Re:The End of Windows
by kijin on Monday April 02, 2018 @12:49PM
(#16736295)
When I bought my father a new laptop a couple of years ago, I specifically looked for a model with 1366x768 resolution because a lot of legacy apps he depends on for his work have terrible HiDPI support. "Upgrading" to 1920x1080 with HiDPI turned off (100% scaling) would have made everything too small for his eyes.
Moreover, even apps that do support HiDPI often look like crap at 125% scaling -- the default setting on Windows 10 for most 1920x1080 laptops these days. And if you go up to 150%, you only get 1280x720 effective pixels. That's even less information density than 1366x768. Most legacy Windows apps expect to be able to use at least 768 vertical pixels.
The search turned out to be more difficult than I expected, because most high-end PC laptops with good build quality had already transitioned to 1920x1080 by early 2016. I finally found the perfect model for my father and told him that he should expect to use it for a long, long time since it's the last laptop that will ever support his apps. Fortunately, it's a well-built Broadwell i5 with a number of upgradable components, so it should last well into the early 2020s.
Moreover, even apps that do support HiDPI often look like crap at 125% scaling -- the default setting on Windows 10 for most 1920x1080 laptops these days. And if you go up to 150%, you only get 1280x720 effective pixels. That's even less information density than 1366x768. Most legacy Windows apps expect to be able to use at least 768 vertical pixels.
The search turned out to be more difficult than I expected, because most high-end PC laptops with good build quality had already transitioned to 1920x1080 by early 2016. I finally found the perfect model for my father and told him that he should expect to use it for a long, long time since it's the last laptop that will ever support his apps. Fortunately, it's a well-built Broadwell i5 with a number of upgradable components, so it should last well into the early 2020s.