I've got a 1600x1200 15" LCD in my Dell and I think it's great. Everything is extremely sharp and it's excellent for programming as you can fit way more onto the screen. When I get a new laptop I'll be getting a minimum of 1600x1200 at least.

You do need to bump up the screen DPI value in Windows though so the fonts will look right. Only problem is that applications don't usually resize properly because of the increased font sizes but you learn to live with that.