Inspiron 9300 17" laptop

Hello: I just bought this Dell Inspiron 9300 17" laptop. Kinda new to laptops and the new screens. Question: Websites don't fill the whole screen and look so small, is there a way to fix this? Anyone else having same trouble. Weird, because my Earthlink/Start/Home Page looks great and uses the whole screen. What's the point of the 17" screen? I had a previous dell desktop with one of those big ol' clunky monitors 17". No problems there. Why is this different? Any help, suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch.
G

 

What kind of screen did you get? WXGA or UWXGA? Have you adjusted your DPI to 96? I've heard complaints on letters being too small because DPI isn't adjusted properly.

 

I got the WXGA screen. I think that is my problem. Guess it's more designed for video's etc. and not for viewing most web pages. I can make my letters/fonts a lot bigger but that's not the problem. It's viewing websites with any type of graphics, pictures, etc. Which is most of them. They only use 1/2 the screen. Looks so strange. Doesn't matter how big I make the fonts/letters, they still don't fit. Just get distorted. From the info I'm hearing, web designers haven't designed their sites to fit this screen in full viewing. Oh well, good excuse to get into videos, etc. Should have researched more before buying. Sites/forums such as this one, fit fine and use the whole screen. Weird. Oh well, can't have everything.
Thanks for your reply.
g.

 

Oh, here's stupid question? How do I adjust DPI to 96? I was adjusting all the settings for the display and resolution but didn't see anything that said that? Ah, still learning about this stuff.

 

The screen is a 'personal' decision. Many advocates for both due to font sizes (resolutions) and screen glare. The Uxga comes with a glossy screen whereas the Xga comes with the 'matte' finish on the screen.

My i9300 came with the wXga and I sent it back (for numerous reasons). My recently acquired xps 140 was ordered with the "True-Life" screen which adds the glossy finish to the screen and I've rec'd NUMEROUS compliments on image quality (got some killer widescreen desktop wallpapers and showed them off at work). The screen size on the XPS is 14.1" tho, not 17" like the 9300. I prefer the 14.1", carrying around a 17" screen was overkill for my needs.

On webpages, on my desktop system, I hold the ctrl key and scroll the mouse wheel up / down to change font size, you may try something like that on the notebook and see if that works for you.

 

Right Click on your Desktop -> Select Properties -> Click on the Settings Tab -> Click on the Advanced Button -> Change the DPI Setting to 'Normal size (96 DPI)' under the General Tab -> Click 'Ok' when "Any font changes resulting from a new DPI setting will take effect after the fonts are installed and Windows is restarted" appears. -> Click Apply.

 

Odd...i have WXGA and I've never encountered any problem like the ones you mention. Well, try adjunting your DPI and come back and tell us if it worked for you.