New Member question about resolution and screen size, etc

Hello, for my first post here I would like to pose a question about native resolutions, operating resolutions, etc. I will try to be thorough without being overdrawn:

I had the chance to play around with a friend's 15.6" Latitude 5540 with a 1080p display. My first impression was that the display was nice however things like the icons, windows bars, chrome web browser controls, etc. all seemed to be a bit small for my eyes. We went and tried changing the operating resolution for Windows but were surprised to see that there weren't really any other resolution settings that fit the widescreen. Then, we tried changing the setting (which I believe controls the DPI scaling of the OS? It says "make text and other items smaller or larger") up to 150% from the default 125%. This produced a result similar to what I was looking for. The icons grew and everything was relatively more visible, however I noticed a bit of blurriness on some things.

So now I am left with a bit of confusion as to why this would occur. Also, I am trying to understand the effective difference between
1. Using a 1080p display at native resolution with Windows 7 "Make text larger" setting
and
2. Using say a 768p (the other screen available on this computer) at its native resolution.

I hope I was clear enough in my wording. Basically what this comes down to is a decision; 1080p or 768p on a 15.6" Windows 7 Laptop
Thanks

 

Well, generally a higher-resolution display will be of overall higher quality than a lower-resolution display (things like color, contrast, etc.). Honestly, 768p displays almost always look like utter garbage, no two ways about it. Not to mention the fact that you lose out on a *lot* of screen real estate with 768p vs 1080p:

Spoiler

768p:


900p:


1080p:

You could change up the DPI settings if you like, though personally I keep mine at 100% ("smaller") as it makes things appear more sharp-looking. Really, I don't see why it's a problem to have things appear smaller on the display, as when you're using the display properly (not too far away from your face, not too close), you should be able to see everything just fine provided you have normal vision or you have glasses/contacts to correct yourself to normal vision (as I have, since I'm very nearsighted).

 

1600x900p for 15.6" is good. 1600X1000 WOULD BE PERFECT IMO.

 

Eh, why settle for 1600x1000 (or 900) when 1920x1080 offers a non-trivial increase in pixels?

 

Because it is a good balance of resolution and eye comfort.

I know a LOT of people have switched to lower resolution displays as they aged. Most of them have said it's because the higher resolution displays would cause eye fatigue quicker than their lower resolution counterparts. I can attest to this personally. If I were to upgrade the LCD in my Latitude E6520 from 1366x768, it would not be to 1920x1080 but to 1600x900 or whatever the middle res is.

If I had my choice though, I would still be using 16:10 instead of 16:9. But that's a whole different conversation.

 

One issue with 1080 on a 15" or less is the scaling (125 or 150 % ...) works on the desktop, internet explorer and some programs but not all. Personally when I run windows I always use native (100%) resolution to avoid blurriness and as Jarhead mentioned the quality of the display. I had to get a new eyeglass prescription when I went to 1080 on a 17 " screen. Now I have 1080 on a 14" and I am happy with it.

 

That's the part some missed sometimes-I used the setting "Native Resolution" as that works better for the graphics and on my desktop it runs at 1920x1080 native. And this works fine for my usage and gaming. That setting is best optimized for the LCD performance and viewing. Any other settings might do a dis-service to LCD itself. But Desktop has alot more viewing space options compared to laptop. But for me the higher the resolution on smaller screen isn't the best viewing or usage unless it was say a 17" at 1920x1080 that I can still live with as I have a few 17" that are that resolution and one I think at 1440x1280 and that make the icon look slightly bigger but still pretty good on the eyes.

 

You wouldn't believe how many people I have to deal with that use non-native settings on laptops because the DPI is higher than 100 on the things, I usually raise the scaling settings while resetting the resolution to native, then showing how crisp everything is.

But then I get problems because a program has to be run with the desktop at 1024x768

IMO, I'll take a 1080p 15.6 at 100% scaling over anything else (well, maybe at 14, I think I could tolerate that as well).

 

Ok so say I have a 1080p display but am using at at a lower resolution, maybe 720p. Is this the same as using Windows 7 scaling feature? (100%, 125%, 150%)? I guess I am still confused about what this Windows feature actually does compared to just changing the resolution setting in the control panel.

 

Nope, setting the monitor to 720p versus using 150% scaling will look different. 150% scaling will have sharper, crisper graphics.

It's kind of like expanding an image. Let's say you have a picture of a goat in .BMP format that you open in Microsoft Paint. This is your base, 1080p, 100% scaling image. Now you go in and you stretch the image by 50% in each direction. That's the equivalent of 720p - everything's bigger, but, like your goat image, it's no longer so crisp.

150% scaling is the equivalent of starting with a .SVG image of the same size as your BMP of the goat, and then scaling it by 50%. It will be bigger, but just as sharp and crisp as the original.

The technical details differ a little bit, but that's the essence of the difference.

 

OK. There is a sale on a build with the 1080p display that is a better deal than a similar 768p.
The only reason I was considering the 768p display was because I thought it would better suit my needs for larger icons etc., at native resolution, rather than using a scaled setting on 1080p. I was told that I may have issues with some applications on a scaled resolution.
But now it seems that the general consensus is that it's better to use the scaled 1080p display.

Side note--Is the Windows scaling function the same as Apple's?

 

Windows still has issues with Retina-like resolutions (like 1800p), but for 1080p it's basically just like Apple's (though Apple used to only go up to 1050p pre-Retina).

 

There's no point in getting higher than 1080p on a laptop display because of Windows scaling.

Beamed from my G2 Tricorder

 

I look at it this way. Although you couldn't fine how but you can select a lower resolution setting. But on 768 p screen you can't go higher. So your stuck if you don't like it. I remember I bought a 1600 X 900 17.3" laptop and hated it and I will never ever go the low of resolution on a laptop. I will pay the extra dollars.

 

Well the 4K laptops are coming Toshiba is leading the way. The Toshiba P55t packs a 15.6-inch Ultra HD display with a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and a pixel density of 282 PPI.

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