Apple notebooks display

[Caezar]

I need a new laptop and I was thinking of buying an Apple until I went to a store. I found the 12', 14' and 15' displays to be inferior to many notebooks due to blurry fonts. My wife is Asian and we checked how Chinese characters show on the screen. We both thought that the display was not crisp enough, even when viewing American webpages.

Such a low native resolution is not good enough for a notebook of that price. Cheaper notebooks running Windows can have resolutions up to 1600x1200.

Anyway, since there is nothing I can do about this: is there a way to change settings (get new fonts, change font size, etc) to improve fonts appearance?

Thanks!

 

[Cybernanga]

In the Appearance Pane of System Preferences, there's an option for font smoothing.

The choices are:

Standard - Best for CRT
Light
Medium - Best for Flat Panel
Strong

Try each of them 🙂

You can also turn off font smoothing for a particular size and below.

However, I've always noticed that Macs do make things seem softer, but I actually prefer the softer look.

 

[shortchannel]

Hmm, now this worries me a bit. I was literally about to click the order button on the Apple Website for my very own 15" Powerbook, but I am really concerned about the quality of the screen. I want it to be sharp, bright, and clear....

ARGH! If only there was a CompUSA or an Apple store near me!

 

[stevep]

Windows - 96 dpi
Mac - 72 dpi
- which explains why the standard size text on this site, for example, looks a bit smudged on my iBook but pretty sharp on my XP machine. It doesn't stop me preferring the iBook though......

 

[Lacero]

Soft anti-aliased fonts are initially blurry looking compared to the crisp text of Windows XP, but you get used to it and it is much easier on the eyes. I much prefer Mac OSX font rendering over Windows XP.

 

[ephex]

Hmm, now this worries me a bit. I was literally about to click the order button on the Apple Website for my very own 15" Powerbook, but I am really concerned about the quality of the screen. I want it to be sharp, bright, and clear....

ARGH! If only there was a CompUSA or an Apple store near me!

The screen is beautiful. Go to an apple store if you don't beleive me 😉

 

[shuurajou]

I own a Dell 2005FPW, and an iMac G5 20" - The Dell 2005FPW is much sharper when it comes to text, but I don't think that the fuzzyness you're seeing is down to the display, but moreso that's how OS X is?

 

[Caezar]

Hmm, now this worries me a bit. I was literally about to click the order button on the Apple Website for my very own 15" Powerbook, but I am really concerned about the quality of the screen. I want it to be sharp, bright, and clear....

ARGH! If only there was a CompUSA or an Apple store near me!

The font was especially blurry for Chinese characters. For western fonts it was definitely ok. As the previous post says, you might get used to and eventually prefer Apple fonts.

 

[KD7IWP]

NO ONE COULD EVER convince me to give up my powerbook!! I love this more than my car, and I LOVE my car to death. The screen is gorgeous. At first when I got it I was sad that Apple didn't have the "XBright" thing that some companies have where the screen looks like a glass window. Those ones were so clear. But later I realized that they had massive reflections. This screen has no reflections and is so gorgeous, have no worries!

 

[maya]

I prefer OS X, font smoothing any day over Windows XP sharp fonts. You can change the setting in Mac OS X to display fonts sharp however I just didn't like it. With the font smoothing I do not get a headache from staring at the screen while reading. 🙂

 

[Caezar]

I prefer OS X, font smoothing any day over Windows XP sharp fonts. You can change the setting in Mac OS X to display fonts sharp however I just didn't like it. With the font smoothing I do not get a headache from staring at the screen while reading. 🙂

Oh, well. I just bought a Powerbook 12-inch. I still find the fonts too blurry, but I could not resist trying a Mac for the first time. Let's hope I'll get used to it!

So far, I find the machine very sleek: well-built, responsive and the software seems very good.