A lot goes to what you want to do with it. When writing code, I occasionally find my 17" slightly claustrophobic, and having used smaller screens, know that would be even worse.
But most web surfing doesn't need so much, and when I write text 15 can be fine.
Being a perfect physical specimen I sneer at those who complain of the weight of their laptops
But...
Weight is a serious factor in the life expectancy of a road warrior laptop. If you look at the back issues of PC Magazine you will find a cover with a pile of broken laptops from when I devised stress tests for laptops that were used outside the office. The square/cube rule applies here big time. A small drop that would not hurt a light one could kill a heavyweight.
The last stats I saw showed that laptops that were used outside the office lasted on average 16 months before they broke seriously. HPs are so delicate I've often thought that I could break the HP laptops of people I didn't like merely by staring hard at them.
But most laptops aren't used on the road, they are used to take up less space on your desk, or at home, HP know this so economise brutally on build quality to make their margins better, relying upon their evil support staff to so exhaust customers that they don't make warranty claims.
Thinkpads are not as well built as they used to be, but they have amongst the best build quality which you do pay for.
Toshiba's are also pretty good, and some people would put them ahead, I bought a few for my
god children and they survived very well in a seriously hostile environment.
Personally though I'd go for cheap over tough for a student laptop because:
a) no laptop is
that tough, if you drop it hard, they all die, Drink spills are also life threatening and expensive.
b) a depressing % of student laptops are stolen, and more expensive/attractive kit is more of a target, so the extra cash doesn't help much
I suppose 1920x1080 will be ok replacements because they're still as wide (and width is more important than height).
