All laptops should be able to scale down their screens to 1280 by XXX (whatever the number is, depending on aspect ratio), as long as they support higher than 1280 i n the first place. Both the laptops you mentioned will do it, but I'd stay away from a 17" with only 1440*900 resolution, the pixels will be getting kind of large...and it negates the whole purpose of having a 17" (for extra screen space and higher resolution)
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