Question The stupidest question about Monitors

[Guliath85]

Hello,

here is the question. If you can put side by side 2 monitors. one of them 17 inches, 4:3 ratio, 1280 x 1024, and a modern 22inch Monitor and compare the size of the Icons on the desktop, the text under the Icons, the text in 1 particular web page... will the 22inch Items be actually bigger? What about the same font and size in a Word document? Will for example 12px Ariel have the same size on both monitors?

 

[knght990]

It is difficult to answer your question without additional information. What are the technologies of each screen? How are the signals being routed to the screens? What is the graphics processor/card used? Which specific monitors?

I think you will find your biggest issues with two screens of different technologies. So a CRT and a TN for example.
Though most discreet video card's software have the ability to customize the image on each screen so you can try to make them as similar as possible. I don't know if integrated graphics will have the same features.
Also, using a splitter switch may limit your ability to customize the interface.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Assuming the 22 inch monitor is 1080P, it is ~100PPI while the old 17 incher is ~96PPI. Like for like icons/font sizes will be slightly smaller.

This is also assuming you're running both at 100% scaling.

Also 1280x1024 is 5:4, not 4:3.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I can sort of answer this. I connected an old 17” LCD 1280x1024 to my 23” 1680x1050 monitor. Icons were similar, I don’t remember them being smaller on the smaller screen. Text absolutely was smaller.
Even though the resolutions were “similar” it is amazing how much more desktop space you have with a wide screen.

 

[brinstar117]

For future comparison or if you want to compare different sized screens try using the utility at displaywars.com

Here are the results after plugging in the screen sizes and using the drop down menu for aspect ratio:

17" 5:4 vs. 22" 16:9

These results are assuming both monitors are LCD. Especially since 17" was a common CRT size. If you have an older CRT monitor the viewable diagonal length was generally around 1" less than advertised. CRTs were marketed by including the non-viewable bezels as part of the total size.