Uneven text on my Powerbook 15"

Question

Level 1

9 points

Uneven text on my Powerbook 15"

I have had this system couple weeks. I'm not seeing the uneven backlighting as far as I can tell but I do have a complaint about the text on the display. In general it's not crisp. I'm seeing this in several applications. I have some very high quality LCDs here EIZO - Japanese brand that I have plugged the laptop into and the text is not crisp on them either. My suspicion is that it's the ATI card/driver that is the issue.

Anyone else seeing this?

Thanks,

-John

Posted on Sep 25, 2005 9:14 PM

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Answer 1

kentojin

Level 4

2,055 points

Sep 26, 2005 6:49 AM in response to John McBade

Are you from Windows and new to Mac? If so, did you have "clear type" font turned on in Windows? If clear type wasn't turned on, then you are probably used to "sharper" (more jagged) text fonts.

As the previous poster has suggested, try playing around with the text smoothing option. Personally I prefer the smoother look.

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Answer 2

John McBade Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 29, 2005 11:35 PM in response to kentojin

Thank you both for your replies. I am indeed coming from the Windows environment and am somewhat new to the MAC.

I have tried adjusting the fonts that will be processed in preferences. It seems I have a choice of very jaggy and dottie characters or uneven mushie type faces. I have compared my 15" with others of the same type and they are indeed identical in behavior.

To be honest, my displays on my other PC based laptops and my PC desktop display characters with far more even blackness. I have compared with and without clear type enabeled.

It seems this is the nature of the Powerbook display/video adapter/driver combination which is unfortunate 😟

Thanks again for your assistance and replies!

-John

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Answer 3

M.A

Level 2

263 points

Sep 30, 2005 2:37 PM in response to John McBade

Hi John,
Unfortunately no settings on the Mac will help the the blurry/greyed/uncrisp text. It is a resolution thing and 1280 x800 on a 15" screen aint going to cut it, need at least 1440 on a 15". I have 1680 x 1050 on my 15.4 laptop and you do have to mess around with settings in the OS and certain programs to enlarge the text and icons also I run Firefox and by hitting Ctrl+ it increases the website font beautifully. Crisp, clear, and black.

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Answer 4

John McBade Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 4, 2005 4:26 PM in response to M.A

Syma,

Maybe you could share the steps as to how you adjusted to that resolution on your 15? I know the settings can be tweaked in a config file - at least on Linux.

Thanks,

-John

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