Question Doesn't 4K resolution on a laptop make everything super tiny?

[waterjug]

I have a 27" monitor with my PC, and at 4K resolution things are really small, I have to zoom in on web-pages, etc. On a 15" laptop or something wouldn't that make most text almost completely unreadable? Am I missing something?

 

[mrblotto]

same thing for me. I ordered a 4k 27" for work and everything is super tiny. I had to 'lower' the res to 1920 X 1080. I'm sure there's a way to not have to do that, but in the end, it works for me *shrugs*

 

[heymrdj]

You probably want to play with Windows display scaling rather than changing your resolution.

Use Windows 10’s individual display scaling to perfect your multi-monitor setup

Want to boost the scaling on your 1080p monitor by a little and your 4K display by a lot? With Windows 10 that's an easy fix.

www.pcworld.com

 

[mindless1]

Yes, even on a larger 4K monitor I zoom in on webpages because I didn't get a bigger monitor to have to sit as close to it as I would have a smaller monitor. Good old CTRL+Mouse-Wheel and my browser remembers zoom per-site, but you don't have a mouse wheel on most laptops (as if it were the only way to do it).

Windows display scaling is great, until you come upon some 3rd party apps that don't support scaling. They're usually older and/or made by a smaller developer.

I would never go lower than native resolution unless absolutely necessary due to low gaming performance with whatever GPU you have, never for desktop use, just too blurry.

Ultimately yeah, I'd get a larger monitor. IMO the sweet spot for 4K is around 40", or a little smaller if you have a shallow desk and sit closer.

 

[Pro-competition]

Ditto with regards to using Windows scaling. Note that even if you select 200%, 300% or some other integer scaling, old applications (including some old Windows applications) may appear blurry. But you'd be glad to know modern web browsers shouldn't have any issues with scaling.

Off-topic: Anyone looking for a laptop with a large screen should really consider the LG Gram 17". I have one and am pleased with size of the screen (17" 16:10 aspect ratio) and weight of the laptop (~1.35kg) and battery life. However, I'm not happy with the fact that it doesn't come with dual-channel RAM by default and that the SSD does not use the NVMe protocol. Hopefully, the 2020 version would address these issues. (See https://www.anandtech.com/show/15224/lgs-lightweight-gram-17inch-laptop-gets-intels-ice-lake-cpu.)

 

[fire400]

If your computer monitor comes with 4K support, even if you scale it down to 1440p or 1080p, 1:1 scaling may not allow product to look as stellar as the 4K full fledged support. "NATIVE" and 1:1 are the keywords here.

Scaling is another word for stenciling. Text are drawn out like pixels that can expand with adaptive-font leverage technology. If the software is optimized to handle strong on-demand impact-scaling, not too many issues. The real issues lie in the websites and proprietary, old-school, or even non-real-time drawing software that will have issues. Most software now is optimized for 1080p as that is the norm as of 2019.