Ugly 10 pt. fonts on Thinkpads???

I was happy with my present laptop until it self-destructed -- apparently a motherboard problem. So I'm looking to replace it, and I'm tninking of a Thinkpad, because
a) I can get it with Windows XP,
b) Thinkpads are reliable, which is very important to me,
c) To my surprise, I might be able to find an affordable Thinkpad,
d) The supporting software is well-designed, which is another plus, and the pointing stick for moving the cursor is a very nice feature. (My previous laptop had one, and -- having tried out the Thinkpads in a store -- I find that the Thinkpad pointing stick is even better.)

So I went to a store to look over the Thinkpads and other laptops, to see what variant to order (or even if they had a good deal at the store itself - they dropped the price for a refurbished R50 from $550 to $453.). I checked out various things people mentioned in this forum, such as screen quality. (Yes, they are not as bright as other laptops, but they still have a beautiful display.)

But there was one surprising and unexpected problem. I still have a hard time believing it, and hope people will tell me that I have made some ridiculous error. But I do word processing, and I found something that really bothered me, and it was the same in all three Thinkpads I was able to try out in the store: a refurbished R50, a new R60, and a new T60.

I went into WordPad and typed something. To my surprise the letters turned out dotty and ugly in the default font, Arial 10 point. I really would not rather have to manipulate large amounts of type with a screen display like that. And I do have to use 10 point fonts in my work.

I thought maybe it was the Arial font. But it was the same in all fonts, such as Times New Roman. In fact, Times New Roman was particularly ugly at 14 point (no longer dotty, but horribly blotchy.)

I tried larger sizes than 10 points. That was better, but, for example, as I mentioned, even at 14 points, the Times New Roman wasn't very good.

I thought maybe it was Wordpad, but it was the same in Notepad and some other program. Ok, that's not a very good test, but it's the best I could do in the store. I couldn't install my programs on the store's laptops.

I thought maybe it was the new widescreen or new resolutions. But no other laptops I tried out had this problem, other then the Thinkpads. (I tried four other laptops at random, from three different brand names.) The other laptops had their own font peculiarities, but they all had solid, easily readable fonts in WordPad at 10 points.

I came back home and checked out my desktop (an ordinary emachines, T3985). Maybe I had forgotten how fonts look there??? But no, its screen display in WordPad at 10 points is fine.

I'm afraid that I didn't write down as many details on the exact configurations of the Thinkpads as I should have, nor on the screen resolutions. (Well, two of the resolutions were 1024x768 and 1200x820.) But the problem seemed to be independent of the exact configuration and screen resolution. (And my desktop's resolution is currently set at 1024x768, which is the same resolution as one of the Thinkpads I tried out.)

It is very, very hard for me to believe that the Thinkpad has a problem like this. And I don't think I am overly picky. But am I overlooking something? Is there a setting that can be changed to get the usual, nice-looking appearance letters usually have on laptops? Did I just happen by coincidence to find three mal-functioningThinkpads in two stores (or, more likely, three Thinkpads that were poorly set-up for display)?

 

Try changing the font smoothing mode in display properties. Goto the 'appearance' tab and click 'effects'. The second combo box is the font smoothing modes (ClearType and Standard). Have a look at those if you can, they do help alot with LCD screens.

Grand Admiral

 

I agree! Cleartype was made for LCD monitors. Install this from Microsoft: http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/0/b7019730-0fa3-47a9-a159-98b80c185aad/setup.exe

Got it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

The ClearType tuner will show up in your control panel. Very useful!

Your sig...down with microsoft? You own XP OS's...

 

This may be a cleartype issue, but it sounds more like the displays were not set to native resolution for the LCD's. This often happens in store display models, as people mess around with the controls (not that I would do that of course). Something to check before you rule out the TP's, since I have never heard this particular complaint before...

 

Thank you, GrandAdmiral, Arkit3kt, and bsodder, for your help. It turned out that the ClearType setting was indeed the issue. It makes a tremendous difference. Once I set the T60 on the display table to ClearType, suddenly its fonts looked just like those of all the other laptops. No more dotty-looking fonts! I presume the same thing holds for the other ThinkPads. So hooray!

So back to looking for the right Thinkpad at the right price.

By the way, I don't think the problem was with customers messing around with the controls, since the problem appeared only on the Thinkpads, and it appeared on the Thinkpads in two stores. My guess is that probably the default or factory-setting on the Thinkpads is, for some reason, not to use ClearType. Maybe the font difference doesn't matter to a lot of people? But it does to me. It's pretty dramatic.

 

I know when I got my desktop I minded a hell of a lot! Luckily I knew where to go. Your welcome. Good Luck in future.

Grand Admiral