Screenresolutions, dimensions and DPI

General tips

The ultimate solution to ugly fonts is to use more pixels to draw them. That translates to using a larger nominal pixel size. when that has the effect of making fonts too big, more screen resolution is required at the same physical size. More pixels has a cubic effect, meaning it doesn’t require much more in nominal size to have a big effect.

Sometimes in order to make all screen objects bigger, people use a lower screen resolution than the optimal one a screen supports. This has the opposite effect, making fonts spindly or otherwise ugly. IOW, if your screen supports 1920x1080 but you are using 1366x768, a switch to using 1920x1080 and an increase nominal font sizes in settings is required.

I keep screen DPI set to 120 on a 24" 1920x1200 screen. The combination of 24" and 1920x1200 calculates to a DPI of 94. The application of a logical DPI of 120 results in fonts big enough to see that are never ugly. A 12pt font @120 DPI uses ~200px per glyph, compared to ~128 used @96 DPI, >56% more at the same physical size. The screen can’t actually produce that much resolution, but the effect of trying by the X server, with or without subpixel, hinting or anti-aliasing, works like magic.

Envy

pvdm@Envy:~> xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
eDP-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 194mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  40.00  
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

DPI=140,093023256

of

142

lesie

sietske@lesie:~> xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
eDP-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 194mm
   1920x1080     60.03*+  60.01    59.97    59.96    59.93  

DISPLAY: 15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
Diagonal	15.6"
Pixel density	141.21 ppi
Panel Type	IPS
Resolution	1920 x 1080
Becomes "Retina" from	24 inches (62 cm)

HP elitebook 8570p

Horizontal pixels: 1600
Vertical pixels: 900
Diagonal size (inches):	 15,77
 	 	
 
Pixels per Inch     PPI:	 116.41	 
Dot Pitch:	 0.22	 
Screen Width:	 13.74	 
Screen Height:	 7.73


pvdm@lapx:~> xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 900, maximum 16384 x 16384
LVDS connected primary 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 345mm x 194mm
   1600x900       60.0*+   40.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x854       59.9  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1280x720       59.9  
   1152x768       59.8  
   1024x768       59.9  
   800x600        59.9  
   848x480        59.7  
   720x480        59.7  
   640x480        59.4  

samsung rv720 bla

samsie:~ # xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 900, maximum 16384 x 16384
LVDS connected primary 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 345mm x 194mm
   1600x900      60.03*+  40.02  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x854      59.89  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1280x720      59.86  
   1152x768      59.78  
   1024x768      59.92  
   800x600       59.86  
   848x480       59.66  
   720x480       59.71  
   640x480       59.38  

116 DPI PvdM

tabel

resolutie	Dichtheid
7” 15:9 15,3x9,15
800x480	133
8,9” 16:9 19,55x11,45
1024x600	133
10,2” 16:9 22,3x13,05
1024x600	117
10,6” 15:9 23,1x13,8
1280x768	141
11,1” 16:9 24,9x13,8
1366x768	141
12” 4:3 24,7x18,5
1024x768	105
1400x1050	144
12,1” 16:10 26,1x16,3
1280x800	125
1440x900	140
13” 16:9 29x16,35
1366x768	120
1600x900	140
13.1” 16:10 28,5x17,9
1280x800	114
1440x900	128
14” 4:3 28,5x21,4
1024x768	91
1400x1050	125
14,1” 16:10 30,4x19
1280x800	107
1440x900	120
15” 4:3 30,4x22,8
1024x768	86
1400x1050	117
1600x1200	134
15,4” 16:10 33,15x20,82
1280x800	98
1440x900	110
1680x1050	129
1920x1200	147
16” 16:9 35,3x19,9
1366x768	98
1920x1080	138
16,4” 16:9 36,3x20,4
1600x900	112
1920x1080	134
17,1” 16:10 36,8x23
1440x900	98
1680x1050	116
1920x1200	133
18,4” 16:9 40,9x23
1680x945	104
1920x1080	119
19” 16:10 41x25,6
1440x900	89
20” 16:10 43,4x27,1
1680x1050	98