1920 x 1080 screen - how best to read text

Hi

Now that 4:3 notebook screens are no more, I've tried to see if one can adapt a 1920 x 1080 notebook screen (say, 15") for everyday usage (web browsing, email, word processing).

The choices seem to be:
(1) Increase DPI to 120, 144, or even higher.
(2) Use larger fonts (OS).
(3) Use larger fonts (browser, say, Firefox).

Has anyone tried the above with a 1920 x 1080 screen? What's it like in everyday usage? If one can live with the occasional site font misalignment or other "distortions", would this be a sensible way to gain more vertical pixels to reduce scrolling, whilst text remains reasonably readable despite a small pixel size? In other words, can the above three steps partially compensate for a tiny pixel size when reading text?

Pixel Size Calculator
http://lcdtech.no-ip.info/en/data/pixel.size.htm

I also plan to position the taskbar vertically.

Lastly, would a well-engineered multi-touch touchpad help by speeding up vertical scrolling?

Thanks for your feedback!

Luke

 

1920x1080 is fine, no reason to increase dpi or font unless your having trouble reading. Most of us prefer to see more on screen at once and would prefer the higher resolution.

But your statement is conflicting. Your saying increase dpi, increase font size. These things indicate you want to see less on screen but in a larger size.

Then you talk about loss of verticle pixels requiring more scrolling.

But if you make font and things larger that alone will add much more scrolling.

The common 4:3 screen was 1280x1024 so a 1920x1080 screen would actually require less scrolling because it has more vertical pixels. Even more so if your content fills the width of the screen like say this forum does.

The largest common vert pixel count is 1200 for 1920x1200 screens and 1600x1200 screens and that is only 180 pixels it makes almost no difference in scrolling really.

As for a multi touch.. it can make things faster if you use only a touchpad but if you use a mouse just use a scroll wheel. Increase the amount of lines scrolled per tick as well to make it even faster.

 

I'd just use it on regular DPI and if a website's fonts are too small I'd zoom in in Firefox.

The addon nosquint adds a couple of extra features to FF zooming.

 

On my 15" 1920x1200 screen i just press "Ctrl and +" in Firefox or Chrome.
Maybe IE does it too but i dont use that.

 

I Increased the DPI to 124(Custom).

 

My Acer 8942g came originally with that larger dpi setting. I hated it. Plus many programs have dialog boxes or buttons partially invisible or ugly. Many software developers don't think about larger dpi.

But if you have trouble reading it or otherwise you like bigger fonts - by all means that windows setting helps a lot.

 

Yeah, I use 1900x1200 on 17" laptop screen and it's way too high. If I don't set text size to 120-125%, everything looks microscopic. 1920s resolution on 15" screen... that's hardcore.

 

After becoming accustomed to 1920x1080, I tried a 1366x768 display laptop that we had around the house, and I find it actually much easier on the eyes to read documents and surf web pages on the 1920x1080 display. If you have a multi-touch touchpad, you can easily and quickly zoom in and out on documents or web pages and I find the text and lines to be much smoother on the 1080p display. On the 768p display I found text and images to be a bit more blocky, and lines and images were not as smooth.

 

Well obviously it depends on the screen size. It's pointless to say it's too high or too low unless you say what screen size you're using it on. 1900x1200 res on a 17" screen is a bit too high imo, even tho I use it (it's the native res for m17x) and 1366x768 on 11.6" screen.

I would find it really annoying to regularly zoom in/out every time I load a web page. I mean for ocassional use on iPxDs its fine, but on a laptop uhh..... and I dont see how would that solve small text outside of the internet browsedr. Also if you have m17x, good freaking luck doing ANYTHING on the damn touchpad.

 

There are alot of options to try, all of it depend on what you have and your vision.

Lower Screen Resolution
Higher Font Size on Win 7
Higher Font Size on IE keeps the same font size for all websites
on FFox resets font size setting
on Chme remember each website font size setting

 

Please remember that the answers will also depend on your eyesight. If you are already 40+ and enjoy presbyopia like some of us, then really tiny pixels (high res, low physical size) can cause squinting, headaches and tired eyes. Bi-focals or no bi-focals

Then again if you are 20 with 20/20 eyesight, I'd guess that even 13" 1920x1080 (sony SZ) is passable, esp. if you are wiling to view the screen from quite close.

I also want full-hd for my next laptop, but 13" is just too small a size to accommodate full-hd res *for me*. YMMV, of course.

BTW, some apps, esp. more obscure ones using their own GUI toolkits go haywire if you increase the system level DPI setting. The only solution: lower the display resolution (aka interpolate and lose the benefit of higher pixel count) or use a secondary lower-dpi display for those apps.

 

I'm rockin 1920 x 1200 on a 15.4in screen. After a month or so my eyes just got used to it, and now any resolution under 1920x1200 is weird to me lol

 

QFT
i use to get funny/unreadable fonts in some games using OS level font resizing.
i always use an applications zoom feature instead. for most modern apps like chrome and office its as easy as control plus mouse wheel.

 

The text are small in 1920 x 1080 @ 15" while reading, zoom in is the option for easy view.