LCD display simulator

Does anyone know of a resource that will, given your current display's resolution and DPI I would assume, show you what a particular size screen at a particular resolution would look like? For example, I want to see exactly what 1440x900 looks like on a 13.3" display, and I can't find any machines locally with that setup. The retail shops all seem to be catering to the masses with lower res displays.

 

Not sure, but you can calculate it on your own.
For example a 13.3” is 86.36% of a 15.4" screen. If you take a print screen of a 1440x900 screen and shrink it to 86.36% and view it on a 15.4" you’ll see how it looks on a 13.3”. But remember, sharpness is lost when you resize an image, therefore you can't use this method to get an exact idea how it looks, just an idea of relative sizes.

 

good luck finding a 1440x900 in a 13.3 form factor. Closest I've seen is 1366x768 on a Sony vgn-tx750p with a 11.1 inch led backlit screen. Looks fantastic- but I have yet to see the wsxga+ in a 13.3
see this post for more discussion about it.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=210308&page=2

 

Lenovo ThinkPad X301

 

The Lenovo x300 and x301 both have 1440x900 in a 13.3" form factor (128DPI). In fact, the Lenovo x200s offers 1440x900 with a 12.1" display (140DPI).

As to your original question. This is a handy chart that lists DPI for resolutions between 1024x768 and 2560x1600 for monitors from 12.1"-30".

 

Yeah, I've been referring back to that chart quite a bit, jon. The only trouble is that I'm looking at going with a higher DPI than I'm used to, and I've been trying to get a feel for just how that will look.

I went with PhoenixFX's idea though, and it seems to work pretty well. There was just a bit of a trick to it, if you want to view the result at your display's native resolution and reduce the loss of detail from resizing the image. For those interested here is what I did...

The formula for determing how much to resize the image is basically:
RESOLUTION_RATIO / SIZE_RATIO * 100 = RESIZE_PERCENTAGE
where RESOLUTION_RATIO = TARGET_RESOLUTION / CURRENT_RESOLUTION
and SIZE_RATIO = TARGET_LCD_SIZE / CURRENT_LCD_SIZE
(It looks way more complicated than it is.)

For the purpose of this example, I'll use my particular scenario, where I would like to view 1440x900 at 13.3" on my 1680x1050 LCD:

1. Set resolution to 1400x900
2. Take a full screen screen shot
3. Paste as new image your graphics editor (CTRL+ALT+V in Paint.NET)
4. Divide the diagonal size of your target display by the diagonal size of your current display. My desktop LCD panel is 22", so 13.3 / 22 = .6. This gives you the SIZE_RATIO.
5. Divide the width of your target resolution by the width of your current resolution. For my purposes it was 1440 / 1680 = .86. This gives you the RESOLUTION_RATIO.
6. Divide the SIZE_RATIO by the RESOLUTION_RATIO and multiply by 100 for a percentage. .6 / .86 * 100 = 69.7 or 70%. This is the RESIZE_PERCENTAGE, or the percentage you need to resize your screenshot to.
7. Resize the image to RESIZE_PERCENTAGE and change your display back to its native resolution. You should now have a comparative view of what that resolution would look like on a 13.3" LCD panel, accurately depicted on your display's native resolution.

This obviously doesn't work across different aspect ratios (e.g. standard vs widescreen), and it's not particularly useful if the resolution you'd like to evaluate is higher than that of your current LCD display (you can decrease your resolution, but you can't increase it above its native resolution). However, if you're looking at going from a desktop PC to a notebook or simply a larger notebook to a smaller one, this is one way to get a feel for the different display size and resolution.

Thanks, PhoenixFX and jonlumpkin for helping me work through my own display dillemma. Now that I can see what they look like, all that's left is to decide which size/resolution I prefer. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with any nifty formulas for that one.