Help! Monitor Screen Is Horrid

Hey all I just got a dell 15.4 inch screen laptop, it's WXGA I think. 2 questions:

1. How do I know if it's WXGA or WXSGA+? I'd like to know this because the order sheet got lost.

2. When I put the resolution on the screen to lesser than 1280 X 800 ppi, like to 800X600 or 1024X768, it's very hard to read the screen. The letters become very blurry. Is there a way to fix this because the letters are too small on the 1280 X 800 ppi screen.

Thanks.

 

LCDs don't do well at their non-native resolutions. If you can't go higher than 1280x800, it is WXGA.

 

Taken from http://channels.lockergnome.com/windows/archives/20040916_whats_native_resolution.phtml

 

Thank u gentlemen.
So would this problem of reading it clearly at 800X600 ppi still be around if I had the WSXGA+ screen??

 

It would still be there. And if anything it would be worse since WSXGA+ native resolution is 1680X1050, you'd be using more pixels to display that 800X600 resolution.

 

So then how does WXGA differ from WSXGA+? And is there any way for me to get clearer resolution at 800X600 on my WXGA screen?

 

1280x800 only!

 

These are the common resolutions:

* SVGA: 800x600
* XGA: 1024x768
* WXGA: 1280x800
* SXGA: 1280x1024
* SXGA+: 1400x1050
* WXGA+: 1440x900
* UXGA: 1600x1200
* WUXGA: 1920x1200

WXGA : 1280 X 800
WXSGA+ : 1680 X 1050 < more total pixels

Basically a WSGA+ would have a better picture since the pixel pitch is smaller. Good for multimedia applications etc. But you get this at the cost of text and normal window stuff being smaller.

As far as getting more clear at 800X600, there's not much that I can think of except using Cleartype font for text, and using the microsoft calibrator to adjust it.

 

Thanks. What's cleartype font and what's MS calibrator?

 

I have a WSXGA+ on my 8600 and I understand it is an abbreviation for "Wide Super Extended Graphics Array +" and I have always wondered what the other abbreviations stand for? Can anyone educate me or send me somewhere where it's explained?
Respectfully,
Ed

 

Cleartype basically tries to make your fonts in windows less jaggedy and appear more smooth. It was mentioned in another post here.

Here's the calibrator, it should allow you to enable cleartype and choose the right setting:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

As far as the definitions for resolutions, letters are pretty much;

V - video
G - graphics
A - array
S - super
U - ultra
W- wide


so basically something like svga would be 'super video graphics array' and the '+' I guess given to some even more extended modes.

 

you can't view 800x600 on your computer because it's a 4:3 resolution and the LCD is physically widescreen. the only option is to turn stretching off in the BIOS. this will give you black bars.