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Comment by posnet | Hacker News Reader

I really want to like System76. But I don't think I can go back to 1080p after having 4k on my XPS 13.

I don't understand these high resolutions on such tiny screens. They're just a waste of power. 1080p is plenty good enough.

I work with tmux and vim a lot and the difference in font rendering is huge between 1080p and 4K

So do I. I really don't see it.

This is a common complaint in just about any System76 thread, so I'd wager it's fairly valid at this point. Just because you're fine with it doesn't mean the average user wants that in 2021.

Probably depends on how small you set your font.

Indeed. It does get more tiring on the eyes once you go below ~10 px no matter how you slice it.

I use to think along the same lines. However due to nature of my work, I switch between a MacBook and PC quite often. When I go from MacBook to a laptop with 1080p resolution, I could see why people prefer higher resolutions. Font rendering and entire experience of reading on a computer becomes so much better.

There are also other factors at play I believe than just resolution. I have 3 XPS 13 laptops - one Full HD matte, one Full HD glossy and one 4K glossy.

Full HD matte seems quite unsharp compared to the Full HD (or 4K) glossy. But with my eyes, I don't really see the difference between Full HD glossy and 4K glossy.

Matte screen by its nature desharpens so it should be expected. But I did not expect the effect to be so noticeable.

That's interesting. Which one do you prefer for daily use?

Glossy produce clearly nicer image (sharper, colors are more vivid), but reflections can make it very impractical (especially during the day). Ideally I would choose matte but with higher resolution than Full HD.

Glossy/matte is also not a binary choice, as I understand there are displays with various degrees of glosiness/matte which might provide better trade off.

Agreed, I came to the same conclusion. Both my PC laptop and MacBook Air have glossy displays but MacBook one reflects back less light which makes it easier to work with.

1440p is the sweetspot for laptop displays for me. 4k seems like unnecessary pixel density, probably makes sense if you're doing creative work. The jump from 1080p to 1440p definitely gives me a productivity upgrade though.

Yeah I would be very willing to try a System76 laptop if they just offered a 1440p display option.

You can install Pop!_OS on your machine if you wish to keep the HiDPI screen. I have used it on my XPS 15 for years and it works flawlessly, even with the nVidia GPU!

It works for me; I can definitely tell the difference in smoothness vs the MacBook I abandoned in favor of System76, but >90% of the time I use it docked to a big 4K monitor and when I'm untethered I value the extra battery life over the extra pixels. If I had to use the laptop screen as my daily driver it probably wouldn't work for me, though.

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