why do all 17″ LCD monitors seem to require a screen resolution of 1280×1064??
i just upgraded my monitor to a NEC 17" and the native resolution on it (which is the resolution that apparently looks "best") is a whopping 1280x1024! this makes everything look ridiculously tiny and very uncomfortable to read.. decreasing the resolution makes everything a bit larger but very fuzzy text among other limitations. i did some research and it looks like most LCD 17" displays have a native resolution of 1280x1024. who was the genius that decided to make this the standard?? its terrible. can anyone recommend any decent 17" LCD monitors that DON'T require this outrageous resolution, or at least any that have a native resolution smaller than this??
i have Cleartype on and all that stuff. does anyone know of any 17" LCDs that have a native resolution of anything less than 1280x1024? i dont mind using a native resolution, just not one where everything is this tiny.
Why would you want lower. Higher native resolution is better. You can always step down, But you cannot step up. Its having more pixels than you need. You can use less. You cannot use more than you have.
Higher resolution is generally better. If it were only 1024×768 and 17", each pixel on the screen would be huge. You can go to the monitor settings in Windows and make the font and icons larger.
Because LCDs cannot display at anything other than the native resolution, it has to be high enough that the image doesn’t have to be downsampled(or worse, scrolled) to be displayed. 1280×1064 is the next size up from 1024×768, which is the current standard resolution. It seems to have been picked in anticipation of an increase of the standard res, which has not happened. Sticking with old habits is par for the course in regards to humanity and businesses.
EDIT: It’s also worth noting that scaling happens in the hardware. Older LCDs didn’t scale and simply used the appropriate number of pixels, leaving parts of the screen unused.
Individual LCDs are a particular size, and current mainstream 17" monitors use LCDs with a native resolution of 1280 x 1024. As you noticed, decreasing the resolution makes things somewhat fuzzy, and this will be the case regardless of whether you use your VGA connection or a DVI connection.
You have some alternatives. One, which many people use, is to increase the font and/or icon sizes in your display properties. Right-click on the desktop, choose Properties, Appearance tab. You may be happy with the results of just changing the font size to "Large Fonts" or "Extra Large Fonts." For more control click on the Advanced Properties button. Then click on the various items in the graphic to reveal the corresponding setting, and adjust the sizes upward until you can read them comfortably.
Another alternative is to go to a 19" monitor. At this point, most 19" monitors also have 1280 x 1024 resolution, but everything’s bigger. A final alternative would be to do both - upgrade to a 19" monitor and change your font/icon sizes.
I have a Optiquest 17 and it runs at 1024×768, works great.
you are pretty much stuck with that resolution. Pretty much the only other option is to go wide screen (1440×900) or adjust your resolution. You mentioned that the text seemed to be fuzzy at your preferred resolution so you might want to adjust your clear type settings. you can do this by going into display properties (right click on an empty space on your desktop and click on properties) and then click on the appearance tab. From here click on effects and then either turn clear type on or off depending on what your current setting is. if it is blurry though, it is probably on.
good luck!
I have a 17" Sony, that natives at 1280×1064. I run it at 1024×780 (Not sure, but 1024 is right). It is no problem at all. Are you using DVI or the blue plug? If you aren’t, switch over to DVI. It might be a better investment.
The LCD monitors are supposed to be used with ClearType: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx
Because that’s the resolution the monitor’s 1361920 pixels (1280 x 1064) were designed exactly to do. Anything LESS than that resolution and Windows has to compensate, using software processes to stretch a lower resolution like 1024×760 (786432 pixels) to fill those 1361920. That’s why it looks all blurry, because software has to compensate. Anything ABOVE, say 2048 x 1600, and Windows can just scale a 1280×1064 box around that larger resolution.