Question for the Z owners with 1600x900 resolution...

How do you handle 1600x900 resolution on a 13.1" screen?

I haven't seen it yet in person, but it seems like it would make everything VERY small (text, images, menus, etc).

Do you change the DPI? Do you modify any other settings? Do you get a stronger contact lens prescription?


Serious question, so thanks for your replies...

 

It really depeends on you, at times i find it a tad small but with gestures enabled on the trackpad i can use my fingers to zoom in almost any app. Sony's FN zoom buttons work with Internet Explorer out of the box, but i choose different browsers. Overall its crisp and clear! You will love it

 

I adjust the dpi so my eyes aren't strained. I think you would need at least 125% in order to read without problem. However, I would still prefer this higher resolution to lower resolution screen any day, since the texts are crisp clear and movies are a joy to watch.

 

I went to a SonyStyle store to check out the screen. The text size was set to 125%, and it was significantly larger than what I thought it would be. I ordered the 1080, I think all that squinting on the iPhone helped me prepare for it

 

your eyes might feel drastic change/uneasy at the first time using hi res screen just like me (moving from 1280x800 to 1600x900). but i get used to it already. i never change the dpi and i dont have problem reading text and already feel comfortable using 1600x900 now.

tho, my friend keep complaining whenever she use my laptop saying its way to small.

that's all for my honest feedback so far. and there is no diagonal issue on my Z (old series) too.

 

I have the DPI set to 140, since that's the DPI of the 1600x900 Z.
Because the DPI has been properly set, a 9 pt font will be exactly the same size on my laptop as on my desktop, and be the same size once I print it out too. It will just be easier to read on the devices with higher DPI (because each letter comprises more pixels).

The price to pay is older and badly coded apps that mix bitmaps and fonts. Those apps become fewer every day (after all, Microsoft had a call to action for developers about this some, oh, seven years ago), and my solution is simply to avoid these apps whenever I can -- they have already proven that they're badly coded. When I can't avoid them, I use DPI scaling, and live with the blurriness in those apps.

A few apps, like Firefox, use their own font rendering engines, and completely disregard the system's DPI settings. For those, I set the font sizes manually.

 

What about websites, whose layouts frequently mix bitmaps and fonts? In your experience, do most websites handle custom font sizes well? I only ever browse with default font size and DPI so I don't know whether most websites out there these days are coded well enough to handle custom font sizes.

 

Just came back from BestBuy, but they didn't have a Z in stock yet. Oh well.

 

I had the same concerns when I first got my 15" 1600x1200 Thinkpad T60p in 2006. The pixel density was way more than any other display I had used, notebook or otherwise. But I got used to it.

Of course, 1600x900 in a 13.3" screen is even more dense. And I really don't like changing native DPI settings. I did a simulation in Photoshop as best I could, and I think even my 40-year old eyes will be able to tolerate it for extended durations. As it stands, though, my notebook will be attached to 22-24" monitors 90% of the time (at home and at work), so it's largely a moot issue for me.

If you look on the BB website, it's an "Online Only" item, which is true of many of their higher-end products. (I think a $1700 laptop falls in that category. ) It might never be a regularly-stocked item at stores.

 

I've got the 1600*900 resolution. Windows 7 allows text size adjustment. At 100%, it's too small to be comfortable for me. I use 125%. Also firefox has a plug in called Default Full Zoom level which can automatically set web page zoom. The default webpage and text are again too small. The zooming at times can mess up the layout though. Also some items like charts in a webpage cannot be zoomed. buggered! But otherwise i like the extra workspace with this resolution.

 

Yeah, I have 1600x900 now on my 16.4" laptop so I'm familiar with the resolution... but there's a BIG difference between 1600x900 on a 16.4" vs. 1600x900 on a 13.1"