Not happy with screen after upgrade to Mavericks (MBP 15" late 2008)

[MarvinHC]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and to Apple. I recently got hold of a used MacBook Pro late 2008 15" for a bargain price and thought I'd give it a try and after 25 years of PC (DOS/Windows) use I own my first Mac. So far I am pleasantly surprised but one thing I didn't like about my Macbook was that it was running quite hot (I had installed Mountain Lion). For that reason I decided to Mavericks and it clearly runs a lot cooler and I also have the impression that the battery lasts longer (not fully sure about that one since I have installed a brand-new battery recently and didn't use it much with Mountain Lion)

But here comes the problem. Since the upgrade I have the impression that my screen is not the same anymore. It has a yellowish tint to it which I was able to partly correct by doing a full calibration. But I also think that it is a lot less sharp, the letters are a lot harder to read, overall a lot less pleasant. I checked the screen solution and it is as it should be at the native 1440x900.

Has anybody else experienced something similar? Is there any solution (other than downgrading the OS)? In Windows there are several options to adjust the fonts but so far I have not found anything on my Mac.

Many thanks in advance - fun to be a newby again after so many years

 

[maflynn]

The operating system won't change the resolution, it should be the same as it was before.

 

[MarvinHC]

The operating system won't change the resolution, it should be the same as it was before.

As I have written above, the resolution is not the issue, it is the same as before as it should be. But nevertheless the screen is not as sharp as before, and the colour has clearly changed.

 

[maflynn]

As I have written above, the resolution is not the issue, it is the same as before as it should be. But nevertheless the screen is not as sharp as before, and the colour has clearly changed.

but my point is the sharpness is in direct relation of the native resolution of display. Perhaps an unfortunate coincidence but perhaps you're dealing with a hardware issue that only showed up after upgrading.

I've upgraded a number of my machines to Mavericks and I've not noticed one issue with calibration or less sharp displays, nor do I see any other threads about this here. While not conclusive, it seems to indicate that the operating system is not the cause of your woes

 

[agaskew]

Assuming you already looked at System Preferences > General and checked the setting for 'LCD font smoothing', perhaps you could try Tinkertool for changing system fonts around? Caveat: be careful

Something like Tinkertool may have already been on the machine but is no longer working under Mavericks - just a guess.