second screen resolution.

Question

second screen resolution.

I have a Macbook Pro Retina 13-inch early 2015.

I also just bought a Samsung monitor (S24D300).

And I have office for mac 2016.

My issue is with the resolution of the second screen. Especially the Excel and Word resolution is horrible. But basically every window on the monitor is not good. It was better with my macbook pro 2011 and my older monitor.

When I move the window to my macbook the resolution is fantastic. But on my new (and on my old monitor) it is worse.

I tried all screen resolution settings, but the resolution is not improving. (letters are not equally sharp, almost pixelated lines are not sharp)

Has anyone experienced this?

Looking forward to your reply.

Reinold

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Sep 23, 2015 4:52 AM

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Answer 1

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Sep 23, 2015 5:07 AM in response to Reinold Disse

the native resolution of that LCD is 1920 x 1080

if that resolution is not available to you from the macs Display drop down:

hold down OPTION and click Scaled

If you are using the VGA adapter over the DVI switch to DVI or look into purchasing a ThunderBolt 2 to DVI adapter

Also the "magic" settings on that monitor may not be useful, try turning off any built in enhancement

to reset the monitor to the factory default

Press the Menu button on the monitor.

Press the + or - button or the Up or Down arrow button on the monitor to change the menu until you see the Reset Menu.

Press the Menu button to select the Reset Menu.

.

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Answer 2

Sep 23, 2015 5:46 AM in response to Reinold Disse

First I suggest you follow Jimmy's solid advice.

But I can't help thinking that you may be suffering from Retina-itis :-), the effect of looking at any common display right beside a Retina display. The Retina is so good that what passed for good before is no longer. I often connect a 2011 imac in target display mode a second display to my 15" Retina MBP and the difference is quite obvious - there is no way to ignore the difference between 226 ppi vs 102 ppi...

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Answer 3

Sep 24, 2015 2:34 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Sure, you are right, there is a lightyears differnence between the two screens. Retina is absolutely the best I have ever seen. But I did a check by quickly switching to my old macbook 2011 with Office 2011 on my new Samsung monitor, and that seemed a bit better than the newer combi.

I'll take my macbook to electronics store and see if there are other monitors that work better. I'm not yet ready to buy a Apple display.

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Answer 4

Sep 24, 2015 3:02 AM in response to Reinold Disse

Reinold Disse wrote:

Thanks for the tips. I'm using a HDMI cable. And I also tried the ALT key with scaled. But the 1920x1080 is not available there.

Should I maybe ook for a newer HDMI cable ?

Are you using the external display in mirroring mode (i.e. duplicating what is in your retina display)? If so, you will not get 1920x1080 because it is not one of the resolutions in the retina.

If you set the external display as extended desktop, you should see 1920x1080 as an option for the external.

(to do this, you can either uncheck "mirror displays" in the arrangement tab of system preferences; or, more easily, just use Command-F1 to toggle the mirror option).

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Answer 5

Sep 24, 2015 2:31 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

Thanks for the tips. I'm using a HDMI cable. And I also tried the ALT key with scaled. But the 1920x1080 is not available there.

Should I maybe ook for a newer HDMI cable ?

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Answer 6

Sep 29, 2015 3:09 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis, not using the mirror mode. And I have tried holding down the Option key and click scaled.

I'm at the apple store now. Hope they have an idea

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