So my next geeky project is to upgrade my 15 inch Samsung LCD to something bigger…I’m thinking of a 19 inch screen. However at work where I recently was issued a new 17 inch LCD screen I am finding that at its optimal resolution the text size is too small for me to comfortably view all day long. When I increase font size the sharpness of the letters is reduced and overall the letters appear ‘thinner’, if you know what I mean. Now I can’t play around with all the settings, for example dpi is off limits to me, as I don’t have administration rights. (Our school computers are managed by a tech team.)
Never the less, it makes me wonder about getting a bigger screen at home. It would be a shame to have to reduce the resolution in order to get readable text size and quality.
I’m particularly interested in the experiences of the older folks in the crowd, dare I say the reading glasses crowd? How do you manage you screen resolution vs text quality?
i thought the thread was lsd question for the geezers in the crowd, i thought you were gonna ask if they rememberd when lsd was banned or something, cause we were just gonna learn about that
The funny thing about LCD monitors is that most 17" LCDs and 19" LCDs have the same native resolution of 1280 x 1024. Go figure. Two extra inches on a 19" LCD and they don’t use that space to add more pixels. I don’t really understand that, but that’s the way it is.
15" LCDs typically have a native resolution of 1024 x 768
17" and 19" LCDs typically have a native resolution of 1280 x 1024
With a 19" LCD which means that text will be bigger, but the pixels are also bigger. Text characters are going to be made up of the same number of pixels on both a 17" and 19" LCD since they both run at the same resolution. So the advantage of a 19" is that the text will be bigger. Check out a 17" and 19" LCD at a store side by side. See how the text size look in each and you can decide if that difference is worth the extra cost for a 19".
With an LCD you generally want to run them at their native resolution. Any other resolution is done by interpolating and resampling. Best text and image quality is going to be at the native resolution.
I have no problems with the text size on a 17" LCD, but I’m also not a geezer yet. I also haven’t broken down and admitted that I might need glasses yet either (I’m in total denial).
Windows does have an option for “large fonts”. It makes all the fonts larger but causes problems with some applications where text will no longer fit properly inside a dialog box or other UI elements. Windows Vista is supposed to fix that problem if you have a computer that is able to run the fancy new eye candy UI. We’ll have to wait and see on that. I’m starting to ramble so I’ll stop.
John is dead on (as usual). You’re probably best served by a 19". It has better readability at it’s native resolution then probably any other monitor. Jump to a 20" and your resolution goes to 1600x1200 and everything gets small again. A 17" has the same number of pixels as a 19" they’re just smaller. Running an LCD at anything other than it’s native resolution is just ugly.
Isn’t their something called cleartext on Windows, which does some anti-aliasing to make the text clearer on LCD screens?
I don’t know… I need glasses, but I’m near sighted so looking at an LCD screen doesn’t affect me much.
You definitely do not want to run the resolution at anything but the native resolution for an LCD screen. Adjust the fonts and other settings instead, you should be able to find somethig that works for you.
They haven’t been there yet. None of the screen sizes will make your eyes 30 years old again. Go to the dollar store and get some reading glasses. I use diopter 2.00 for reading books, newspapers, magazines. I use diopter 1.25 for viewing a computer screen at a comfortable distance. I use diopter 1.00 for kitchen work and can still see across the room easily with them. I use diopter 3.50 for close shop work and can’t see further than a meter with them on.
Grab a bunch of diopter values and find out which one is comfortable at the distance you want. At dollar stores in the US you can literally get a pair for a dollar. You should be able to find the equivalent in Canada. We have pairs of them color coded all over the house. They do not make your eyes weaker. Age does that on its own.
I hate anti-aliasing - it just makes everything look fuzzy and out of focus to me. It actually starts to make me feel ill after a bit. Some people seem to love it though.
Regarding screen choice, I use a 17" LCD at work (at 1280x1024) and don’t have any problems with the text size, but my eyesight is still pretty good. I’m not a fan of LCD screens though, mainly because of the fixed resolution a questionable colour reproduction (although that’s improving) - I still use my trusty old iiyama 17" CRT at home, in varying resolutions from 1024x768 to 1600x1200 depending what I’m doing (it’s mostly set at 1152x864 for normal work). Can’t do that with an LCD.
Seventeen inches which is actually 16 inches diaganol viewing length. I’m looking at one right now with 1.25 diopter reading glasses at a distance that I can comfortably vary from 0.3m to 1.0m. Without the reading glasses I can’t really read the screen at all.
If I see you again, remind me to show you how to make a pinhole lens out of your fingertips. It has served me well many times when I had no reading glasses and had to read some small amount of text.
I say always get the biggest monitor you can. My girlfriend HATES my 21" CRT (19.8 viewable) with a passion. 1600x1200, which means that I can fit a ton of stuff on the screen, a page of text at a time, etc. It is a little fuzzy… officially, the monitor only does 1280x1024… but when it was made, computers couldn’t do 1600x1200 I just jack up the font size a bit. OpenOffice lets you change the viewing size (I think MS Office does also). Firefox also lets you enlarge/shrink font size on the fly (Ctrl and +, Ctrl and -).
I don’t know about Vista and fixing the font thing. If it’s only for the Aero interface, you need a nice new video card likely… Granted, you’ll get the nice new Eyecandy. Or run linux now with a 4 year old video card and get cooler effects now
Sorry for the threadjack, but I’ve been gushing over XGL on my desktop for a couple weeks now Check the video (XVID encoded)
My girlfriend has offered to buy me a new LCD 21"… But the only one I’ve seen that does 1600x1200 is something like $800 Cdn… and even if I did get it… I’d just hook them both up Dualhead rocks!
I just jack up the font size a bit. OpenOffice lets you change the viewing size (I think MS Office does also). Firefox also lets you enlarge/shrink font size on the fly (Ctrl and +, Ctrl and -).