force lower (native) resolution

I used two of my Macs with a lower resolution for a week, and had no stretching or black borders, just bigger pixels.
I lowered the resolution from 1680 x 1050 to 1280 x 800 on my 20" iMac and on my 17" MBP from 1920 x 1200 to 1440 x 900.
Nothing was stretched and no black borders were visible, the lower resolutions spanned the entire screen.
I did use 10.6 though, I guess you have 10.7 Lion?

If you have an 11" MBA, choose a resolution, that is using a 16:9 ratio, with the 13" MBA you should choose a 16:10 aspect ratio resolution.

JamesMcCain said:

Ya, I am using Lion.

However, I AM looking for the "native" lower resolution that would fit inside the native 13" MBA Color LCD.

Is that possible?

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What do you mean with "native"?
The native resolution of the 13" MBA (2010 and 2011 model) is 1440 x 900, any resolution lower than that is not native.

simsaladimbamba said:

What do you mean with "native"?
The native resolution of the 13" MBA (2010 and 2011 model) is 1440 x 900, any resolution lower than that is not native.

Click to expand...

He is asking if there is a way to display your desktop at a lower resolution with a black border all around it. For example, on a 13" MBA, display the desktop at 1240x700 with 100 blank pixels on each side.

BaldiMac said:

He is asking if there is a way to display your desktop at a lower resolution with a black border all around it. For example, on a 13" MBA, display the desktop at 1240x700 with 100 blank pixels on each side.

Click to expand...

Ahhhhhh, I misunderstood completely, I guess.

Anyway, I haven't seen that yet, thus I do not know the answer to that.

But why would you do that?

edit baldimac beat me to it

I know you said to skip the why, but maybe understanding the reason might help us find an alternate solution.

Lowering the resolution but leaving it at the native DPI (by displaying black borders) won't help if the problem is that things on screen are too small.