Question How does 1080p content look on 1440p screens?

[Hobbes777]

So the laptop I've had for the last 5 or 6 years finally died on me and I'm in the market for a new one. I have not kept up with technology since then and the modern world of resolutions and aspect ratios are confusing me. Hopefully you fine smart people can help.

Some quick background: I use my laptop for everything. I watch most of my media on it rather than a TV, I do all my work on it, and I game on it. As a result, a big 17" screen that looks really nice is important to me, as I'm looking at it quite a bit.

My old laptop was 17.3", 1080p, 16:9 aspect ratio. That was fine for me. Looking at the modern state of gaming laptops, it seems like a ton of them are now going 1440p and 16:10, with 17" screens becoming rarer in the face of 16" and now seemingly, 18" ones. On the surface, that sounds great, more pixels is better, more screen real estate is better. My problem is this: like I said, I watch a lot of video on my laptop for fun and my job: movies, streaming events, YouTube, etc. Some of those have 1440p options but most video content I see is 1080p. When I research this, I see a lot of people saying that 1080p content doesn't look good on a 1440p display because it doesn't evenly scale. Likewise, a lot of content is made for 16:9 aspect ratio, not 16:10.

My frustration is, looking at all the laptops that are coming out in the next couple of months, it feels like so many of the models, including the ones that seem the nicest, that people are most excited for, are 1440p and 16:10. As someone who plans to watch a lot of video on his laptop in 1080p, I feel like laptops right now are not being made for all the stuff I watch. If I eliminate every 1440p or 16:10 panel, my shopping options get pretty limited. My questions are

1. Will I really notice a quality drop watching 1080p or even lower quality video on a 1440p display that is, say, 18"? Does it depend on the laptop?

2. Likewise, if I'm watching a lot of widescreen content, does anyone with experience watching it on a 16:10 have any opinion on if it's annoying or not?

Since my laptop is the device I do everything on, I've saved up for a replacement and plan to splurge, so I want something nice, that can do everything, that will last, but it seems like laptops are being made more and more with one set of resolution and aspect ratios in mind, and video (And even some video games, like FPS) content is being made with a completely different resolution and aspect ratio in mind. Am I crazy, is there something I'm missing?

 

[ComputePronto]

While there is a loss of clarity when scaling 1080p up to 1440p, it's not THAT terrible. I watch 1080p video all the time on my 34 inch ultrawide 1440p monitor (13.1 inches tall). On an 18 inch 16:10 monitor (9.5 inches tall), it probably won't be too noticeable unless you put your face very close to the screen.

Also, you'll probably have ~0.5" black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching 16:9 content on that 18 inch monitor. That doesn't sound too annoying, at least to me.

 

[hotaru.hino]

How good a resolution look at mostly depends on the size of the display and the distance you're viewing it from. You have to scoot in pretty close to notice any clarity loss viewing 1080p content on an 18" 1440p screen

 

[baddaysbasil]

Hi, thought I'd ask in this thread since it was already on topic for my question rather than making an entire new thread:

I'm wanting to build a new PC but I'm slow-playing things and hoping to save enough money to get a nice 1440p build sometime next year without feeling it in the pocketbook too much. I mostly game and watch youtube (not a lot of HD video as I have a TV for that) in addition to dabbling in photo and video editing and using a couple of vector programs.

Right now I am gaming at 1080p on an old 49" Vizio TV (I KNOW!!!) using an older prebuild Lenovo PC (Radeon RX560 graphics upgrade... it does get worse, right??). The TV is starting to show its age and has always been huge at my desk (it was a hand-me-down), so I thought to get a monitor now and then build the PC for it later.

One reason for this is that I see that there are some nice 1440p 27" LG and ASUS monitors with some nice discounts right now...they are a little dated but I don't really care about super-new features so long as they work in the long term and are nice-looking. Looking at the MSI G272QPF and the ASUS VG27WQ1B, both of which seemed to be great in their time but are a few years old now, and both of which are 165hz+ and have G-sync/Freesync (I think?).
Also considering going 32" (a less drastic step down from my huge current display) with the 32GN600-B, which is currently only $209 at Wal-mart.

Would I regret buying one of these now (both around $229 USD) and playing on then with my old 1080p rig until I save up to build a PC later? Would I be bothered by playing 1440p on 1080p and having to downscale, or perhaps miss some features that have released in the last couple years that these monitors won't have?

Thanks!