I’ve upgraded the WXGA screen on my HP nx8220 to a much brighter WSXGA+ display. In other words: from a 1280×800 pixel resolution to a stunning 1680×1050px.
As a consequence of this, my blog now looks like this:
before:
after:
I’ve added a black 2px frame to the screenshots so highlight the actual difference in sizes. I am still undecided if this was a good move - am currently working with a 120dpi font instead of the usual 96dpi under WinXP - but then: it gives me the freedom to actually just rescale the screen to a much lower resolution whenever needed.
Unfortunately, each TFT screen only works best at a certain screen resolution, so this one being the 1680×1050px one, I will have to leave it at this high resolution for a serious “screen impression”. 1280×800px have been fine with me though, and I think it makes more sense to add another, 2nd screen (via a docking station) to move messengers & utilities to the side.
The upgrade came in handy as I had the opportunity to strip down a used & broken machine and use all the good parts on my own machine (especially an almost new keyboard, which is awesome).
Also, I am wondering if this will improve any webdesign projects / photo editing I am doing on my machine. Despite of the improved screen resolution, the brightness of all colours is just great. But then - all content appears to be very very small…
[update:] Ok, there you go….switching back to 1280×800px and downgrading to the previous 1,86 GHz CPU (instead of a 2,13 GHz) did the job for me. No more headaches from focussing my eyes on small details on the screen + no more fan noise coming from an over aggressive fan. The weekend is saved…