Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
As most of you are finding out, selecting the correct display for your new laptop is a very important decision. Most laptops buyers are unaware of the differences in screen resolution and from my experience retail sales people are no help. The main problem here is that you can't just get the highest resoltuion and assume it is the best for you. LCD displays only have one resolutiion they look best in and that is the native resolution (maxium resolution) for the display. So it is very important to pick a resolution that you can view comfortable set at its native resolutions. With that said...
So when I first booted my new system with WSXGA+ (1680x1050) resolution I was a little surprised at what I saw. The fonts seemed very readable to me not at all too small. I though maybe they shipped it set at WXGA (1280x800) resolution by mistake. Checked Display Properties and nope shows 1680x1050. So next I checked the Appearance property Font Size, must be large fonts right. Nope that was set to Normal font size.
After looking a little further I found the source of my confussion. In the Display Properties press the Advanced command button. The dialog box labled "(Multiple Monitors) and ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 Properties" displays. On the General tab there is a setting for DPI. The caption for this setting reads,
"If your screen resoltuion makes screen items too small to view comfortably, you can increase the DPI to compensate. To change font sizes only, click Cancel and go to the Appearnce tab." The tooltip help adds "Increasing the DPI increases the size of everything on your screen". (as compared to just increasing the font size).
The choices for DPI setting are:
Normal size (96 DPI)
Large size (120 DPI)
Custom (you can specify any number you like)
My system shipped with this set to Large Size (120 DPI), which explains why everthing looks so big (comfortable) to look at. When I switched this setting to Normal (96 DPI) and rebooted (reboot is required to complete the change) I was greated with a screen that looked like I expeceted, that is everything looked small.
But what I realized is that even though I normally want the extra screen real estate that the normal 1680x1050 resolution gives me for times I want an easier viewiing experience I have an option. By switching to the 120 DPI setting and leaving the resolution at the native 1680x1040 and leaving the fonts set to normal I can get an experience that is very similar to the 1280x800 WXGA resoltuion. That is both fonts and objects (buttons, images, windows etc.) that are similar size to WXGA resolution on my WSXGA+ screen without the fuzzyness usually associated with running a higer resolution LCD in a lower than native resolution. The one thing I did notice was when images in the browser are zoomed and thus don't have there normaly clearity. But most everything else looks very good.
It is curious that Dell ships the system set to 120 DPI. I would suspect a lot of people get the system and never realize they are running WSXGA+ but only seeing the equivalent of WXGA.
If you have either the WSGA+ or WUXGA can you post what your system was set to from the factory. Are you seeing the whole picture?
Somthing to keep in mind and give this some perspective. WSXGA+ (1680x1050) is the resolution used on a desktop display that is about 20 inches (Dell 2005FPW I think). And WUXGA+ (1920x1200) is the resoution used on a desktop display that is 24 inches. So for me taking what is comfortable on a 24" desktop display and squeazing it down to 15.4 inches is well you do the math. The WSXGA+ is the smallest I can tolerate on a 15.4 inch display. Even on a 17" like the 9300 with a WSXGA+ your talking about 3 inches smaller than a comperable desktop display.
Inspiron 6000d
PM 760(2.0GHz)
15.4" WSXGA+
1 GB RAM (pc2-4200 533mhz from crucial, it works)
64MB ATI X300
60GB 7,200 RPM
CDRW/DVD
Bluetooth
2200
XP pro
Inspiron 6000d display resolution comments
Discussion in 'Dell' started by Steven58563, Mar 12, 2005.
