T61p screen quandry

[CraigT]

So, I've had the T61P 15.4" WSXGA+ running XP for a week. I love everything about it other than the screen. I've read here about other people with the same impression. I do have some issue with the screen itself (dull/washed out/dim lower corners) but after endless tweaking with the NVIDIA controls I can deal. My major issue I think has to do with resolution. The native resolution makes things too small so I scale everything up. However, scaling web pages distorts images. I made the mistake of checking out the MacBook Pro and their 15.4" WSXGA screens seem to be the perfect resolution to allow readability without having to scale anything. Their screen quality overall seems better as well. Lenovo doesn't seem to offer a 15.4" WSXGA screen on anything. So, I've been debating what to do.

1 - just deal with what I've got distorted images and all.
2 - exchange T61P for lower model T61 running WXGA. WXGA seems too large to me but at least I can legibly display everything at its normal scale.
3 - swap out my WSXGA+ screen with a WSXGA screen. Is this possible?
4 - return T61P and get MacBook Pro. I like the MacBook Pro but it seems rather flimsy and I am concerned about durability when I take it to jobsites where I program industrial controls.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[eyecon82]

i originally had a 15 in WS with wxga+..found it too small for me and went with option 2.

i went down to a 14 in since the 15in was too big for me and went with wxga...i love it..i find it perfect!

i don't do any type of coding that would require extra real estate

[rxblitzrx]

I'd keep it and just scale everything up to 120 dpi. I use Firefox as my browser with an AddOn called "NoSquint" It's a simple program that adds one nice feature to the original zooming tool, it remembers your zoom settings for each site.

I have gmail at 130%, Thinkpad forums at 120%, etc... the pictures dont' get scaled in Firefox so all you get is larger text. I personally don't mind the out-of-proportion websites as long as I can read what I need to. You get used to it after a little while. To me, the extra screen real estate is worth it for when you need it.

[flashstar]

I've heard that Vista has some improvements in the readability sector. Other than that, I don't know what to recommend.

[Ideasmiths]

I'd keep it and just scale everything up to 120 dpi. I use Firefox as my browser with an AddOn called "NoSquint" It's a simple program that adds one nice feature to the original zooming tool, it remembers your zoom settings for each site.

I have gmail at 130%, Thinkpad forums at 120%, etc... the pictures dont' get scaled in Firefox so all you get is larger text. I personally don't mind the out-of-proportion websites as long as I can read what I need to. You get used to it after a little while. To me, the extra screen real estate is worth it for when you need it.

Fantastic recommendation. I am getting old and this addon helps B-)

[rxblitzrx]

I'd keep it and just scale everything up to 120 dpi. I use Firefox as my browser with an AddOn called "NoSquint" It's a simple program that adds one nice feature to the original zooming tool, it remembers your zoom settings for each site.

I have gmail at 130%, Thinkpad forums at 120%, etc... the pictures dont' get scaled in Firefox so all you get is larger text. I personally don't mind the out-of-proportion websites as long as I can read what I need to. You get used to it after a little while. To me, the extra screen real estate is worth it for when you need it.

Fantastic recommendation. I am getting old and this addon helps B-)

Yeah, I'm surprised it isn't on their Top 10 list of Add Ons!

[CraigT]

After some comparison I'm a little confused. I have a 15.4" XP laptop at work with WUXGA resolution. Without any scaling web pages show up larger than on my T61p with WSXGA+ resolution. How can this be?

In fact, I find text and graphics both to be perfectly readable on my work laptop. I'm having trouble with unscaled web pages on the T61p.

Cornfused

[ulrich.von.lich]

After some comparison I'm a little confused. I have a 15.4" XP laptop at work with WUXGA resolution. Without any scaling web pages show up larger than on my T61p with WSXGA+ resolution. How can this be?

In fact, I find text and graphics both to be perfectly readable on my work laptop. I'm having trouble with unscaled web pages on the T61p.

Cornfused

Are you sure they have the same font size (DPI) in Windows?

[CraigT]

Yeah, they're both at 120dpi.

[Chispad60]

Hi from Spain, I'm with the same problem in my T61p with that 15'4 WSXGA, and the native resolution is very small!! I thought this was a factory problem, so I called Lenovo, they took the computer and changed the LCD, but i think they didn't understood the problem (if this really is a problem) because today i received the computer again and it still has the same problem at 96dpi everything is small.

1. If this 96dpi size really normal (to be so small) on all t61p /15'4/WSXGA ???
2. If the only solution is to change dpi size, how to change Internet Explorer web page size/zoom??
3. How to fit other small windows and icons such as the Microsoft Office, which toolbar is so small too, even after the 120dpi configuration?

Thanks for help, very necessary because can't read with that font size and i don't want to reduce resolution quality.

Fernando S.
T61p · 15.4 WUXGA · 2.4GHz T7700 · 2GB DDR2-667 · 100GB

[CraigT]

Sorry, I was mistaken. The WUXGA was scaling the web pages. I had to make a registry change to tell windows not to do that. So, the WUXGA is actually smaller when unscaled.

However, for web pages, the unscaled Dell WUXGA is still about as readable as my unscaled Thinkpad WSXGA+. I am having a really hard time with this Thinkpad screen.

[CraigT]

snipped

You can change to higher than 120dpi if you use the "custom" setting in Display Properties.

I found that the Thinkpad does not by default come set to scale web pages. You have to add a registry entry called UseHR and set it to 1 to tell Internet Explorer to scale web pages.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa770067.aspx

Hope this helps!


MOD EDIT: CraigT, kindly, please trim down your quotes to save us some time cleaning up. Thanks.