1680x1050 is the new 1280x1024
In the heyday of the 4:3 aspect ratio screen—sometimes now referred to as the ‘square’ computer screen (but it is not actually square)—the sweat spot for resolution was 1280x1024 pixels. Back then LCD screens from about 14” up to 21” all came as 1280x1024.
As wide-screens rapidly take over from square screens the new sweat spot for a 16:10 PC screen would seem to be 1680x1050. You can get LCD wide screens from 17” up to 27” in 1680x1050.
Even though 23” and 24” 16:10 screens are available in 1680x1050, and they are cheap, I would recommend that anyone looking at a 23” or larger 16:10 screen should consider paying out an extra $120 to $150 or so and get 1920x1200.
Upgrading from a 19” 1680x1050 screen to a 24” 1680x1050 screen means you will not get any more information on the screen even though it is 5” bigger—just that everything will be about 25 percent bigger; and as the inter-pixel gap is larger it will not appear as crisp as it did on the smaller screen. This is generally not most people’s plan when getting a larger screen. They are generally trying to get more on the screen, but this will obviously not happen if the pixel area of the screen remains the same even though the actual size of the screen got bigger.
If you go for 1920x1200 in screens over 23” then you can get more on the screen and the screen will keep its crisp sharp look (obviously dependant on the overall build quality of the actual screen)—especially for text. Nothing like viewing an LCD screen at the wrong resolution to totally mess up the anti-aliasing of on-screen text (which is what makes text look crisp).
Unlike the old cathode-ray tube screens (CRTs), with LCD screens you need to (must) drive the screen at its native resolution or all kinds of horrid things happen to the colour (whites become foggy and blacks lose their hardness) and the resolution (crispness) gets soft. So … you cannot go out and buy a 23” 1680x1050 LCD screen and then force the computer to drive it at 1920x1200 in order to get more on the screen. Even if your graphics card allows you to do this—and many won’t because they can sense the maximum resolution of the LCD connected—the viewing experience will be sub-standard to the point of being crap.
It is not quite so bad under-driving the screen (again, assuming your graphics card allows it). But why buy a 1920x1200 LCD screen and drive it at 1680x1050? But, having said that, there actually are some instances where the user has special needs and is prepared to put up with the introduced hazy look of the screen when under-driven. For example they want everything to look bigger due to vision impairment reasons.
What makes all this harder is that very rarely do catalogues from Office Works, or JB Hi Fi, or Harvery Norman, tell you what the screen resolution is—which is actually probably the second most important thing you need to know. The first thing being the actual physical size of the screen.
Big Tip for LCD Screens: It is amazing how many people do not realise this, but if you are using an LCD screen with Windows then you need to enable Clear Type and tune it to suit you. If your local IT support person (brother, son, daughter, uncle, etc.,) is ‘switched on’ then they would have made sure Clear Type was enabled. This is especially important if you are using Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista which do not automatically enable Clear Type under any conditions—it has to be done manually.
However Windows 7 will automatically enable Clear Type if it works out that your screen is an LCD screen. Even so, you should still go into Windows 7 “Personalise” (oops, Personalize) and tune Clear Type to suit you.
Note that tuning Clear Type is pointless if you are not using your LCD screen at its native resolution because the anti-aliasing (which is what is being tuned) will not work if the pixels are not matching 1 for 1.
