Tip: Consider pixel pitch (affects font sizes) when you buy an LCD monitor

[webazoid]

I've run into countless friends (novices) who go out of their way to buy the fanciest lcd monitors with the highest resolution. When they configure a dell laptop, they buy the highest resolution they could get. However, the only thing they do with the laptop is mainly text-based (like word processor, browser) and they complain why their font sizes are so small. They end up putting switching the resolution lower than their native resolutions, which causes text to appear terribe--jagged, blurry, and distorted. Here's an article to read for people to consider when buying an lcd:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/featured_article6_page1.html

Here's table of pixel pitch that I've put together. The higher the pixel pitch, the larger the fonts will be on screen:

Pixel Pitch Size Length Width Wide Laptop
0.2977 15 1024 768
0.2944 19 1280 1024
0.2917 20.1 1400 1050 W
0.2903 20 1400 1050 W
0.2842 19 1440 900 W
0.2821 22 1680 1050 W
0.2778 14 1024 768
0.2692 19 1920 1200 W
0.2634 17 1280 1024
0.2591 15.4 1280 800 W Laptop
0.2564 20 1680 1050 W
0.2553 20.1 1600 1200 W
0.2543 17 1440 900 W
0.2373 14.1 1280 800 W Laptop
0.2036 12.1 1280 800 W Laptop

***http://www.thirdculture.com/joel/shumi/computer/hardware/ppicalc.html has pixel pitch calculator.

 

[Munky]

That's one of the reasons I'm staying away from LCD's. Even on my CRT, I use a smaller desktop resolution than in my games, so the text is easier to read.

 

[Noema]

Here's a great site for calculating pixel density at any given resolution (as well as other nifty things, like how a 52" TV compares to a 17" screen in size, and the like) which I think is also important to consider when buying LCDs.

I have a 22" 1680x1050 LCD and it looks great. Pixel density is a wee bit lower than I'd like (specially compared to my older 17" which now functions as a secondary monitor) but it is still pretty good. Pixel pitch is not so small that it makes things hard to read, not large enough to look pixelated.

I can't imagine how a 17" scree at 1920x1200 on a laptop looks like, as I've never seen one in person, but those sure are some tiny pixels! I imagine lots of people just tune it down (and make it look horrible in the process...a coworker of mine sets her 24" WS Dell to 1024x768. What a waste.)

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Can't you just, y'know, up the DPI or font size in windows?

 

[alaricljs]

Not exactly. all the way through XP font scaling has been pretty badly supported. There's no 1 settings to do it, and then you go into an application and it ignores the settings anyhow. Vista was supposed to fix the issues, but I have no idea since I won't touch it with someone else's 10ft pole.

 

[CP5670]

On XP, the DPI and font settings aren't a realistic option. They don't have any effect in half the programs out there.

I've seen some people with these kinds of laptops and most of them prefer to run at a much lower resolution, even it makes things blurry. The text is microscopic otherwise.

 

[yacoub]

If you read things in Word or Acrobat, they both offer zoom options.
If you read things in your web browser, you can increase the text size there as well.

No reason to buy an inferior monitor and then have to suffer with large pixel pitch in movies, games, photos, etc.

 

[PingSpike]

This is one of the reasons I wanted a 22" WS LCD. I had a 20" but it could be hard to read text sometimes...I felt like I was leaning in all the time.

 

[webazoid]

Originally posted by: yacoub
If you read things in Word or Acrobat, they both offer zoom options.
If you read things in your web browser, you can increase the text size there as well.

No reason to buy an inferior monitor and then have to suffer with large pixel pitch in movies, games, photos, etc.

if u go to some sites like espn.com, u can't just press ctrl+ to increase font sizes proportionately to the page. the formatting gets screwed. w/ dvd's at 720x480, u don't gain anything with having more resolutions than u need. that's why SDTV at 480 looks terrible on HDTV sets whose resolutions may be 1333x768, 1024x768, 1920, etc....

i don't know of many games that run at anywhere near 1920.

 

[Matthias99]

i don't know of many games that run at anywhere near 1920.

Most remotely modern games will run at just about any resolution you want. If it doesn't support widescreen you can run 1600x1200 and just have black bars on the sides. Of course you need a pretty hefty video card to run newer games at 1920x1200 or 1600x1200 with quality settings turned up...

Text scaling is iffy. For office-type stuff or webpages that are mostly text it works OK (unless you have some goofy app you have to use that has horrible font scaling support). For Flash websites or ones with lots of graphics mixed with text it's often not really feasible.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: munky
That's one of the reasons I'm staying away from LCD's. Even on my CRT, I use a smaller desktop resolution than in my games, so the text is easier to read.

no reason to stay away. i use 1029x768 on my desktop even though the native is 12x10 . looks fine to me.