Text quality, then and now

Hi there!

I've had a Dell Inspiron 8000 for several years right now, and have loved the crisp, no-blur, no-colored-halo text quality. The problem is that the monster is about 8 lbs, and I want something lighter. But looking around at other laptops (no place to see Dell's of course), I've despaired at the comparatively lousy text quality of supposedly high-end models. I just looked at the Sony SZ and it was pretty good, but still had a slight purple halo around the edges of its 12 point type.

My question is whether people who've had experience with Dells then and now can attest to the quality of the text. Has it improved, decreased or stayed the same? I'm thinking about the M1330 model.

Thanks!

Dev

 

Are you sure cleartype is enabled on the laptops you are looking at?

Honestly, i didnt know people were this fussy about text quality

 

Currently I have a M1210 (12.1” 1280x800 screen (earlier had a XPS M140 and now waiting on a M1330), all text sizes on my screen are sharp without any color fringe. Not runing in the native resolution or changing DPI could cause blurred text.

Most of us take clarity of text for granted, and you wouldn't notice how bad or how hard it is to read unclear text till you really experience it yourself . I know because under Linux, no matter what I do I cant get all the text to render properly, and its driving me nuts

 

Depends how much writing you do on it, I guess. I won't apologize for my fussiness, lol.

 

Devlin,

I've just replaced my wife's beloved Inspiron 8000 with an Inspiron 1520 with 15.4 inch WSXGA+ with TrueLife.

The text quality of the 1520 is even better than the 8000. I was very concerned that the fonts would be too small, but they are so sharp and clear that the smaller fonts are still very readable. And with some tweaking I got the fonts larger, but still very crisp and sharp.

And since she spends all day working in Word and Excel, the text quality is extremely important. In fact, she has commented more on the improved screen than anything else.

With 9 cell battery, the 1520 is still a beast. Not as heavy as the 8000, but still too heavy to carry around regularly. But since the laptop very seldom leaves the house, it's not really a problem.

And the 1520 is also a much more solid feeling machine than the 8000.

Dwayne

 

Is it like the difference between the two samples on this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

If so, then just turn off ClearType.

 

I think something like that may be the issue Swarmer. I'm not on the laptop ATM, but yesterday I was noticing that the letters had a jagged appearance which one does not find on the laptops I've been looking at. In fact, it looks more like a Trinitron CRT, where text is more jagged but sharp.

I'll have to investigate the settings more to see what is or is not turned on on my 8000. Then I'll be able to evaluate laptops better.

Xonk/Dwayne, thanks very much for your first-hand perspective! That gives me hope, lol. BTW, do you happen to know whether ClearType is turned on for your new machine?

 

I just realized Cleartype is probably not turned on yet on the 1520. The machine is my wife's, it's busy at work at the moment, but I will check the situation soon. I have Cleartype ready to install, but wanted to have her tweak the display to her taste.

There are still some loose ends to tie up. I ordered the 1520 with Vista, but wiped the drive to install XP Pro. I will reinstall Vista in a dual boot configuration.

The 8000 came with Windows ME, and I'll have to say it ran ME without hiccups. But - it hardly ever ran ME. I made it dual boot to Windows 2000 Pro and that has been it's primary OS.

So - the comparison is between the 1520 and the 8000, with neither running Cleartype.

 

its on by default on vista.