2nd Monitor - Everything is HUGE!!

Question

2nd Monitor - Everything is HUGE!!

Hi Everyone,
So I got my beautiful 27in iMac and I am loving it! I also attached a second 21 in monitor via mini-display port to vga. The problem that I am having is that if I drag a window from the iMac to the second display, the window grows very large. In some cases, it won't fit on the screen. I went into system preferences to check the resolution, and it is at its max of 1680 x 1050. Its strange, cause everything is larger than it used to be when I connected the same monitor to my Macbook. Is it something to do with the fact that the iMac's resolution is so much greater? Or is there a way I can get it to look the same on both screens?

Thanks,
AlwaysApple

iMac i7 4GB Ram 2.8GHz Quad, Macbook Core Duo 2.0 GHz 1GB RAM 60GB HDD, Mac OS X (10.6.2), iPod Touch 1st Gen, iPod Classic 80 GB, iPod Mini 1st Gen (blue) 4GB

Posted on Jan 8, 2010 1:39 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 8, 2010 1:50 PM in response to alwaysalwaysapple

"1680 x 1050" sounds about right for a 21-inch LCD. It should not be any different than when it was connected to your MacBook.

However, the 27-inch iMac has much higher pixel density. At 2560x1440 resolution, it has about 109 pixels per inch (PPI). In comparison, a 1680x1050 display at 21-inch is about 94 PPI. So if you drag the same window from the iMac's screen to your external screen, it will look larger. This is because it has bigger pixels compared to the iMac's built-in display.

There is probably a bit of +optical illusion+ going on as well, because the iMac display is huge and it is showing that window smaller; moving it to the external display makes the window appear larger on a smaller display, which may make the change seem even more drastic. When you did the same thing from the MacBook screen to the external screen, you were moving the window from a smaller size screen to a larger size screen, so the +optical illusion+ would have worked in reverse.

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Answer 2

Jan 8, 2010 2:15 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Ya maybe there is a bit of optical illusion, but if I put a window half on one screen and half on the other, there is definitely a difference in size. Also Im sure that my TweetDeck window fit fully on my external display with my Macbook, whereas now about one pane is off the screen. Strange....

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Answer 3

Jan 8, 2010 2:24 PM in response to alwaysalwaysapple

As I said, there will actually be a difference in the size of the same displayed window, between the 27-inch iMac display and your external display. This is because the iMac's display has significantly smaller pixels, so the same object on that screen will appear smaller (on the screen if you measured it with a ruler). When I said there may be an optical illusion, I did not say it was ALL an illusion. 🙂

Also Im sure that my TweetDeck window fit fully on my external display with my Macbook, whereas now about one pane is off the screen. Strange....

I don't know if that is a resizable window, but it may be sized larger on the 27-inch display (because of all the extra space compared to a laptop screen). As long as it was set to 1680x1050 on both Macs, there should be no difference.

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