Help with resolution on a dell latitude c840

forgive all my typos I can't even see what I am typing - my text is about 4pt on the screen!

I'm having the problem with my Studio 1555. My screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. If I select a different resolution the display shrinks to the middle of the screen. If I increase the test size it becomes fuzzy. I did not have this problem with my Dell Inspiron 1501 with a resolution of 1280 x 800.

The tradeoff for higher resolution is the pixel size - it becomes smaller.  Notebook LCDs are digital devices, designed to look best at their native resolution.  Anything lower, and the size shrinks to preserve the sharpness, or the display becomes fuzzier than it is when run at native resolution.  If your system is new (within 21 days) return it and order a replacement with a lower resolution screen.

This is what I did with my Studio 15. In Internet Explorer and Fire Fox I Zoom it in. This works pefect, and no blury or fuzzy text.

If I understand the original poster properly, he's trying to figure out the same issue that I am.

I have two C840's, both with the 1600x1200 screen designed to be read by teen-aged mice. One has been my workstation for years; I'm using it right now (but in a dock with a PCI video card and external monitor so I can't try anything "live".)

The other machine was a recent acquisition and I've just discovered it doesn't work the same.

Of course native resolution of course looks best. However when I switch to lower res on my older machine, the image scales up to the full screen size (providing the "fuzzy" effect). On the new machine, if I switch to a lower res, all it does is throw away pixels and show me a one-to-one mapped image with a black border (the "shrunken screen" effect). Sharp, but small. (If I may say so, this is an absolutely pointless mode... who thinks of this stuff?)

I've installed the latest driver on the problem machine and it didn't change a thing.

Thought I might short-circuit the process by peeking in here but so far, no magic bullet. I'll look around a bit more and then bull my way through it myself. I do recall at one time using a hacked video driver that gave me access to a control panel that is nowhere to be found in the standard Dell version; I may have to dig that up.

When you set a lower video resolution (thus creating a smaller image on the screen) try hitting Fn+F7, i.e. hold down the Function key (lower left area of keyboard between Ctrl and the Windows key) and then while you're holding it, hit F7 (which also says "Font" in blue text).

On my C840's, this toggles between native resolution (giving you the small image for anything less than 1600x1200) and a lower-res image that scales up to fill the screen area.

Try 1280x1024... not a bad compromise between the size of stuff and the amount of stuff, if you know what I mean.

It's worth repeating that when an image is stretched like this on an LCD, it's going to be a little on the fuzzy side, but it's the fastest, easiest way to scale everything. All the other alternatives (changing DPI settings and/or font size in the display properties, zooming in browsers etc.) are only partial solutions, but still may be worth looking into.

(Oh and BTW, multiple monitors is the normal setting. If you plug an external monitor into the machine your desktop can be extended onto both monitors. It's cool...)

Best o' luck,

BCR

Boggy Creek Research, you are the man!

Fn+F7 solves the black bar problem exactly! What's more, I have no fuzziness at all. I always wondered what the 'Font' key was for.

Thanks for an excellent solution,

Phil

Same problem here... with the added twist that I can't read the replys to this post!

I can see that there are 7 replys, but I can't read them. 

Fn+F7 solves the black bar problem. Now we know what the 'Font' key was for.

lol - I logged in with my Mac and could see all the responses!

F7 works great.