30. Is Gaming Possible At Native Resolution?

Not all games and graphics card drivers support widescreen resolutions with aspect ratios of 16:10. Games are usually programmed for typical monitors, which operate at aspect ratios of 4:3. If you use the graphics driver to stretch such images to fill a 16:10 screen, a circle becomes an ellipse, and everything in an image broadens enough to look distorted. Depending on the actual combination of display, game, and graphics card driver in use, this distortion varies more or less, but can drive perfectionist gamers bonkers nevertheless.

This issue also has some bearing on all four of our test devices. It doesn't matter if we look at the Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi (1280 x 800 pixels), the HP nx9240 (1690 x 1050 pixels), or the Aurora M7700 or the Asus A7J (both of which feature resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels). All of their displays have 16:10 aspect ratios.

While the planet on a display whose resolution works out to a 4:3 aspect ratio looks round...

...on a display with resolution that equates to 16:10 it looks somewhat squashed or elliptical.

Of course when you're gaming you can always use a lower resolution than what's native to your display - at least, as long as the graphics processor driver will allow it. But this invariably means a lessening of image quality owing to interpolation effects and rendering will appear distorted. Thus you should consider carefully before buying a notebook if you really want one with a common widescreen format.