If manufacturing defects are distributed randomly per unit area (as they often are), then the smaller the area the greater the chance of having a defect-free screen. Thus 1600x1200 is easier to produce at high yields than 1600x1200 on a 17" or 19" screen.

Even if a 15" screen can do 1600x1200, it would give itsy bitsy text. ;-)

The A31P is certainly a very nice box.

I can't see how it's even possible to "overinterpolate". Characters would look horrible.

It's just a matter of having the electronics have a higher bandwidth than the physical pixel grid on the screen. It was quite common for early 15" monitors to quote maximum resolutions above 1024x768 with 0.28 to 0.32 mm dot pitches - they could physically display the stuff, but as you say it would look very bad because there would be more than one pixel of information displayed on each physical phosphor pixel - a no-no for sharp images.

Cheers,
Scott.

[link|http://www.princetongraphics.com/product_sen751.htm|This] page at Princeton Graphics says:

1280 x 1024 Native Resolution:
Displays a crisp, clear 1280 x 1024 native resolution and is capable of 640 x 480 to 1600 x 1200 resolutions.*

Maximum/Native Resolution:
UXGA 1600 x 1200 Maximum Resolution*
XGA 1280 x 1024 Recommended Resolution

Compatibility:
Digital: Digital Visual Interface (DVI), up to 1280 x 1024
Analog: Scales up to 1600 x 1200*
VESA\ufffd 1280 x 1024 @ 85/75/60Hz
VESA\ufffd 1024 x 768 @ 85/75/70/60Hz
VESA\ufffd 800 x 600 @ 85/75/72/60/56Hz
VESA\ufffd 640 x 480 @ 85/75/72/60Hz
Super VGA, VGA, Macintosh\ufffd 832 x 624@ 75Hz,
Power Mac\ufffd and more

* Analog Input Mode Only.

They are doing some interpolation tricks, somehow, to get 1600x1200 when driven by analog signals. But physically, the SENergy 751 is a 1280x1024 LCD. The .PDF Specification Sheet says the active screen is 13.61\ufffd x 10.89\ufffd (345.6mm x 276.48mm). At 0.27 mm per pixel, there are 1280 pixels across and 1024 pixels up, so it adds up.

Cheers,
Scott.