Screen resolution

NewMexiKen’s laptop has a 15-inch monitor, meaning of course — as all you followers of Pythagoras know — that it is actually 12 inches wide and 9 inches high. The screen has four resolutions: 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1280 X 1024 and 1600 X 1200 (the numbers represent pixels). On my 15-inch laptop, the lowest resolution, 800 X 600, has 4,444 pixels per square inch. The higest resolution, 1600 X 1200, has 17,778 pixels per square inch. Everything is four times sharper with the higher setting, but one-fourth as large.

Many, perhaps most individuals keep the resolution at the lowest setting. That’s all there was a few years ago and that’s what they’re used to. When I acquired a 17-inch monitor I increased the resolution to 1024 X 768. I was pleased with the increased clarity. On the bigger screen everything was still large enough to read easily. My laptop has a flat display described as a “TFT active matrix.” I don’t know what the means, but it has outstanding resolution. Even though the screen is 28% smaller than the 17-inch monitor I was used to, I was able to set the resolution to 1280 X 1024 and make up in clarity what I lost in size. Each of these changes did take some getting used to.

All of which is to encourage you to experiment with the resolution of your display. With Windows that is usually done by right clicking any empty space on the Desktop (the main window). You should get a dialog box with a few tabs (Screen Saver among them). The right most one should be “Settings.” Open Settings. There should be a slider to let you adjust the screen resolution.