Thinkpads Forum

yesterday I tested a 15" notebook on display at a local store with 1920x1080 native res. I then tried to lower the resolution to 1600x900. while the pictures, icons and text look bigger(obviously) it seems to look much less sharper than the fullHD res.

will this be the same case if I choose a 1600x900 panel on the t530? Does the 1920x1080, 1600x900 and 1366x768 use the same panel?

No, it's not the same panel. Best thing is to select a panel with the resolution you really want because scaling is not perfect as you've noticed.

In my opinion around 130DPI is an optimal balance between space and accesibility, which means 1600x900 on a 14" screen. For 15.6 screens there seems to be a gap in options, 1920x1080 at 140 DPI (too high) and 1600x900 at 120 DPI (a bit low). I would choose the later.

What you saw when you changed the resolution below the screen's native resolution is called interpolation. It is less noticeable on images, but the text will drive anyone crazy. You can read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_scaling

If you get the 1600x900 panel and leave it in 1600x900, it will be perfect. If you try to reduce it down to 1366x768, you will experience interpolation again.

Murcielago wrote:yesterday I tested a 15" notebook on display at a local store with 1920x1080 native res. I then tried to lower the resolution to 1600x900. while the pictures, icons and text look bigger(obviously) it seems to look much less sharper than the fullHD res.

will this be the same case if I choose a 1600x900 panel on the t530? Does the 1920x1080, 1600x900 and 1366x768 use the same panel?

The screens above are (obviously) different What is also different is their "pixel density", usually measured in DPI.

The first rule on LCD-like screen resolution is that you ALWAYS want to run at PRECISELY the native resolution. The key to having things still looking great at a very high resolution on a screen smaller than 23'' is HIGH-DPI awareness - which means that you should run something like Win7 and set the DPI-scaling as close to the real value you have on the screen. In my personal experience screens like 1600x900 look very good on 15'' screens with scaling set in the range 100%-125% and on 14'' with a range 125%-150%, but a 15'' 1920x1080 would require scaling in the range of at least 150%-200%. (the values I quote are those to be set in Win7 in Control Panel -> Display; the lower number might be ideal if you are in your 20s but towards your 40s or 50s you might learn to appreciate scaling things larger). The only drawback is that some programs are not 100% HIGH-DPI aware - normally those are automatically scaled by Win7 but in some cases you might still see programs that refuse the Win7 scaling mechanism and then look ridiculously on the screen.

thanks catalinus


anyway is 1920x1080 at 125% scaling a waste and similar to 1600x900??