For those who have at least seen an LED-15''-MBP screen AND a HighRes 17'' MBP screen

[SavageLLama77]

How much brighter, or better quality, is the LED screen? I'm almost dead set on the 17'' High res mbp, but I'm being held back by the possibility of the 17'' screen being very dim or less quality than the new LED screens on the 15''ers. ANY advice would be GREAT!!!!!!!

 

[amoda]

Okay, I know i'm break the "at least seen the screens rule", but seriously though...the 17" screen has always been beautiful. The new LED's won't change that, if there is a small difference between them it doesn't chage the fact that the 17" is still beautiful. Also if you're going to be getting the hi-res screen wouldn't you need it for something that a 1400*900 wouldn't be good for?

 

[spyderracer393]

well...I've seen both at the Apple Store, and the 15" really isn't brighter than the 17". If I had the pocket, and were in the market for a big heavy laptop (I love my 12" PBG4,) I would definitely get the 17" high-res.

 

[aethelbert]

Go for the 17" high-res screen. The 15" isn't signifigantly brigher and it won't make much of a difference. If you need the pixels, take the 17" for sure, it's beautiful.

 

[SavageLLama77]

bump

 

[smiddlehurst]

Seen 'em both? I'll go one better than that, I've owned both (long story which I'm going to get around to writing up in the next couple of days). Please bear in mind though I've only owned the 17" for... about 9 hours now and have only used it for about 3 of those hours so these impressions may change:

15" - Gorgeous screen, probably the best 15" I've seen in a laptop (though I haven't seen the Sony range yet). REALLY bright to the point that running it at 100% brightness is almost painful on the eyes. Great image quality and generally a big jump forward from the old 15" screens. But, and it's a big BUT, I've now been through 3 of them and ALL had the yellow banding problem to a greater or lesser degree. The last one was by far the best but unfortunately the screen wasn't square in the frame so I had to reject that one as well and there was still a hint of that yellow tint at the bottom.

17" HD - Not as bright as the 15" and not quite as good in terms of uniform brightness. Other than that it's fantastic providing your eyes can handle the higher resolution. If you have no problems (and it really isn't that bad) then it'll only get better with Leopard. Compared to the 17" non-HD screen it's a massive improvement.

Basically, once the yellow tint issue is sorted out (and it might already be as some people are saying they've replaced 15" at Apple Store's and got perfect screens) then either the 15 or 17HD screens will convince you you've spent your money in the right place. I would suggest however you try and go to an Apple store if possible to preview it for yourself as screen's are such a personal choice.

 

[JSmoove05]

How can you tell if yours has a yellow tint mine seems a little yellowish but I dont know if its suppose to be like that or not. Also if it does have the yellow tint to it will Apple replace it for you?

 

[smiddlehurst]

How can you tell if yours has a yellow tint mine seems a little yellowish but I dont know if its suppose to be like that or not. Also if it does have the yellow tint to it will Apple replace it for you?

Best way I found was to fire up a finder winow, move it to the top left of your screen then expand it as far down as it will go. Then move the window down a bit until the bottom border goes off the screen and you just have a white background touching the bottom edge of your screen. Make sure you're looking straight at the screen and compare the white background at the top of the finder to the white background at the bottom. If you've got the yellow banding problem you'll see a crisp, clean white at the top and a slightly more yellow-ish tnt at the bottom. If you DO see this effect you need to decide if it's going to bug you day-to-day. In my case it really was a deal breaker as I write a lot of documents and web code, all on full screen documents with white backgrounds where I'm running my eye up and down the document all day and the colour change would have driven me nuts.

As for whether or not Apple will replace it, my apple store has been fatastic, and I believe you have a 30 day period to return the machine if it's faulty anyway. Best bet would be to talk to your supplier and see what they say. It certainly seems to be relativley widespread at this point so it wouldn't surprise me if they swapped it with no questions asked.

 

[FleurDuMal]

Right, I've now seen them both.

The first time I went into my (temporarily) local Apple Store they only had the 15" and low(er) res 17"ers. My initial impression was "wow" when I saw the 15". The thing is bright and uniformly lit. I didn't notice any of the 'yellow tint' complaints, but I was only in an Apple Store so the lightings not great.

Yesterday I went back to the same store and they had a high res 17" in. These things are fricking great. Running Aperture at such levels of detail on a laptop is a strange, but great, feeling. I had no complaints regarding the size of the text. To be honest, without thinking about it, I would not have even notice the text was smaller than normal! The screen itself is very good quality - I noticed no fading at the corners or anything like that. It's also bright, though maybe not as bright as the 15", but certainly better than the old models I think.

All in all, after messing around with the high res 17" for half an hour, when I went back to look at the 15" my initial reaction was "Whoah...that all looks a bit big". Kinda like switching your monitor back to 800x600 or 640x400 or something! In other words, you get used to such a high resolution quite quickly, so I wouldn't worry about things being too small (unless you don't have good eyesight, in which case you'll never get used to it I guess).

So, the difficulty is, two future laptop norms are incorporated into two different machines. Sooner or later or laptops will have LED screens, but also they will have high DPIs like the 17". As we can't have both in the same machine, the question is which one is of the most practical use for you.

 

[SavageLLama77]

Right, I've now seen them both.

The first time I went into my (temporarily) local Apple Store they only had the 15" and low(er) res 17"ers. My initial impression was "wow" when I saw the 15". The thing is bright and uniformly lit. I didn't notice any of the 'yellow tint' complaints, but I was only in an Apple Store so the lightings not great.

Yesterday I went back to the same store and they had a high res 17" in. These things are fricking great. Running Aperture at such levels of detail on a laptop is a strange, but great, feeling. I had no complaints regarding the size of the text. To be honest, without thinking about it, I would not have even notice the text was smaller than normal! The screen itself is very good quality - I noticed no fading at the corners or anything like that. It's also bright, though maybe not as bright as the 15", but certainly better than the old models I think.

All in all, after messing around with the high res 17" for half an hour, when I went back to look at the 15" my initial reaction was "Whoah...that all looks a bit big". Kinda like switching your monitor back to 800x600 or 640x400 or something! In other words, you get used to such a high resolution quite quickly, so I wouldn't worry about things being too small (unless you don't have good eyesight, in which case you'll never get used to it I guess).

So, the difficulty is, two future laptop norms are incorporated into two different machines. Sooner or later or laptops will have LED screens, but also they will have high DPIs like the 17". As we can't have both in the same machine, the question is which one is of the most practical use for you.

What would you rather have: one of those 15'' and a 30'' ACD, or a High Res 17''? Thanks!

 

[roblin]

What would you rather have: one of those 15'' and a 30'' ACD, or a High Res 17''? Thanks!

I'd rather have the 17" and ACD 30".. oh wait.... =)

 

[FleurDuMal]

What would you rather have: one of those 15'' and a 30'' ACD, or a High Res 17''? Thanks!

Depends how far we stretch this 'ideal' situation. If I had a nice big flat with plenty of space, I'd have the 15" MBP and 30" ACD. However, in reality I live in small rooms in shared houses so I need something which is not going to dominate my room by taking up too much space, and something which would not be difficult to pack up and move when I need to move out of wherever I'm living. The 30" ACD would be a disaster in both senses I think. I already have a 24" monitor which is too big for my liking and so I'm wanting to sell it.

Given that the 17"er gives me a 24" monitors resolution in the size of a laptop, I think it makes more sense for me to get the 17" rather than 15" and external monitor. I also don't see the extra 2" on the 17" MBP as much of an impediment to its mobility. But then again, my MBP would probably only ever leave my desk when I'd take it to the library where there is plenty of space for any sized laptop. I would never need to use it on a cramped aircraft or lecture theatre.

 

[kentfrancisco]

I've played with both extensively and have a 17" high-res delivering on Monday, if that is any indication as to which I actually prefer.

The 15" is about the nicest laptop money can buy. The 17" is a desktop that you just so happen to be able to carry around with you anywhere. Depends on what you're looking for, but the 17" was about one shade darker than the 15" LEDs and that's it. Otherwise, you have crisper text, icons, and images as well as a boatload more screen real estate. I personally like having to scroll as little as possible when looking at documents or the web and the 15", because it is a WS configuration, does require quite a bit of scrolling. With the 17", you get the WS aspect ratio without sacrificing a large top to bottom workspace.

That's my two cents.