Screen resolution & pixel size & screen text size

[mgmg]

I have two laptops. One is 14" with 1366x768 resolution and the other is 17.3" with 1900x1080 resolution.

My understanding is that resolution means the number of pixels in given screen size. So horizontally, 14" pixel size is (14/1366) inches while 17.3" pixel size is (17.3/1900) inches.

So proportionally, for each pixel, 14" pixel size is

((14/1366) - (17.3/1900))/(17.3/1900) * 100 percent which is roughly 12% larger than 17.3" pixel size.

So for each pixel, 14" is 12% larger than 17.3", a text with multiple pixels will have a much larger combined percentage effect on 14" than on 17.3".

Am I right?

 

[Cerb]

Displays are measured by the diagonal. So, trig or the Pythagorean theorem? I'll go with Pythagoras, because I am arithmetically lazy, today.

sqrt( 1920^2 + 1080^2 ) = 2202.9 px diagonal (approximate) / 17.3" = 127.34 dpi
sqrt( 1366^2 + 768^2 ) = 1567.1 px diagonal (approximate) / 14" = 111.94 dpi

So, the 14" should have pixels about about 14% taller and wider than the 17.3"

 

[bendixG15]

Read all about it here .............

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel

 

[mgmg]

Displays are measured by the diagonal. So, trig or the Pythagorean theorem? I'll go with Pythagoras, because I am arithmetically lazy, today.

sqrt( 1920^2 + 1080^2 ) = 2202.9 px diagonal (approximate) / 17.3" = 127.34 dpi
sqrt( 1366^2 + 768^2 ) = 1567.1 px diagonal (approximate) / 14" = 111.94 dpi

So, the 14" should have pixels about about 14% taller and wider than the 17.3"

But on Internet Explorer 8/9, majority of the texts on 14" is Arial size 11 while on 17.3" the same texts is Arial size 7. Now the difference is more than 57%. How to explain this?

 

[Cerb]

But on Internet Explorer 8/9, majority of the texts on 14" is Arial size 11 while on 17.3" the same texts is Arial size 7. Now the difference is more than 57%. How to explain this?

I don't.

If you're at native resolution, with the same Windows DPI (default: 96), you should check font sizes by measuring a large sized font in a word processor, where things are measured in real-world units at a certain ratio of pixels per such units. Two different browser versions, which could have vastly different settings, interpretations of stylesheets, and underlying Windows settings, are basically useless.