Bigger Monitor: Bigger Text or More Text?

If you get a bigger monitor with a higher resolution, will more text fit on a page, will the text be bigger or some combination of both?

Simply put, it’s whichever of those options you choose. Either more text, bigger text, or a combination.

[However, if you’re talking about an LCD monitor, you need to be aware that it will only work optimally at its native resolution (lower resolutions may have visual artifacts).]

That depends on the resolution, and the size of the screen.

I currently have a 15" LCD monitor with max. resolution 1024x768. I’ve considered upgrading to a 17" or 19" both of which commonly come with a max resolution of 1280x1024. Both of those would give me ‘more text’. It’s possible both of them also would give me ‘bigger text’, but I’m not sure. The 19" would definitely give bigger text than the 17" thought.

Say you have, for example, a 15" monitor and the resolution and you normally keep the resolution at 800x600.

You then go out and buy a super-fancy 21" monitor to replace it. Like most monitors, the resolution is adjustable. If you keep the resolution on the new monitor at 800x600 you will see the same amount of text, but it will be bigger. If instead you up the resolution to 1600x1200, the text size will change (it may even be smaller than your old monitor!), but you will get a lot more of it. Of course if your 15" monitor supports the 1600x1200 resolution, then it would display the same amount of text, but be smaller than what the 21" would display.

Here’s another way to look at it. Let’s say you are working at 800 x 600 pixels resolution. If your monitor screen is 10 inches wide, then those 800 pixels fill up 10 inches. If your screen is only 8 inches wide, then those 800 pixels fill up 8 inches, so each pixel shrinks in size compared to what it would be on the larger screen.

What it means in practical terms for most people is that with a larger screen, higher resolutions display at sizes that are still comfortable to read and so the net effect is usually better looking images and text on larger monitors. YMMV

In the mean time, you can change your resolution under the Display Icon/applet in Control pannel. (More Text per screen)

You can use the Screen Magnifier under Accesories/Accessibility for bigger text.

Also, bigger CRTs usually have higher refresh rates for the same resolution, which is more confortable for your eyes.

The amount of text on the screen depends upon the format of the signal sent to the monitor, not the size or resolution of the monitor.

A bigger monitor means bigger letters in the text. More resolution means a better looking picture on the monitor, such as cleaner and sharper text.

Okay, thanks everybody.

Resolution 1024x768 on a 19" moniter will give you bigger text if the image properly fills the screen. I have seen some cheap ass moniter display such with a two inch black border. :smack:

I’ve never seen a monitor that didn’t let you adjust the H&V scanning. It’s not that the monitor was too cheap, it’s that the user was too lazy to adjust the horizontal & vertical width.

One distinction is that better monitors will remember settings for multiple resolutions, so that once they’re set, you don’t have to readjust as you switch resolutions. On a cheapie monitor, you may have to readjust the settings each time you switch.