82 PCWorld JULY 2020FEATURE WHY YOU CAN’T GET A 1440P LAPTOP
other middle-ground resolutions, such as
1440p. While 1440p panels are still less
expensive to produce than 4K ones, the cost
difference isn’t so great that PC makers are
willing to sacrifice 4K’s marketing benefits.
“You’re basically jumping into a premium
tier panel, and then once you’re there, you’re
like, ‘Hey, for a little bit more of a jump, I’m at
a 4K, which is sort of a market-recognized
resolution,’” Butler said.
That’s not to say 4K is worthless in
laptops. Stefan Peana, the CTO for display
engineering at Dell Technologies, pointed
out that most content exists in 1080p or 4K,
so for content creators, the latter resolution
might make sense.
“Interestingly, QHD was actually quite
popular in laptops many years ago until
television became big on 4K,” Peana said viaemail. “We see a trend in content
creators preferring to work on 4K
panels and most consumers finding
1080p sufficient for their daily content
consumption needs.”
Still, it’s reasonable to wonder
how many creative types are working
on 4K content using a device like
Dell’s XPS 13, a thin-and-light laptop
with a 13-inch screen and integrated
graphics. For those kinds of machines,
might it make sense to offer a crisper
display resolution without 4K’s trade-
offs? Peana allowed for the possibility.
“While demand for QHD displays
is relatively low, there is a niche group of
consumers we’re seeing with interest in QHD
laptop panels because of better power
consumption and lower pricing as compared
to 4K laptops,” Peana said. “This mid-ground
between high-resolution quality and battery
life may make QHD an appealing option to
those customers who do not require best-in-
class displays.”CHANGES ON THE
HORIZON
Lenovo’s Tom Butler is more willing to bet that
laptop displays will hit a sweet spot between
1080p and 4K. In the coming years, he
foresees a shift away from laptops with the
same widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios used by
televisions. Taller aspect ratios such as 16:10
or 3:2 give users more space for editingIntel’s integrated graphics can struggle with 4K displays,
making otherwise nice laptops like this Dell Inspiron 15
7000 exhibit jumpy scrolling and choppy animations.