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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 the both monitors?

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Font size unit in word is not in pixels, so it doesn't care which monitor u use

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5 minutes ago, SaleGamin said:

Font size unit in word is not in pixels, so it doesn't care which monitor u use

What about everything else?

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-

If someone did not use reason to reach their conclusion in the first place, you cannot use reason to convince them otherwise.

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It's not a stupid question.

 

it depends on the pixel pitch of the monitor 

 

The 17" and 22" (or 21.5") is the diagonal of the monitor :   diagonal  = width  x height 2 

 

The pixels on LCD monitors are square, unlike CRT monitors where they could have other shapes. Because of this the width and the height will be proportional to the aspect ratio of the screen (16:9 , 4:3... ) so even if you don't have the data, you could actually determine the pixel size when you know the width and height. 

 

For example, a 21.5" DELL P2219H monitor has a specified pixel size of 0.248mm and a resolution of 1920x1080 

With the pixels being square, you can do the math  : 1920x1080 means   476.16 mm wide ,  267.84mm tall   or 18.74" x 10.54"  ... and that's where you get the 21.5", the diagonal : diagonal = sqrt ( width x height ) = sqrt ( 462.27) = 21.5"

 

Here's a presentation for a HP 17" monitor : http://cdn.cnetcontent.com/91/45/9145465c-8cae-4d6a-93ee-d440eca17c75.pdf

You can see it says the pixel size is 0.264 mm 

 

So at the native resolution of both monitors, assuming you set scaling at 100% in Windows on both monitors, and the DPI is windows is the default 96 DPI, then a letter would be a tiny bit bigger on the 17" monitor, because the the pixel is slightly bigger. 

 

Note this doesn't mean ALL 17" monitors had a pixel pitch of 0.264 mm, that's just a random one I got from Google., but most will be this size.

 

19" 1440x900 (16:10) will have a pixel size of around 0.294mm so that's even higher deviation

20.1" 1600x1200 (4:3) will have a pixel size of around 0.255 mm 

 

And so on .. in fact you can get the most common pixel pitches from Wikipedia article  (see the Pitch column in um, put 0. in front to get mm : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch

 

 

You can change the DPI in Windows, so that letters will be scaled to look bigger or smaller, and that's one of the ways you could use to match the size of fonts on both monitors. 

 

 

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Yeah basically the font is resolution/settings based while the size of the monitor is... real world based.

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Having said that, 

22 minutes ago, mariushm said:

It's not a stupid question.

 

it depends on the pixel pitch of the monitor 

 

The 17" and 22" (or 21.5") is the diagonal of the monitor :   diagonal  = width  x height 2 

 

The pixels on LCD monitors are square, unlike CRT monitors where they could have other shapes. Because of this the width and the height will be proportional to the aspect ratio of the screen (16:9 , 4:3... ) so even if you don't have the data, you could actually determine the pixel size when you know the width and height. 

 

For example, a 21.5" DELL P2219H monitor has a specified pixel size of 0.248mm and a resolution of 1920x1080 

With the pixels being square, you can do the math  : 1920x1080 means   476.16 mm wide ,  267.84mm tall   or 18.74" x 10.54"  ... and that's where you get the 21.5", the diagonal : diagonal = sqrt ( width x height ) = sqrt ( 462.27) = 21.5"

 

Here's a presentation for a HP 17" monitor : http://cdn.cnetcontent.com/91/45/9145465c-8cae-4d6a-93ee-d440eca17c75.pdf

You can see it says the pixel size is 0.264 mm 

 

So at the native resolution of both monitors, assuming you set scaling at 100% in Windows on both monitors, and the DPI is windows is the default 96 DPI, then a letter would be a tiny bit bigger on the 17" monitor, because the the pixel is slightly bigger. 

 

Note this doesn't mean ALL 17" monitors had a pixel pitch of 0.264 mm, that's just a random one I got from Google., but most will be this size.

 

19" 1440x900 (16:10) will have a pixel size of around 0.294mm so that's even higher deviation

20.1" 1600x1200 (4:3) will have a pixel size of around 0.255 mm 

 

And so on .. in fact you can get the most common pixel pitches from Wikipedia article  (see the Pitch column in um, put 0. in front to get mm : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch

 

 

You can change the DPI in Windows, so that letters will be scaled to look bigger or smaller, and that's one of the ways you could use to match the size of fonts on both monitors. 

 

 

Having said this, windows scaling can probably get you part of the way, but it isn't granular enough to get an exact match unless you're very lucky so the most effective thing to do if you want two word docs to look as close as possible in terms of size if crack out a ruler and find the closest matching zoom level.

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21 minutes ago, mariushm said:

It's not a stupid question.

 

it depends on the pixel pitch of the monitor 

 

The 17" and 22" (or 21.5") is the diagonal of the monitor :   diagonal  = width  x height 2 

 

The pixels on LCD monitors are square, unlike CRT monitors where they could have other shapes. Because of this the width and the height will be proportional to the aspect ratio of the screen (16:9 , 4:3... ) so even if you don't have the data, you could actually determine the pixel size when you know the width and height. 

 

For example, a 21.5" DELL P2219H monitor has a specified pixel size of 0.248mm and a resolution of 1920x1080 

With the pixels being square, you can do the math  : 1920x1080 means   476.16 mm wide ,  267.84mm tall   or 18.74" x 10.54"  ... and that's where you get the 21.5", the diagonal : diagonal = sqrt ( width x height ) = sqrt ( 462.27) = 21.5"

 

Here's a presentation for a HP 17" monitor : http://cdn.cnetcontent.com/91/45/9145465c-8cae-4d6a-93ee-d440eca17c75.pdf

You can see it says the pixel size is 0.264 mm 

 

So at the native resolution of both monitors, assuming you set scaling at 100% in Windows on both monitors, and the DPI is windows is the default 96 DPI, then a letter would be a tiny bit bigger on the 17" monitor, because the the pixel is slightly bigger. 

 

Note this doesn't mean ALL 17" monitors had a pixel pitch of 0.264 mm, that's just a random one I got from Google., but most will be this size.

 

19" 1440x900 (16:10) will have a pixel size of around 0.294mm so that's even higher deviation

20.1" 1600x1200 (4:3) will have a pixel size of around 0.255 mm 

 

And so on .. in fact you can get the most common pixel pitches from Wikipedia article  (see the Pitch column in um, put 0. in front to get mm : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch

 

 

You can change the DPI in Windows, so that letters will be scaled to look bigger or smaller, and that's one of the ways you could use to match the size of fonts on both monitors. 

 

 

Wow! What an explanation. Thank you very much!!! Although I am not sure that I am understanding everything. So basicly Icons, text and everything else will stay roughly close no matter how big the monitor size is. So to see everything "bigger" but on High resolution you can't do anything? I was kinde hoping that if I get a bigger monitor (still have 100 years old L1752T) I will see everything bigger from the same distance.

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Everything on the screen, on ANY LCD screen, will depend on the pixel size of that LCD panel. 

 

So basicly Icons, text and everything else will stay roughly close no matter how big the monitor size is. 

 

Roughly close is vague... The pixel size will vary between lcd panels, between let's say 0.15mm or 0.2mm for a 4K monitor to 0.30mm for a  1080p monitor.

 

For example : 0.155 mm for LG 27" 4K IPS monitor  ,  0.27mm for a Dell Ultrasharp 24" 1920x1200  or 0.31mm for a Dell 27" 1080p monitor 

 

A 32 x 32 pixel icon will be half the size on the 4K monitor , when compared to how it looks on the  27" 1080p monitor.  You would have to enable DPI Scaling in windows and set the 4K monitor to 200% scaling to see the icon almost the same size as the size on the 27" 1080p monitor. 

 

To see things bigger you enable Scaling in windows or you lower the resolution of your monitor (but it's not recommended, as most often scaling algorithms in monitors have lower quality compared to the ones a video card can use to accelerate scaling in Windows)

Your video card will also have scaling options in its control panel, should you ever need them.

You also get help from Cleartype and other font smoothing methods in Windows - these methods will add pixels or change the pixel colors of some letters in text to make the text more readable by human eyes, when the letters don't "fall" exactly on individual pixels.  You can take your phone camera (use macro mode if possible) and get it close to the monitor screen and take a picture and you'll see the text is made of black and gray pixels, not just individual black pixels. 

 

 

 

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