The laptop I bought over 4 years ago has a 1440x900 15.6" screen. Today it seems that the majority of 15" screens are all 1366x768. At saveonlaptops you need to be spending more than a thousand pounds before you see an increase in resolution.

What gives?

Basically panel makers decided to start producing resolutions that could be sold to both TV manufacturers and monitor manufacturers to save money (whilst still selling to the highers bidder).

Hence why larger PC screens started coming in 1920x1080 (16:9) rather than 1920x1200 (16:10)

The same happens for smaller screens as well.

The curse of the budget laptop.

You have to get into the £500-£600 price bracket before you find a decent one with better resolution.

I can understand the consolidation between TV and monitor for costs etc. I blame the marketing tossers who were allowed to call 720 high definition for culling the choice in this sector.

Budget, most laptops now are for casual users except the 'pro' or 'power' user

Depends on the brand really, my Medion (now about 3 or 4 years old) is still running strong, and the cheapest 1080p screen version is the same price I paid back then and considerably higher spec to boot
http://www.medion.com/gb/electronics/pr ... tebooks_17

Blu ray drive, dedicated gpu, decent size hdd, USB3.0 ports (2 not the poxy 1 most seem to come with) all for £550