T400 Screen Resolution Issues

Hi,

I have a work Lenovo T400 2765-21G laptop with the following specs:

Processor - P8600(2.4GHz).
RAM - 4GB.
Screen - 14.1in 1440x900 LCD WXGA (Chi Mei N141C3-L07 CCFL).
Graphics - ATI Radeon HD3470 256mb.
Graphics Driver - ATI Catalyst 3.0.790.0 (8.771.0.0) - latest available from Lenovo.
OS - Windows XP SP2.

I have the laptop set up in a stand so that I can dual screen with a second LCD monitor, which has a very readable resolution of 1280x1024.

The problem is that as the laptop native resolution is 1440x900 the readable font size difference between the two screens is quite significant. I have tried changing the resolution on the laptop from a very clear / crisp 1440x900 but no matter what resolution I try the laptop is unable to render the desktop properly and this results in a blurring of the characters.

The resolution options are:
1440x900 - Characters clear / crisp and desktop perfectly rendered
1280x1024 - Characters clear / crisp but the desktop is too narrow and tall for the screen so has black bars on the left/right and you have to scroll to see the top / bottom of the screen.
1280x800 - Characters are blurry but desktop fills the screen fully.
1280x768 - Characters are blurry and desktop is too short for the screen so there are black bars top and bottom.
1280x720 - Characters are blurry and desktop is too short for the screen so there are larger black bars top and bottom.
1280x720 - Characters are blurry and desktop is too short for the screen so there are larger black bars top and bottom.
1024x768 - Characters are only slightly blurry but desktop is too narrow for the screen so there are larger black bars left and right.
960x600 - Characters are fairly clear and desktop fits the screen but this is a bit too low a resolution for a usable desktop.

Is there anything I can do to resolve this issue? I need a resolution such as 1280x740 but as this is not available what else can I try?

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

1440x900 in the native resolution, lcd panels unlike old crt monitors, can't render lower resolution without making it blurry. Unfortunately, the only "good" resolution for your t400 display is 1440x900

 

As was said above LCDs have only 1 native resolution because they are designed for such. They have a set amount of pixels so anything else will disturb the 1:1 ratio it was designed for. You might get 1.5:1 which of-course will be blurry since 1/2 a pixel is displaying 1 thing and 1/2 for another which they aren't designed (or even capable of).

Other than getting a new laptop with 1280 x 800 resoltion or changing the LCD, the only thing you can really do (Windows XP sucks at this by the way, you need Vista or 7 for it to work really) is change the DPI of Windows. By default it's at 96DPI but something else would work. Other than that you can maybe edit text sizes in Windows display control applet under Appearance.

 

Aye I thought as much. Thanks for all your info.