[Jmac]

Originally Posted by taylor192

I had the same question and read a ton of reviews before deciding. I received my Dell 1558 on Fri and am impressed. It was $980 before taxes.

The absolute best thing: 1080p 15.6" monitor. 1920x1080!

I have a 2yo 1440x900 14.1" work laptop, and a 3yo 1280x800 12.1" previous home laptop. I was really disappointed to see most of the new laptops are 720p, 1368x720. It seems like a step backwards for laptops.

720 vertical resolution sucks, 800 was barely tolerable on the 12.1" and 900 on the 14.1" was nearly ideal. I tried a few out in the store first and hated the 720 vertical resolution. Even with font sizes adjusted smaller, I just couldn't get enough screen real estate.

The 1080p monitor upgrade was only $50 on the Dell Studio 150, and you could easily option it out below $900. I got the i5, 4GB of ram, and the backlit keyboard. Backlit keyboard is awesome! Oh and the touchpad supports gestures, aka pinch zoom.

Uh, most older laptops were 1280x800 (1.02 MP) and most of the newer laptops are 1366x768 (1.05 MP), so basically the same.