Lower resolution on a Full HD w510 laptop?

Hi all!
I'm new to these forums.
I have decided to get the thinkpad w510. But I am confused between HD+ and FHD options for the screen.
If I do get the FHD screen, can I use a lower resolution on that screen if my eyes feel strained on such high resolution? With any other resolution on FHD, like 1600x900, would the display look fuzzy because it is not the native resolution?

Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, a lower resolution on the FHD screen would give fuzzy images, as they would on all LCDs. However, you can adjust the DPI settings to increase text size if it is too small for you - Windows 7's DPI scaling is quite good, better than Vista's and far better than XP's.

 

There are all sorts of software solutions to changing the look of objects on any LCD screen, including HD ones. But the lowering of software screen resolution below the "native" (i.e. hardware) should only be the very last option, as it does fuzzy things up. That last resort option should only occur when a specific program cannot be operated correctly on a higher resolution, whatever the OS and program visual settings. 95% of programs and all OS's are much clearer with matching software and hardware resolutions.

In fact clarity (and ease on the eyes) should be greater the higher the native (hardware) resolution - but that happy match is achieved through software (OS + individual program) visual settings in each case. e.g. Firefox is much more visually adjustable (and therefore HD-friendly) than Internet Explorer - but even Internet Explorer (nor any other program I use) does not demand the lowering of the overall OS software resolution below the native on a 15.4" HD screen.

One of first things to do with OS visual settings to increase the size of screen objects on a HD screen is to increase system-wide software-PPI closer to the actual (hardware) PPI of the screen. e.g My screen (see signature below) has a hardware PPI of 147, but I operate with an OS software PPI of 125.