Screen Size, Resolution, Readability & Eyestrain

[jaymz]

My new T61 15.4" WSXGA+ has just arrived, and sadly everything on the screen is far too small for me to read comfortably. Scaling isn't really an option for me, so I'm shopping around for a better display. I thought I should share what I've found for people who haven't yet purchased.

The readability (or Pixels Per Inch) on a screen can easily be calculated given the size of the screen and the number of pixels (resolution). This site makes it easy : http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html

I'm young, with good eyesight, and I have figured that 110-115 ppi is about my optimum resolution. Any less and it is an inefficient use of space; any more and there's just too much strain on my eyes. Small text is also more difficult to focus on when in moving vehicles such as a car/plane.

Here are the options for the T61 series

15.4" WUXGA+ (1920x1200) = 147 PPI
15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) = 129 PPI
14.1" SXGA+ (1400X1050) = 124 PPI
14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900) = 120 PPI
14.1" WXGA (1280x800) = 107 PPI

My 15" SXGA+ IPS T42 = 116 PPI (Slightly Too Small For Me)
My 12" XGA X30 = 106 PPI (Too Big, But Very Easy To Read)

Windows does provide various workarounds that allow you to scale the fonts and use bigger icons, and most web browsers do have tools that allow you to scale text and sometimes images. But as a web developer, scaling text and images is not really a viable long-term solution for me. Besides it seems like a poor workaround for having ordered the wrong display.

Now, I'm not sure if it is just me (and all the Mac users out there), but why don't we a T61 in this 'readable' range. I am completely missing why anyone would want UXGA. - Maybe my eyes aren't that good after all! There was a guy in the coffee shop the other day squinting at his UXGA T60, and he seemed to be doing ok. But I wonder how good his eyesight will be in 20 years?

So, thinkpad engineers... if you're reading this please can we have a 15.4" WXGA+ (1440x900) at an easily readable 110ppi. - In the meantime, I'm going to downgrade to a 14" WXGA and save my eyes.

[SHoTTa35]

a 14" WXGA+ would suit you nicely. You should get that one instead of the WXGA as it'll kill ya when trying to read pages, the top graphics alone take up half the browser... that's not including all the tool bars you are going to install.

The veritical height is what makes those pixels smaller. So SXGA+ at 1050 vertifcal pixels is too slightly too small then the WXGA+ at 900 pixels should be just right but as you said they don't make em in 15.4"s.

good eyesight tho? How good cuz i can't use anything lower than SXGA+ = i'm 26 with kinda ok sight... it's gotten worse cuz i used to be 20/20.. now i'm 20/25 i think.

[alacrityathome]

jaymz,

Don't be sad.

I discovered CTRL + puts me into larger type with great clarity for web browsing.

Try it, you'll like it.

Alacrity

[jdhurst]

I finally have a T61p specified for me at my vendor that will come with a 14" screen, 1024x768 native resolution, and 4:3 aspect ratio. I don't have it yet, and I will know better when I get it, but I expect to be happy with it. ... JDH

[eyestrain]

Windows does provide various workarounds that allow you to scale the fonts and use bigger icons, and most web browsers do have tools that allow you to scale text and sometimes images. But as a web developer, scaling text and images is not really a viable long-term solution for me. Besides it seems like a poor workaround for having ordered the wrong display.

I've the same res and size screen, and am really happy with the windows and Firefox adjustments for text size. Would be even happier with WUXGA. You can make text as large as you want, within reason, and these days everything seems to handle it OK. (Wasn't always so.) A high res screen will allow text to have smooth edges, instead of blocky.

As a web developer, perhaps you have different issues though.


Here's what I do:
In Firefox, use extensions No Squint and Accessibar. No Squint allows fine tuning of font size, and remembers your setting for each site. Accessibar includes buttons to control line spacing. I move those buttons to my menu bar. For example, reading a NY Times article, you can press the Print button and read it on screen, just use the Accessibar button to make line spacing larger.
For some websites with bad design, I hit Alt-V-Y-Enter, to choose No [page] Style.

I also shut off all text smoothing, both aliasing and the LCD-rainbow-thing. And turn screen brightness down--at max it is way too bright for me.

This may be a bit off topic, but I also switch my background to black, and make text bright green. Links bright yellow, and visited links brown. Also can do similar in Adobe Reader. The high contrast, and less light, is easier on my eyes.

Windows has high contrast themes, but they don't work well-some things become invisible. With a lot of tweaking/experimenting, can be improved so nothing is invisible, except in some websites.

Many websites also insist on displaying things in black. They become invisible to me. So, if I notice that something's missing, I hit Alt-T-O-C-A-S-Enter-Dn-Dn-Enter to switch colors so I can see them. (In Options, you need to be in the Colors tab, if not, use Alt-T-O switch tab to Colors, then finish keysequence)

Apple OS-X has a great feature to switch to white on black, and it works perfectly, if you don't mind the psychodelic effect it has on colors. No hidden text anywhere, because everything is just reversed. Maybe someday, that will be available in Gnome, KDE, or X, and will be yet another reason for me to abandon Windows.

If you must put black text on a website you design, please shadow it with white or some other color (maybe matching the default background color) so I'll know it's there.

[Isaac000]

To each their own.
I'm running about 125DPI on my Thinkpad and I don't think it is enough. I'd be happy to get a 147DPI display. My prior Thinkpad was at about 110DPI and was very pleased to move up to the 125DPI. (BTW, I'm not that young anymore and I'm short-sighted).

It is really the job of the OS and software guys to make it adjustable/useable for a wide variety of people, not to have to "downgrade" the hardware. That's the equivalent of saying "Oh gosh, this movie plays too fast because my CPU is too fast. Could you please slow down clock rate?"

Please, if anyone from Lenovo is reading this thread, don't start skimping out on high pixel density displays!

[tylerwylie]

To each their own.
I'm running about 125DPI on my Thinkpad and I don't think it is enough. I'd be happy to get a 147DPI display. My prior Thinkpad was at about 110DPI and was very pleased to move up to the 125DPI. (BTW, I'm not that young anymore and I'm short-sighted).

It is really the job of the OS and software guys to make it adjustable/useable for a wide variety of people, not to have to "downgrade" the hardware. That's the equivalent of saying "Oh gosh, this movie plays too fast because my CPU is too fast. Could you please slow down clock rate?"

Please, if anyone from Lenovo is reading this thread, don't start skimping out on high pixel density displays!

There is a difference betweeen DPI and PPI

[meekus]

lolz

I do loads of CAD and web/software development and my new 15.4" WSXGA+ ThinkPad T60 is my first laptop in just over four years to have *less* than 133 ppi LCD resolution.

[w0qj]

Thanks for your GREAT tip, No Squint works great for me!
My T42 had 1400x1050 screen resolution, but my (aging) eyes are starting to feel the strain of such small word...

I especially like No Squint's ability to customize resolution for EACH web site... thanks again!

[quote="eyestrain]...In Firefox, use extensions No Squint and Accessibar. No Squint allows fine tuning of font size, and remembers your setting for each site. Accessibar includes buttons to control line spacing. I move those buttons to my menu bar. For example, reading a NY Times article, you can press the Print button and read it on screen, just use the Accessibar button to make line spacing larger.
For some websites with bad design, I hit Alt-V-Y-Enter, to choose No [page] Style.
...[/quote]

[exTPfan]

The problem is not that high dpi are hard to read --- the opposite is true --- but that programs default to assuming your screen is about 100dpi. Every program should allow you to tell it the dpi of your screen, and then change the icons and font size appropriately (Firefox used to allow you to do that, but then changed nothing).
Most programs allow you to enlarge fonts.
Personally, I think 300dpi would be wonderful (most of our printers are 600dpi), but with today's programs and their limitations, everyone has to choose the resolution they are happiest with.

[eyestrain]

Glad to help, w0qj.

Happily, it looks like the extension is being updated for Firefox 3, so we can keep using it when switch to the next Firefox.

[dozer]

The problem is not that high dpi are hard to read --- the opposite is true --- but that programs default to assuming your screen is about 100dpi.

Every program should allow you to tell it the dpi of your screen, and then change the icons and font size appropriately.

That is exactly right.

As usual, it's amateurish software-development that bites us in the butt.

What's even more disgusting, and frustrating, is that the devs KNEW about this issue of readability and accessibility.

Just look in your Windows display/properties window....right there is an Appearance tab with font-size settings for half a dozen items to accomodate different screens, and eyes.

So WHY didn't they include a setting for the ONE font that's used practically EVERYWHERE...the "MS Shell Dlg" dialog-box font? (which is also used in entire 'main' areas of most apps).

UFB...

As far as I can tell, it's hard-coded somewhere in either the OS (likely) or the apps to be 8 point...and with no user control over it whatsoever.

So even when you get your dpi set, and your title-bar size and text fixed, and your pop-up text-size fixed, etc. etc.....STILL every single [censored] dialog-box will have tiny little type in it. And even worse, tiny little >single-pixel stroke-weight< letters in it.

ARRGGHGHH....



Well, here's one 'fix' you can do, which I haven't seen mentioned on this forum yet; and which I've only just figured out myself (after solid freaking -days- of worrying at this frustrating yet critical bone)...

Go into regedit, find the font substitution section, wait...I have the keyname in a notes file...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes

...and change the font currently assigned as shell dialog to something with a heavier stroke-weight (i.e. bold).

I have not yet found a way to stick it to the hard-coding and change the default point-size....but this change to bold helps a LOT on a 15" uxga and older eyes!

Now, when you replace the original font with something else, the new font will likely have wider letters; and that can cause the text to run off the end of fields in a lot of dialog-boxes.

Soo...it seemd to me the smart play was to focus on fonts that have a 'condensed' variation of their boldface.

I'm currently trying out these two:

Swiss 721 Bold Condensed BT
Swiss 721 Black Condensed BT

They don't seem to be the highest quality fonts on the planet, but the eyestrain-reduction is enormous; compared to the OEM fonts.

Those are only the first ones I tried. I went right to Helvetica (i.e. 'swiss') because I knew from past experience that it has more variations available than almost any other font made....and thus, I knew there'd be a selection of 'condensed' versions available.

I'll probably go back and try Tahoma too; now that I've seen there's a bold face available in that. Verdana is another I'll play with.

ps; here's a link with a tiny bit of info in it...

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archiv ... x?mfr=true

pps; yes, NoSquint is a big help in FF.

ppps; below is a note I found on the web just this morning...essentially exactly what I've done already (above)...but he also goes on to talk about conversion between outline and raster fonts.

That was very intriguing; because it gave me an idea for a possible way of 'fooling' the windows/apps about the point-size.

I.e., convert your choice of font into raster, but mess with the location/labeling of each size in the output file...so that the one labeled '8 point' is actually 9, or 10...etc....

I acquired Font Creator 5.5 to give that a try, but it turns out not to even handle raster fonts at all; so that was a bust. When I get time to delve into it again, I'll find a program that does, and give it a go.

Hope this 'fix' helps a few folks like me with UXGA....and please, everyone, keep digging, and keep posting.

(yes I know vista does 'scaling', but I doubt I'll ever run that OS in this lifetime...I'm still on win2k...lol...)


In the meantime, here's that note...

MS shell dialog font

"MS Sans Serif" is the font seen everywhere in Windows, also on all the "OK", "Apply" buttons, tab titles etc.

It's also the one font you can't change by "display properties".

Here's how to change it, but beware: using an improper font can resize a lot of dialogs and more, making your system hard to handle... so stick to the common, well designed fonts.

In Windows 2000, open the registry and go to;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes.

Select the string value "MS Shell Dlg" and rename that to whatever font that you want it to use (check naming rules above).

It's the size of the alternative that can give you trouble. Tahoma is a bit wider and will disorder, for instance, the color choice dialogs. A way around this issue is to create a bitmapped version of the font (.ttf to .fon) at the size you'd like and/or works, if you've got the software to make them. For Tahoma, usually 8.

We got the conversion done with the trial version of Softy. Be sure to also change the name/header information in the font. If not done, you'll place a font (be it a .fon instead of .ttf) with the same name as allready present in the fonts folder, and you'll see explorer crashing immediately, Windows only starting up in safe mode etc... Another cheap and pretty good application is Font Creator, by High-Logic.

Note #3: while most applications call for "ms shell dlg", some call up ms sans serif directly... you might encounter some preferences dialogs etc with extreme font sizes, messed etc anyway, with the font missing in Win 9x...