Why does my desktop screen look like crap?

[DoNoHarm]

Hello everyone,

I've been playing around with using my old PC screen (Samsung SyncMaster 710n) as a second monitor. I plug in the monitor to my MBP, select the native resolution of the monitor from system preferences and everything comes up fine... except it's not as sharp as what is on my MBP. What's the deal? Is there any way to change this?

 

[mknawabi]

try this and see if it works:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8444368

 

[coledog]

I think you'll routinely find that a lot of LCD monitors won't look as nice as the Mac's native screen.

I'm not sure if you can do this but try going to your display settings and calibrating the external LCD color profile. See if that will help it look sharper etc...

I looked on Samsung's site and there aren't any OSX drivers so that can't be helped.

EDIT: Definitely try what mknawabi said...definitely an easier fix!

 

[Red-red]

Mine looks fine but it's a fairly old syncmaster 913B. Obviously the quality of it is lower than the MBP's screen and because it's a cheap matte screen the colours don't pop like the MBP's.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Really? My cheap 24" Samsung doesn't have colors that pop like my MB's LCD display, but its resolution is very clear and HD.

 

[skye12]

The same resolution never looks better on a larger screen. But your
MBP should let you increase resolution, even to "HD" if the monitor
has the capability.