I was pretty excited back in January when we first glimpsed the Dell Mini 10, the successor to Dell’s first netbook, the Mini 9 [Portal page]. There were several things that got me excited, but by far the biggest was the idea that the Dell Mini 10 [Portal page] would come equipped with a proper 16:9 aspect ratio screen and a native 720p HD resolution of 1280×720. Since the Mini 10 launched, it has only been available with a 1024×600 screen, until now. Dell is now offering if the promised “720p” screen, but it isn’t actually standard 720p format. Strangely, they kept the 16:9 aspect ratio, but upped the resolution from the HD standard (1280×720) to 1366×768. I couldn’t say exactly why they decided to go with the non-standard resolution (my guess would be that it is an already existing LCD), but at least they kept the right shape. Anyway, the higher resolution screen can be added for just $35 which isn’t bad for 459,264 additional pixels.
Question for the HD media junkies out there: Would you say that native 720p content looks better when 1:1 pixel mapped on a 1280×720 screen, vs. the same aspect ratio, but not 1:1 pixel mapping on a 1366×768 screen?
[Engadget]
March 31st, 2009 at 3:01 am
New article: Dell Mini 10 now with higher resolution screen http://cli.gs/URvZdT
March 31st, 2009 at 4:15 am
Briefly, IMHO there’s almost no watchable difference between these two resolutions in terms of 720p video, but of course 1366×768 screen is much better cause it includes standard 1024×768 resolution.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:17 am
Confused as the article says the res. is upped, yet in the detail it seems to be reduced. That is, it is 1366×768 and now being changed to 1280×720. Or is it presently 1280×720 and they are raising it to 1366×768?
Ben Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 11:42 am
Sorry for the confusion. The unit shipped originally with 1024×576. Dell had always promised a higher resolution screen and can be quoted as saying it was a ’720p’ screen which means 16:9, 1280×720. Instead they went with 1366×768, which is also 16:9 but a higher resolution than the 720p HD standard. I switched the article around a bit to hopefully make this more clear.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Obviously 1270×720 would look better than 1366×768 for 720P content due to scaling issues – but given the pixel size you’d need to be looking pretty close to see the difference, and compression effects are more likely to be visible than sub-pixel sampling.
1366×768 is a standard LCD resolution – nearly all 720P LCD TVs are this size – and it does allow you to run 1280×720 in a window with the task bar/video controls.
Overall, I think I’d take 1366×768 over 1280×720, as I doubt I’d be watching more HS movies than general browsing etc. Another issue is the video decoding capabilities of the chipset. The Mini 10 uses the GMA500 chip which has video decompression hardware acceleration.
If it weren’t for the fixed 1GB of RAM soldered directly to the PCB (and wanting a touch enabled device), I’d be tempted by the Mini 10 with this new resolution.
March 31st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Is there anything that folks who already have the 10″ screen Mini with the 1024×600 resolution can do, short of buying a new Mini, to increase the resolution to the newer specs?
Ben Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Unfortunately not without buying new hardware : /