Screen res of C810 notebook renders webpages to small HELP!

Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as to
render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting it
takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts showing
in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk to
fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all, even
after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride my
large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard 800 X
600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X 768
and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is not
considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing? And,
do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am stuck with
yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.

whonews wrote:
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as to
render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting it
takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts showing
in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk to
fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all, even
after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride my
large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard 800 X
600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X 768
and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is not
considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing? And,
do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am stuck with
yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.



Frankly, you are out of luck. You have done the things that should have
made the display OK for you. Dell is the one company that sells
ultra-high resolution LCD displays (well, the only one I know). If you
are within the return window, return it. Otherwise, caveat emptor!

Q

ooch.. not what I was hoping to hear.. but I won't shoot the messenger..
Thanx Quaoar.


"Quaoar" wrote in message
. ..
whonews wrote:
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as
to render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting
it takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts
showing in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk
to fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all,
even after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride
my large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard
800 X 600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X
768 and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is
not considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing?
And, do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am
stuck with yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Frankly, you are out of luck. You have done the things that should have
made the display OK for you. Dell is the one company that sells
ultra-high resolution LCD displays (well, the only one I know). If you
are within the return window, return it. Otherwise, caveat emptor!

Q

"whonews" wrote in message
news:vUTag.172370$P01.95887@pd7tw3no...
ooch.. not what I was hoping to hear.. but I won't shoot the messenger..
Thanx Quaoar.

My condolences...I've been in the same boat the last couple of years ever
since I was dumb enough to pay $100 extra for UXGA on my Inspiron 8200. I
consider that to be my dumbest computer-related purchase ever (the video
upgrade) and don't have a clue why anyone likes this...sure, it shows MORE
stuff on the screen, but "ultra-sharp" is a major misnomer...they should
have called it "ultra tiny". You can always use a 20" external monitor that
supports UXGA.

There are two things you can do, but in this case you are being abused by
bad website code. Really bad. Violates every web design rule. Bad.

Change the dpi settings in XP. You might have already done so.

Run your laptop at 800x600. This is drastic, but it is the ONE resolution
that will still be crisp on your machine as it is an even divisor of 2.

Tom
"whonews" wrote in message
news:cTSag.171937$7a.99198@pd7tw1no...
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as to
render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting it
takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts
showing in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk to
fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all, even
after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride
my large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard
800 X 600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X 768
and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is not
considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing? And,
do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am stuck with
yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.

"whonews" wrote in message news:cTSag.171937$7a.99198@pd7tw1no...
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200.
[] Everything is so tiny as to render it useless. [] The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk to
fit to less than half the screen.

To up DPI or not is the question. You could up it, which will cause most
things to be scaled up. However you'll probably notice at least a few minor
rendering flaws with Windows icons. The big issue is with IE6. In order to
get it to scale things up in response to the higher DPI setting, you'll have to
enable UseHR (google for words DPI and UseHR). However, IE6 doesn't
scale images very well and many will be horrible to look at. As a work
around for that you could abandon IE6 in favor of a browser that doesn't
have such limitations. IIRC Firefox worked OK in that scenario, and I
would hope that IE7 Beta 2 would as well. Not sure about others.

If you aren't happy with the upped DPI route, you could leave it at 96 and
use the tweaks you are using and switch to a browser that supports page
zoom. IE7 has such a feature, but I didn't play around with it. I believe
Firefox has support for increasing text size and setting minimum text size
for all pages. IIRC there are separate plugins which provide image scaling.
Perhaps you could rig something up so that all pages are zoomed so as to
meet minimum size requirements. There is also Opera.

Another thing to try in IE is:

tools internet options accessibility ignore font sizes on web
pages

.... then adjust font sizes within IE

The coding observations are very debatable. Here are other websites which
use a fixed screen layout: Apple.com, Dell.com, Adobe.com, USAToday.com,
etc.

Except for very simple and idealistic web pages (say, a college professor's)
you won't see fluid layouts anymore. Even if you did, I doubt you would
really want to read lines of text all the way across a 1600x1200 display.

The problem is the web ideology was outgrown years ago. I can't believe
that people would expect, much less attempt to code, web pages that deliver
content to both an iPAQ and a desktop computer. Likewise, it's extremely
difficult to code for 800x600 and 1600x1200 at the same time.

The fixes aren't many. First, the graphics will always be a problem. I
think a few vendors have utilities (Dell included - should be with the
display driver) to scale images. But the resultant image quality is very
poor. XP has the font settings. This helps, except larger fonts tend to
overrun their turf on web pages. Tables may become misaligned. Text may
overlap.


"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
There are two things you can do, but in this case you are being abused by
bad website code. Really bad. Violates every web design rule. Bad.

Change the dpi settings in XP. You might have already done so.

Run your laptop at 800x600. This is drastic, but it is the ONE resolution
that will still be crisp on your machine as it is an even divisor of 2.

Tom
"whonews" wrote in message
news:cTSag.171937$7a.99198@pd7tw1no...
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as
to render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting
it takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts
showing in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk
to fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all,
even after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride
my large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard
800 X 600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X 768
and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is not
considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing?
And, do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am
stuck with yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Use the browser to scale the font. FireFox will allow you to scale the font
by holding ctrl and spinning the mouse wheel. Its super convenient and
fast. It doesn't work with all pages. And it doesn't do anything for the
images.

There are some utilities that scale images for this exact problem. But
they're slow, clumbersome, and result in really awful looking images. So I
would just focus on the text. FireFox shines in this area. I think Opera
does too - but don't quote me on it.

"whonews" wrote in message
news:cTSag.171937$7a.99198@pd7tw1no...
Hi folks,
The native resolution or C810 notebook is the XVGA 1600 X 1200. Everybody
seem to think this is a great thing. I do not. Everything is so tiny as to
render it useless. I have 20/20 Vision and cannot stand the squinting it
takes just to read anything on the screen.

I have adjusted every conceivable option in Windows:

1) Turned ClearType on
2) Adjusted Windows Fonts size to large.
3) Adjusted Web Fonts in IE to Large
4) Other stuff I can't even remember...

Most of the above cured the problem on the desktop fonts, the fonts
showing in Explorer and in my apps. The remaining problem is
is that some websites (the whole webpage, not just the text) has shrunk to
fit to less than half the screen. I can't read many webpages at all, even
after having selected Large fonts.

I assume in most cases the webdesigners design and font choises over-ride
my large font wishes?? Or they only designed the webpage for the Standard
800 X 600 or maybe 1024 X 768 and I can't do anything about it?

The laptop is all blury if I change the resolution to a normal 1024 X 768
and gives me a warning message that I am choosing a setting that is not
considered the default for this laptop.

I'm at wits end here. I can't change the resolution and I can't read my
webpages? Is there anything I missed before I sell this damn thing? And,
do all newer laptops come in this crazy high resolution so I am stuck with
yucky looking and small fonts to read webpages?

Thanks for any help in advance.