Z: DPI scaling/1600x900 res

If you Z-owners out there could help me, that would be really great.

So, I'm considering the Sony VAIO Z. Unfortunately, I just got a Dell XPS 15 but I had to take it back because using the 1080p screen with the smaller DPI (which I strongly prefer to use because it lessens distortion) gave me a headache every time I used it. I didn't know that would happen, I had never used a 1080p resolution before.

But I'm kind of worried about the 1600x900 resolution on the VAIO Z. Do you Z owners out there have to adjust the DPI higher with that res? Have you ever had problems with eye strain on the Z? I really can't afford to be dissatisfied with another laptop; I tried out the Z in the store, but obviously, I can't use it long enough to see if it gives me eye strain...

 

Well it differs from person to person ofcourse, so if you find 1080p on a 15 inch screen too much then most probably it would be a similar story with 1600x900 on 13.1 inch screen.

I personally am finding it a little difficult moving from 19 inch monitor to 13 inches and yes sometimes I do adjust the DPI higher. But then I have had it for just about a week now. Hopefully I'll get used to it.

P.S. What resolution/screen size do you think suits you best ?

 

I think it is great. I am even without my glasses for a few days now and still loving it. The clarity is incredible. I have not had any real long sessions (over two hours) on it, but the quality in screen is worth having to make the investment in an external monitor for the desktop for long sessions if necessary, but I do not think it will be.

But it will vary so much by person.

 

Yeah, I was worried about that, that 1080p on a 15 would be like 900p on a 13.

Ideally I'd want 1600x900 on a 15-inch. As far as I know, there is no such laptop that offers that. I hate 1366x768, I find it really crappy and subpar. Screen-size wise, I am interested in 13-15 mostly and I'd prefer 1440x900 (seems to be gone forever now) or 1600x900. 1920x1080 is just too much and 1366x768 is too little, and sadly, that's pretty much all you can get nowadays. And so that's why I'm so interested in the Sony VAIO F and Z.

Yeah, I was really impressed with the brightness and clarity of the screen. Far surpasses the VAIO F, the other laptop I'm considering, which is very faded and washed-out looking.

 

When I first was into buying a laptop 5 years ago, I fell in love with a WUXGA (1920x1200px) lenovo. As I first saw it in reallife, damn the picture on the 15,4" screen - it was incredible small (standard 96dpi). I gone away from that and bought a 1280x800 WXGA 15,4" laptop. I was happy with it for 5 years. I only used the laptop, so I got used to it. Everything was fine except sometimes I mussed the screen real estate when having plenty of windows open and side by side.

Now I am with a Z 1080 screen. In the first place I said I dont need FHD, but since I got a great deal on that machine, I took it. As I remember, the Z comes preinstalled with 125% DPI, so probably even the sony engineers thought it is too small for the average customer.
I reinstalled everything and set 125% as well and I am very happy with it now. It doesnt strain my eyes, I got nosquint firefox addon set to 125% which scales up all websites which works great. Except adobe CS5 software and Skype, there is no software where I would say font size is too tiny (those two seem to not supporting the DPI settings). I only use my Z, no external screen, no other laptop.

The big advantage is, I can get great real estate when I like to have it, the screen is ultra sharp when browsing through PDFs in full page view (this is what I really appreciate about that screen) and color reproduction as well as FHD content is displayed perfectly.

I dont want to miss my screen anymore.

 

You may find this site handy to calculate the dot pitch/pixel size of various screens and resolutions.

PX CALC: DPI Calculator with Dot Pitch, Size, Aspect Ratio, Pixels, and Megapixels

But yeah, 1080p on 15.4" is pretty much identical to 900p on 13.1".

 

I'm myopic, and have used my Z for two years at 140 DPI now, with very few problems.

It means ditching the apps that neither are DPI-aware, scales nicely, nor can use DPI scaling because they assume a too big a screen. But those are few and far between, and can almost always be substituted with something better.

The big advantage to setting the DPI to the actual DPI is that physical measurements then make sense. A 9 point font will be exactly 1/8" tall, a letter page will be exactly 8.5" wide, on all your computers and printers. You get WYSIWYG.
And you also know what font size is comfortable for you to read, whether it's 8 pt or 10 pt, and can set that font size on all your computers.

The downside is old apps that mix non-scalable elements with scalable ones (Microsoft warned devs not to do that back when Windows 2000 came out, so there's no excuse for doing that 10 years later. Sony, do you hear me?). Those will have to be run with DPI scaling, and will be blurrier as a result.

 

Best example: Sony/Qualcomms Oneclick internet manager.

 

I've had my Z13 for two days and couldn't be happier. I was coming from a 14" Thinkpad T60 with max 1024x768 resolution and a bit worried about the smaller screen and sharper resolution of the Z. Wow, were my concerns misplaced - this screen is an absolute dream.