[parasky]

I hope this is the right forum for this question. I'm a new mac user and I just received my Macbook Pro. I'm trying to figure out the correct monitor settings to use. The screen resolution I'm using now 1440*900, I think, looks really small while browsing. What do most people use? Or how can I make the text permanently larger. I might be stretching it out also because I like the browser to fill the entire screen. Thanks.

[Cold Warrior]

you can use the 'display' settings in system preferences to change your resolution. You might also consider increasing the default text size in your browser if you think it's too small.

[TETENAL]

An LCD monitor such as in your MacBook only has one resolution. That's the maximum one that is shown in the displays system preferences. And this resolution is the "correct" one. When you choose a lower one everything will be upscaled to the actual display resolution, so everything looks bigger, but the upscaling will also make everything look blurrier.

What you would need would be a resolution independent user interface. Unfortunately OS X does not have that feature. Hopefully 10.5 will support this. In a resolution independent user interface the size of objects on screen is not dependent of the screen resolution and is user selectable. So you could keep running the correct display resolution and yet still have larger buttons and web-sites.

Since that feature is not there yet probably the best solution is the one Code Warrior suggested. Go into the Safari preferences and increase the default font size in the appearance settings and/or the minimum text size in the advances settings.

[Curiosity]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

An LCD monitor such as in your MacBook only has one resolution. That's the maximum one that is shown in the displays system preferences. And this resolution is the "correct" one. When you choose a lower one everything will be upscaled to the actual display resolution, so everything looks bigger, but the upscaling will also make everything look blurrier.

I have a MacBook Pro as well (not a MacBook). The monitor has more than one resolution setting. I changed mine from 1680 X 1050 to 1440 X 852 stretched. Things do not look blurry on my monitor, only bigger.
Parasky, if you changed it to 1440 then you already know how to change the resolution. You should be able to change the minimum text size for your browser to make reading its content easier.

[Laurence]

Originally Posted by Curiosity 

I have a MacBook Pro as well (not a MacBook). The monitor has more than one resolution setting. I changed mine from 1680 X 1050 to 1440 X 852 stretched. Things do not look blurry on my monitor, only bigger.

If you use a resolution other than the "native" resolution of the LCD the text and images will look blurrier -OR- blockier. If you happen to choose a resolution that is an even multiple of the native resolution the display will use exactly 4 pixels on the LCD to display one pixel of the computer's output. This will just make things look more blocky than necessary. If you choose a resolution that is not an even multiple the image will look blurrier/distorted as some display pixels will be made using one actual LCD pixel, but others will use 2 LCD pixels to display one computer "pixel" (It is actually more complicated than this as each "pixel" of the LCD is actually three different colored "sub-pixels", however the principal is the same.)

The simplest way to see this is to draw a grid pattern of pixels in Photoshop or some other image creation application using black and white pixels. View this image at 100% and look closely at the screen. Some of the horizontal and vertical lines. Some will appear larger than others. This is due to the fact that you can't draw a fraction of a pixel to the LCD.

You say you don't notice the difference running at 1440 instead of 1680 and that is just because you aren't looking close enough or your standards of what looks good may not be as high as others.