CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [361]
Laptop LCD screens come in a variety of supported resolutions, described with acronyms such as XGA, WXGA, WSXGA, and more. The W in front of the letters indicates widescreen. Table 21-1 lists commonly supported laptop display resolutions.
Table 21-1 Screen Resolutions
Laptop screens come with two types of finish: matte and high gloss. The matte finish was the industry standard for many years and offered a good trade-off between richness of colors and reflection or glare. The better screens have a wide viewing angle and decent response time. The major drawback for matte-finished laptop screens is that they wash out a lot in bright light. Using such a laptop at an outdoor café, for example, is almost hopeless during daylight.
Manufacturers released high-gloss laptop screens in 2006, and they’ve rapidly taken over many store shelves. The high-gloss finish offers sharper contrast, richer colors, and wider viewing angles when compared to the matte screens. Each manufacturer has a different name for high-gloss coatings. Dell calls theirs TrueLife, Acer calls theirs CrystalBrite, and HP calls theirs BrightView. The drawback to the high-gloss screens is that, contrary to what the manufacturers claim, they pick up lots of reflection from nearby objects, including the user! So although they’re usable outside during the day, you’ll need to contend with increased reflection as well.
Desktop Replacements
When asked about portable computing devices, most folks describe the traditional clamshell laptop computer, such as the one in Figure 21-1, with built-in LCD monitor, keyboard, and input device (a touchpad, in this case). A typical laptop computer functions as a fully standalone PC, potentially even replacing the desktop. The one in Figure 21-1, for example, has all of the features you expect the modern PC to have, such as a fast CPU, lots of RAM, a high-capacity hard drive, CD-RW and DVD drives, an excellent sound system, and a functioning copy of Windows. Attach it to a network and you can browse the Internet and send e-mail. Considering that it weighs almost as much as a mini-tower PC (or at least it feels like it does when I’m lugging it through the airport!), such a portable can be considered a desktop replacement, because it does everything most people want to do with a desktop PC and doesn’t compromise performance just to make the laptop a few pounds lighter or the battery last an extra hour.
Figure 21-1 A notebook PC
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NOTE No industry standard exists for the vast majority of styles of portable computing devices, so manufacturers let their marketing folks have fun with naming. What’s the difference between a portable, a laptop, and a notebook? Nothing. One manufacturer might call its four-pound portable system with a 12-inch LCD a notebook, while another manufacturer might call its much larger desktop-replacement portable a notebook as well. A laptop refers in general to the clamshell, keyboard-on-the-bottom and LCD-screen-at-the-top design that is considered the shape of mobile PCs.
For input devices, desktop replacements (and other portables) used trackballs in the early days, often plugged in like a mouse and clipped to the side of the case. Other models with trackballs placed them in front of the keyboard at the edge of the case nearest the user, or behind the keyboard at the edge nearest the screen.
The next wave to hit the laptop market was IBM’s TrackPoint device, a joystick the size of a pencil eraser, situated in the center of the keyboard. With the TrackPoint, you can move the pointer around without taking your fingers away from the “home” typing position. You use a forefinger to push the joystick around, and then click or right-click, using two buttons below the spacebar. This type of pointing device