think AC has got it - If you moved it right (ie to the middle), it would sit under your right arm when typing (or mine at least). So yeah - makes sense afterall to offset it, to avoid accident movements/presses when typing.

    4. Sir Cosmo Bonsor

      I agree

      I hate that they don't stick it in the middle. The arguments that "it must be centred to the keyboard" are correct, but miss the point: why the hell is there a number pad on an inherently small device where the keyboard is fiddly and cramped as it is?

  4. Joeman
    FAIL

    1366 x 768 #FAIL

    1366 x 768 on a screen that size would be like Retro 8-bit Pixilated graphics!!

    #FAIL

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: 1366 x 768 #FAIL

      > 1366 x 768 on a screen that size would be like Retro 8-bit Pixilated graphics!!

      That is the REAL reason The Reg has run the Antique Code Show, featuring so many low-res games.

  5. Chavdar Ivanov
    Pint

    Tasty 1920x1200...

    That's why I will keep my ThinkPad T61p until it drops dead. I really don't get the laptop makers - even the high-end desktop replacements now have 1920x1080, the 120 vertical pixels are not insignificant.

  6. jason 7
    FAIL

    Can you please refuse to review kit....

    ....... that 99% of the folks here wouldn't buy?

    Things like crappy sub-par screens will only improve for us if the tech sites get together and refuse to review kit that's not up to scratch.

    Maybe the tech corps will get the message if they start getting told "No we wont review it as it's not up the standard our readership would want!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Can you please refuse to review kit....

      Amen to that. A quick look at notebookcheck.net has worthy beasts such as the Clevo P170EM and Asus G75V, but here I seem to see nothing but complete tat.

    2. Azzy

      Re: Can you please refuse to review kit....

      1600x900 minimum for 15 inch or under, 1650x1050 minimum for anything larger.

      This trend is ridiculous, it's becoming harder, rather than easier to find usable laptops, because they all disqualify themselves due to screen res.

      We should all start trolling amazon and other online stores that let you review products, and give lousy ratings to machines with crap screen resolution, with the goal of lowering their ratings so fewer people will buy them. By "we" I mean the people commenting here - I mean, clearly we like complaining about stuff on the internet...

  7. chipxtreme
    Thumb Down

    My current laptop with a 15.6" screen has 1920 x 1080 resolution, my next laptop will have at least that resolution so i won't be buying this which is a shame as I might of had it had a decent resolution screen.

  8. Mage Silver badge

    a 17.3in, 1600 x 900

    I want a 15" 1600 x 1200 or better. Which is what I have. But I want a new one.

    What are these for? Coffee table or Starbucks table video watching for 2 or 3 people?

    15" 1920 x 1440 4:3 would be excellent for documents. I don't mind black bars top & bottom if I do happen to watch video on it.

    Or even a laptop with a rotatable to portrait mode 4:3 screen 15" 1920 x 1440 Why have we gone back to scrolling? Books invented about 2000 years ago. That's what "codex" means. More efficient than scrolling.

  9. PeterI

    Bring back 1680x1050

    Apple seem to be the only folks who still offer it (15" Macbook pro) and I'm not spending that much just so I can have a nice vertical resolution. Does anyone else still offer that as a screen format?

  10. Cynical Observer

    Time for an El Reg Top 10?

    As we get all sorts of top 10's from El Reg, why not give us the top 10 laptops with decent screen resolutions. Say 1600 *1200 for starters. It seems to increasingly be the factor that eliminates laptops from the list of possible replacements that one might consider.

    1. jason 7
      Thumb Up

      Re: Time for an El Reg Top 10?

      I do find it amazing that the makers are producing really good spec kit with good CPU/GPU/HDD/SSD and case technology and then throwing it all away with grossly sub standard screens.

      The difference in cost between a crappy screen and an average one cant be more than $5 surely?

      In fact I'll gladly lose the HDMI port the Thunderbolt port, a couple of USB ports and the shitty Beats Audio if it will mean I get a half decent screen with usable resolution and at least 75% gamut.

      I know Anandtech have been trying to campaign for better screens but I think they too would do better if they just stopped reviewing them.

      1. Azzy

        Re: Time for an El Reg Top 10?

        I think they think (possibly correctly) that the average user doesn't know the difference between screen size and resolution - and they think that by getting a larger screen, they'll get more space on the screen. Certainly, that works on some people - not sure what portion of the market. Maybe I'll be a pushy ass next time i'm in a computer store, and ask the other customers if they know the difference, until the store clerks kick me out.

        Apparently, though, it must be a large enough percentage that these crap-screen laptops have pushed the good ones out. I think it's because people talk about processor speed, and ram, and harddrive space, and screen size when comparing computers - missing what's arguably the most important spec.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Theory

    Is it a far eastern thing? Chinese is all greek to me but perhaps these low resolution screens work better with ideographic scripts, the dip in resolution trends happened around 5 years ago when Dell and others were closing down european operations and moving more of their design and manufacturing to China. Apple have not followed this trend, keeping product design mainly in Calfornia, is it a coincidence that their screen dpi tends to be higher?

    Europe and North America, no question that 15"/768p for Office applications is unsatisfactory, for once everyone commenting here agrees on that point.

    1. I_am_Chris

      Re: Theory

      Nah, it's to do with tellies.

      Once LCD TVs took off the TV aspect ratio and resolutions became mass produced and cheap. Hence why many LCD monitors are 768p or 1080p - 1920x1200 or 1440x900 are non-standard and more expensive - thus are limited to 'high-end' machines...

      1. Fuzz

        Re: Theory

        but that's fine, I think most people would be happy with a 1080p 15" screen.

        Thing is I don't think TVs are to blame, I can't remember the last time I saw a TV smaller than 19", all laptop screens are smaller than this so they are produced for laptops. The real problem is that there is simply no choice.

        5 years ago if you bought a laptop from Dell, you could choose to have a high resolution screen for extra cost, this was available on most of their laptops I had a look last week and couldn't find a single laptop where the screen was available in different resolutions.

        Hopefully Apple will put out new macbooks with high res screens and the other manufacturers will copy their lead.

  12. Helix
    FAIL

    poor resolutions

    The topmodel has a bluray drive, but no 1080p screen? Major fail.

    Why don't they use 1920x1200 screens anymore?

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