Need help in optimizing laptop/monitor settings please

Hello, I'm trying to use my laptop on a dock and I have a few questions please:

The native resolution of my laptop is 1080P but when I use this resolution on the laptop screen, the text is small so I have to zoom in. However, when I hook it up to a larger 1080P monitor, the text is fine.

Now I have a dock and would like to display text at the default 100% zoom level on the monitor but at a 125% when I take my laptop off the dock. However, this is not happening. Whatever settings I have on the laptop, it is being shown on the monitor. For instance, right now, I have the laptop zoomed in 125% because the font size is small. But this is also on the larger monitor as well. I would like the monitor to stay zoomed at 100%.

Do I have to change the zoom settings every time?

I am sorry if this is confusing.

I would appreciate any help. Thank you!

 

While the resolution on your laptop monitor and your desktop monitor may be the same, but if the monitors are a different physical size (such as 15.6" and 24"), then the pixel density will be different. This is why the text appears larger on the larger monitor and vice versa, even at the same resolution.

You can modify this behavior by changing the DPI settings on your laptop to make the text look bigger while still using the 1080p resolution by increasing this value (say, 125% instead of 100%), unless that's what you mean by "zooom".

 

In Windows 10, you can set the "zoom level"/DPI for individual screens in "display settings". You click on the screen you want to change, and set the DPI. Or you can use a general setting for all screens that should take into account the screen size.