And You Thought Things Were Tiny Enough on Netbooks

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.liliputing.com/2010/03/hack-to-increase-the-screen-resolution-on-windows-7-netbooks.html' target='_blank'>http://www.liliputing.com/2010/03/h...7-netbooks.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Most netbooks have the same display resolution. And while it&rsquo;s generally good enough for viewing most web pages, videos, and other apps, every now and again you&rsquo;re likely to run into an application that requires a higher resolution screen to run. Fortunately, there&rsquo;s a way to trick your netbook into thinking it has a higher resolution display &mdash; assuming you&rsquo;re running Windows 7."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1268760817.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Over the years, I have seen variations on this when it comes to really small devices with limited resolution.&nbsp; The most prominent use of scaling technology that I can remember is OQO, who used some driver magic to make their 800x480 screen emulate much larger resolutions.&nbsp; This just makes what you are trying to see that much smaller, meaning you will be zooming a lot more frequently but for those of you who want to pack in as much data as possible onto the screen, it is an option.&nbsp; What is not mentioned is whether this same hack can be applied to other computers.&nbsp; It would be interesting to see just how far you could push a 2560x1600 monitor...</p>

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I'm sure everything will look like crap though. Think iPhone browser at minimum zoom.

[037]

The problem with this is the proportion is incorrect. With 1152px wide, the height should be just 675px. If forced into 1152x768, everything in the screen will be squished vertically - and that won't be pretty unless you don't really care about how things look... :)

[Hooch Tan]

Having tried scaling 1024x768 down to 640x480, and from 1164x864 down to 1024x768, I can definitely agree that it won't look pretty. Actually, over anything else, I think it will hurt your eyes and give you a headache as things turn fuzzy. I think it is neat and handy, but the best solution is to get netbooks to go with a 720p capable resolution at least! 1280/1366x768 would be perfectly adequate! Why are they hanging onto 1024x600 so much? It isn't like the screens are that tiny anymore.