Digital Trends

What can be done?

This issue was a hot topic in Dell's forums for quite some time before even Dell acknowledged it or provided a fix. Users reported calling Dell's support line for help and being told to re-install the video drivers to fix the issue. Community members came up with a fix - which is now an announcement in the Inspiron video forums — to modify a registry entry. By changing the "Activate Scaling" entry from 1 to 0, images will not be scaled larger, which causes the distortion. There is also a fix for IE's "Automatic Image Resizing" which can be turned off through the ‘Tools' menu.

Unfortunately, these fixes do not address the fact that text can be jumbled or misaligned in many Web pages. And requiring a new laptop buyer to make a registry change — assuming that they contacted a help-desk person aware of the problem, or thought to do a Web search for the problem — is not the ideal solution either.

In the end, Microsoft has to do a better job of handling this issue both in Windows and in Internet Explorer. Dell can help by inserting a statement explaining this issue in the literature shipped with their notebooks and displays, and by ensuring their customer support people are aware of the problem. Web designers can also address this by not using fixed-pixel font sizes. Unfortunately, all of these fixes will take some time.

The best way to "fix" this issue is for consumers to better understand how LCD displays work, and how the screen resolution will look. By making a more informed buying decision, consumers can be sure that they are getting what they want, and aren't surprised when they view their desktop.

Understand that as the native resolution of a display is increased, the smaller things will appear on the screen. High-resolution displays may be only for the "power users" — those that need many windows open at once and have eyes sharp enough to read the small fonts.

Those that already have a problem reading text on their monitor should stay away from the higher resolution options, as the text and images will probably be too small. Running an LCD at a lower-than-native resolution will also introduce blurry text and images. This may limit your choices, but certainly will save you some money as the higher resolution screens cost more.

Before you buy, try to actually view the monitor and make sure that your eyes can handle the size of the fonts and images. Even if you are purchasing online, it may be a good idea to visit a local computer store and look at applications and Web pages on the different screen resolutions.

A little homework will go a long way, and your eyes will thank you for it.