How to achieve High Resolution for Text Reading

[AEngineer]

I've just been working with my wife on switching to digital for newspapers.  She finds that she cannot comfortably read on a regular computer screen (Philadelphia Inquirer on Lenovo V100 - Screen 1280 x 800), but is quite happy reading on my Kindle.  Both she and I believe that the difference is the increased pixels/inch on the Kindle (167 ppi, 4-level gray scale).  This leads to several questions.

1) Does anyone know of a monitor/card combination that we could use to achieve the same kind of flicker-free resolution with our desktop machine at a vaguely reasonable price?

2) Am I missing something in my analysis that might make it more palatable for her to use the laptop for reading?

Thanks

Jim Mitchell

[mikiem]

TO my knowledge, other than things like adjusting the display and using apps like cleartype, it's pretty much up to the display you're using.

Any type of LCD display means the manufacturer using several tricks and compromises to get viewers something resembling a std CRT. Unfortunately, these same tricks and compromises make it less ideal for regular text. My desktop LG display has additional compensation built-in as a separate mode to make plain text more legible, & it is easier to read than many others. I'd assume the Kindle is designed without all those features to make colors look good, with engineers focusing instead on just text.

Since you obviously can't just switch displays, the only other solution I could imagine would be to check out some of the anti-glare &/or privacy filter screens they make for laptop displays... They can make a difference, though I don't know whether or not it'll help, or how much in your situation.

[AEngineer]

Thanks for the feedback.

It might be worth it to us to replace a display with one optimized for text.  Does anyone have any specific recommendations?

It also seems to me that the inherent "pitch" (I think it's the right term) is critical.  The Kindle just has a much higher pitch and thus produces better resolution, albeit in grey-only scale.  Any comments on that would be appreciated too.

[mikiem]

Maybe this will help &/or be useful understanding LCDs and choosing a monitor...

First off, I strongly believe that noone should choose a LCD monitor without seeing it’s display - I paid a bit more for the LG L1932TQ I use (no longer made), but after comparing it side by side with other brands/models, I’ve never regretted that choice. Online & in ads you don’t get a lot of useful info, & I don’t know the reviewer’s standards when I read a review. You’ll see a figure for brightness, which to me is less useful since most potential choices will be close. You see a figure for contrast ratio, which is very important for weeding out more nasty displays, but at the same time is not a great means of comparing very good models - the figures can reflect the manufacturer’s enhancing technologies... In a way it’s kind of like scanner resolutions, where you have optical & then enhanced or hardware interpolated resolutions - a poor resolution eliminates some products, but it’s hard if not impossible to compare the enhanced figures since the quality at those higher resolutions can vary so much. The third figure commonly given is the response time, which according to this site is often more of a moot point - it also has some very decent info on LCD monitors & design, by someone working in the field.

http://www.techmind.org/lcd/index.html
The link that page gives for basic LCD info (How It Works) should be:
http://www.plasma.com/classroom/what_is_tft_lcd.htm
And you’ll find more on testing here:
http://www.colorwizzard.com/lcdtest/index.html
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/lcdtest/
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

[tomos]

if you're looking at buying a monitor, scroll down to the second post in the link for monitor recommendations for different uses:-
The LCD Thread