Such a thing as an "ideal" resolution for text/office work?

I know what you mean about shopping demos at high street branches. They are right thoe they never set stuff up singular and in native resolution (guess I wouldnt like to pay for running 100s of pcs just for fun)

just look at the laptops there tuned to perfection (at least in manufacturers eyes)

with a 1680 your going to get nearly 25% margin total from either side of the page your viewing but if you were viewing a spreadsheet or something the more area the better.

LCD image quality should be just fine at native resolution, with constant text its more a case of toneing down the brightness and contrast slightly so its more like viewing A paper document as apposed to the un-natural glow you get from A virtual document.