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Question

choosing new laptop - which screen resolution?

Mar 25, 2016 8:44AM PDT

Text size and quality are really important to me. I'm concerned that if I choose a laptop with a 1920 x 1080 resolution the text will be too small. Could someone confirm whether I can adjust the DPI without degrading the text quality [grainy or blurry] and/or making images look terrible. I've read comments online that suggest this could potentially happen. The screen I'm looking at would be HD, backlit & 15.6". Maybe another screen size would be better with the higher resolution??? I need text quite large for comfortable browsing. I currently use 1368x768 on a 15.6" screen. Font size set at 16 in Firefox. 17 for Chrome.
Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Answer
should be able to use lesser resolution
Mar 25, 2016 8:58AM PDT

I run my monitor at 1024 x 768 even though it can do a higher resolution.

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Run monitor at lower resolution?
Mar 28, 2016 7:08AM PDT

Sorry to say that, but with all digital screens today (LCD, Plasma, LED, OLED or whatever) that leads to a less than perfect rendition.

On the good old cathode ray tubes (CRTs) you could often configure very high resolutions that the tube was not displaying very well, There you could gain quality by running at a reduced resolution.

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Allways go with highest resolution as you
Mar 25, 2016 10:12AM PDT

can set it down but you can't make it go above max. This is especially good if your viewing pictures and movies. It email and spread sheets it not as big a difference. I always got for the higher resolution.

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Windows 8 and 10 can increase font sizes so
Mar 25, 2016 12:16PM PDT

Which means you can get the 1080 and get bigger fonts. You can also tinker with other resolutions and go with what you like.

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That's an easy one ....
Mar 25, 2016 5:22PM PDT

resolution, screen size, memory, harddrive - the answer is all the same - AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD - because someday very soon (less than 5 years according to condescending comments from an Apple executive!) it will be your old machine and you WILL run into occasions where whatever you have could be more useful if it were more - and you'll wish you had. Unless of course ALL you do with your computer is email and facebook and that is all you will ever do - in that case HD resolution is good enough - even 720p. I'm not saying "break the bank" but just as much as you can afford. On the other hand if gaming is your thing - you'll never have enough!

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You would take higher-res in favor of battery life?
Mar 26, 2016 10:03AM PDT

Ted, there aren't many 4k, QHD, etc. laptops that get more than 6hr usable battery life - often times more like 4 if you're running premiere or photoshop.
Why not stick to FHD for a mobile unit and just get an external 4k monitor you can hook up to the laptop's HDMI 2 or mimiDP?
Would you choose high-res over battery life?

Also Hubr1s, Windows 10 has done a lot to help with scaling, even if you get a 4k unit you should be able to go into settings and choose to make everything or just text on the screen larger.
Chrome font settings: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/96810?hl=en

I had an Asus with FHD, worked fine for me. (when in doubt: cntl and + or - OR cmnd and + or - for Mac)

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Separate in your mind ...
Mar 28, 2016 7:04AM PDT

... screen resolution and text size.

Aside from the command prompt screen there is very little left on a personal computer today where the text fonts couldn't be scaled to exactly the size you like and if you have so many pixels on your screen then more of them will go into drawing a single character, giving it more detail, which is easy on the eye. And when you look at graphics or photos the extra pixels will go towards making the image appear more detailed, sharp and vivid. Provided, of course, that the pixels were in the picture to start with.

So, yes, the only reason to go for a lower resolution screen is the budget. There may still be a small issue with battery life and CPU capacity to compute contents with more pixels, but most of the time the systems you can buy today are reasonably well balanced.