Don't make the mistake I made (new laptop)

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 08:48:23PM -0400, Giles Orr wrote:
> I just bought a Toshiba P850-057 - specs are a bit hard to come by as
> this model is "exclusive" to Future Shop.  More on other configuration
> challenges in email(s) to follow.
> 
> My mistake was in assuming that because it had a good Nvidia card
> (GeForce GT 630M) with 2GB of RAM that driving my Dell U3011 at its
> full resolution of 2560x1600 wouldn't be a problem.  Because, after
> all, HDMI 1.4 supports 3840x2160.  But.  In looking at documentation
> (after I made the purchase) for various P850 type laptops with varying
> Nvidia cards, the max resolution out through the HDMI port is always
> noted as being 1920x1200.  And that's all that appears to be supported
> by Windows or Linux on this machine.
> 
> Looking at the HDMI specs, the max resolution of HDMI v1 is 1920x1200.
>  Of course HDMI v1.3 is getting long in the tooth now and almost all
> devices (claim to) support v1.4.  But I'm getting a bit of Bill Gates
> syndrome here: "1920x1200 should be enough for anyone!"

Well unfortunately since most video chips also do DVI and single link DVI
signaling maxes out as 1920x1200, then that tends to be what you get.
HDMI 1.4 can do higher resolution by increasing the signalling rate,
which makes it no longer compatible with DVI.

To get higher resolution on a laptop, buy one with displayport.

Many devices support HDMI 1.4, but generally only to gain support for 3D
and sometimes the network link.  Very few devices actually support the
higher signalling speeds needed for higher resolutions yet.  HDMI 1.4
doesn't require support for higher resolutions, it just allows it.

> Just a cautionary tale, with the usual punchline: "don't assume."  I
> still think it was a reasonable assumption, but that requires the
> manufacturers to be reasonable.
> 
> While the computer has two video outs (HDMI and VGA), it won't drive
> two external monitors and the internal monitor at the same time.
> However, it will drive two externals if the LVDS is turned off.
> That's fairly nice.  And it's running a Samsung Syncmaster 2343 at its
> full resolution of 2048x1152 over VGA while also running the Dell at
> 1920x1200.  And on this machine, Arandr is actually better behaved
> than Windows' screen configuration utility.
> 
> Also on the plus side the laptop not only has four USB ports, but all
> four are USB3.  And when I went looking for instructions on how to
> change the hard drive, I found a video on YouTube - posted by Toshiba
> Europe.  So Apple is welding its devices shut, and Toshiba is telling
> you how to do it yourself.  I can get behind that - in fact, it was a
> significant selling point.

I hope that usb3 is more stable than what I have seen under linux (which
didn't work so well so far).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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