dell inspiron mini 910, glare and resolution

I find that the screen is too bright (e.g. when not in a well lit environment e.g. a car at night, or a room without much lighting)

And the two resolutions apparently available, are 800x600 and 1024x768
But 800x600 comes out quite widescreen, and 1024x768 the text is so small, text e.g. in notepad is too small.

any ideas - solutions, workarounds, thoughts?

The rest of this post is not a question.
here are some things i've discovered so far to deal with it....I doubt they will be much use to people if these things bother them though!
I set all the settings could find for brightness and contrast to lowest
even on the lowest brightness and contrast setting. . Doing Fn pushing the sun button
doing (start..settings..ctrl panel)..display properties..settings
..."intel graphics media accelerator driver for mobile"..graphics properties..
Then, 2 places.
color correction and Video Overlay. They have settings.

the freeware multires doesn't offer any other resoutions though it lets you change resolution quickly which would be good.
A program called "power stripper" , seems like it might get you lower contrast and brightness and also offers a resolution of 640x400, which is better on this screen than 640x480 'cos it doesn't come out widescreen

color profiles..configure.., turn brightness and contrast to lowest, but also check the box that says "Wide directly to palette DAC" that option makes it go lower. The brightness and contrast level still doesn't seem as pleasant as my other toughbook laptop that naturally goes lower with the Fn key and the sun button.

you can change resolution going to display profiles..configure
save various resolutions and switch between them from the taskbar. So if one is too big and you can't see a full window then switch to 800x600 or 1024x768, and if the text is too small then switch to like 640x400

of course really small laptops have these issues with screen. my toughbook is small but not as small as this one. The screen on this dell is like 8"x4.5" , so almost twice as wide as high. My toughbook screen is 10"x7.5" and fine at 800x600. I know big laptops can have keyboard issues too, issues of layout. keyb is like 8" by 3", very small keys. trickier to type in the dark. (toughbook keyv is 10"x4").
The screen on the dell is just too wide, seems out of proportion for 800x600 and out of proportion for 640x480!.

 

Doesn't this laptop have a 1024*600 pixel screen? Have you installed new graphics drivers (you have an Intel GMA 950, right?).

-J.B.

 

text is very small on 1024x768
(yes, icon text can be increased). But text in notepad for example is very small at that resolution.

 

You should be using 1024x600 as the resolution and if that is too big for you, you can use a smaller 16:10 resolution but the screen would be a bit blurry.

Try 800x480 since that's a widescreen resolution. Or you can buy a netbook with a 10" screen like I did.

 

the only 2 options windows gives are 640x480 and 800x600

I guess the graphics drivers are installed though. I have a tray icon, from the little software piece to adjust resolution from the driver manufacturer. That's how the laptop came. I could install the G driver myself. But I suspect that it is installed already.
-
correction, the options are 800x600, and 1024x600
(not 1024x768)

now.. 800x600 is not a widescreen resolution.
1024x600 is. I like 800x600 normally but it looks bad stretched to fit the widescreen.

i think a regular screen is 1.333
width/length=1.333333
and 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, are really for a regular screen.

1024x600 works fine on this widescreen , that's
width/length=1.7
800x480 would prob be ok but it isn't offered.