Use 1280*800 settings on 2017 Air ?

[AMSOS]

Hello all, I've just got my new MacBook Air 2017. I have to say given its vintage this still feels like a contemporary laptop. I made a considered decision to buy this and am pretty okay with what I've got.

However, I am a little unsure how to handle the display settings. The native resolution seems to be 1440*900. However, text in Safari and the Bookmarks bar seems to be too small for me to say that I am enjoying the experience. Of course, it is early days and I may just adjust to it.

But I noticed in display settings that the next lowest resolution is 1280*800. This makes the display scale look similar to the Pro laptops, of course in terms of resolution.

Can I just use the 1280*800 setting? What am I losing out by not going for 1440*900?

I assume that both resolutions here are native, say unlike the case with the Pro laptops.

Thanks!

 

[cruisin]

There is only one native resolution per screen, the one that matches the pixels. You can use any resolution you want, it is a personal preference. Video is often scaled, for example.

Today most screens use a pretend native resolution, where 4 or 9 actual pixels pretend to be a single pixel, the so called retina mode. This avoids the blurry screen when you don't use a native resolution as the resolution scales by a whole number. But due to the tiny pixels used you can also use other resolutions and the blur effect is not too bad.

 

[AMSOS]

There is only one native resolution per screen, the one that matches the pixels. You can use any resolution you want, it is a personal preference. Video is often scaled, for example.

Today most screens use a pretend native resolution, where 4 or 9 actual pixels pretend to be a single pixel, the so called retina mode. This avoids the blurry screen when you don't use a native resolution as the resolution scales by a whole number. But due to the tiny pixels used you can also use other resolutions and the blur effect is not too bad.

I see. Then I might as well got for 1280*800.

But then if the display is not that good - and it is not - at 1440*900 for the old Air, why did Apple even include that resolution? Why not go with 1280*800 as it does with the Pro laptops?

 

[Yvan256]

As cruisin said, by using exactly half the native resolution, nothing gets blurry and text can be four times sharper.

• The native resolution of the 13" MacBook Pro is 2560x1600. Exactly half that is 1280x800.
  It allows macOS to run in 2560x1600 but in a "virtual 1280x800" mode, where all pixels are doubled except for things that are retina-enabled, like fonts and icons.
• The native resolution of the 15" MacBook Pro is 2880x1800. Exactly half that is 1440x900.
  Same thing as the 13" MacBook Pro but at an even higher virtual resolution.
  
• The native resolution of the 2017 MacBook Air is 1440x900. Exactly half that is 720x450.
  But 720x450 would be too low and is not a supported resolution.

For the 2017 MacBook Air, the supported resolutions are 1440x900 (native), 1280x800, 1152x720, and 1024x640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio and 1024x768 and 800x600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio.

If you need to increase fonts to make them easier to read, the last thing you're going to want is to blur everything, which is what happens when using a non-native resolution at non-integer multiples.

So you might want to stay in 1440x900 and use these tricks:

• increase the font size in Finder. (https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/macos-mojave-making-text-larger)
• use the zoom feature of web browsers (in Safari, View/Zoom In) to make everything bigger.
• Apple's Pages also has this feature (under View/Zoom too, at least on my old version), a lot of programs also have this.

It's a shame macOS does not offer a way to increase the system font size while still using the native resolution of the display, but with all those tricks maybe it will meet your needs.