Inspiron 7386 4K Screen - scaling issue

Question

Just got the above laptop but the splash screens are too small when opening programmes. Is there a setting that needs adjustment?

jphughan · Accepted Answer

It can be a rough call. The benefit of 4K is of course that when your application scales well, things look very sharp, particularly text. But 4K on laptops still has a lot of downsides, battery life being a big one. On systems like the XPS 13 and 15, the 4K display costs you about 2 hours of battery life. And since the choices are sometimes FHD anti-glare non-touch or 4K glossy touch, that brings its own set of tradeoffs, since glossy displays are harder to use under certain lighting, and touch adds weight and thickness. I keep hoping 4K anti-glare displays will become mainstream, but I don’t see that happening, so as sharp as text looks on 4K laptop displays with the right applications, I’ve been sticking with FHD mostly to hang onto anti-glare.

jphughan · Answer

Windows Display Settings has a scale factor you can set as a percentage. If you have a 4K display on a 13' display, you’ll probably need 250%, plus or minus 50% depending on your preference. If it’s just the splash screens that are too small and other elements look fine, then it’s an application issue. Many third-party applications still don’t support Windows display scaling well or at all — some of them look blurry, others end up with incorrect interface layouts because different elements don’t scale the same way, and still others simply don’t scale at all. Even some portions of Windows still don’t scale as well as they should. This has been getting better over time, but it still isn’t perfect. I think there’s a way to have Windows try to force an application to scale, but of course that won’t always be perfect either.

Tarleton-Lad · Answer

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.  :Sad:Seems like I would've been better just opting for FHD rather than 4K :-(

Inspiron

Inspiron 7386 4K Screen - scaling issue

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