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I have a 27" Dell SE2719H monitor that I had been using with a Windows PC. With that laptop the display was crisp and clear. But with my MacBook Air (M1, 2020) it is awful. Especially bad on spreadsheets, the fuzzy text is giving me a headache. It's connected by HDMI via the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport adaptor. What should I do?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.3
That monitor is a 27" monitor with a resolution of only 1920x1080 pixels (typical of a 24" monitor).
https://www.dell.com/ae/business/p/dell-se2719h-monitor/pd
Apple's been using displays with Retina-level pixel densities for a while, and if some of the things I have read about recent versions of macOS are true, Apple has made some changes that are not such good news if you are trying to use a display with a low PPI density. This article, for instance, indicates that in Big Sur and Monterey, there is a font-smoothing preference that is no longer accessible from the GUI - only from the command line. It may be gone completely in Ventura, for all that I know.
https://osxdaily.com/2022/04/06/change-remove-font-smoothing-macos/
If you like the large size of text on a 27" 1920x1080 display (and aren't bothered by the loss of workspace which goes along with that), one possibility might be to get a 27" 3840x2160 ("4K") display and run the new display in Retina "like 1920x1080" mode. Then text would stay the same size, but there would be a block of 2x2 tiny pixels for every 1 large pixel that you have now. The operating system would use the extra pixels to draw letters in finer detail, and you would likely enjoy sharper text than you have been enjoying with the old monitor on the Windows PC.
That monitor is a 27" monitor with a resolution of only 1920x1080 pixels (typical of a 24" monitor).
https://www.dell.com/ae/business/p/dell-se2719h-monitor/pd
Apple's been using displays with Retina-level pixel densities for a while, and if some of the things I have read about recent versions of macOS are true, Apple has made some changes that are not such good news if you are trying to use a display with a low PPI density. This article, for instance, indicates that in Big Sur and Monterey, there is a font-smoothing preference that is no longer accessible from the GUI - only from the command line. It may be gone completely in Ventura, for all that I know.
https://osxdaily.com/2022/04/06/change-remove-font-smoothing-macos/
If you like the large size of text on a 27" 1920x1080 display (and aren't bothered by the loss of workspace which goes along with that), one possibility might be to get a 27" 3840x2160 ("4K") display and run the new display in Retina "like 1920x1080" mode. Then text would stay the same size, but there would be a block of 2x2 tiny pixels for every 1 large pixel that you have now. The operating system would use the extra pixels to draw letters in finer detail, and you would likely enjoy sharper text than you have been enjoying with the old monitor on the Windows PC.
Thanks. I never realized that my monitor was displaying text larger than normal for a 27” monitor. I probably wouldn’t mind the text being smaller as long as it was crisp. So what you’re saying is that a much higher resolution monitor is the solution?
The hidden font smoothing control mentioned in the OS X Daily article might still be present in Ventura. I am not running Ventura and do not know if it is there. That would be a free fix if it works and works well enough for you.
But Apple’s approach as of late seems to be to assume that people will be using high-DPI displays, rather than to go to much trouble to make text look as good as it can on low-DPI ones.
Substituting a 27” 5K monitor for a 27” 2.5K one, or a 27” 4K monitor for a 27” 1080p (2K) one, is thus sort of a path of least resistance. (Or would be if 5K monitors were more abundant and less expensive.)
How do I get my Dell monitor to not look fuzzy connected to my MacBook Air?
