Hi, My only previous experience was with CRT monitors. I'm used to being able to switch between 800x600 and higher resolutions with the size changing, but the image quality staying pretty decent at all settings. My new monitor is a LCD Viewsonic with a phenominal quality at 1280x1024. When the owners manual clearly stated "for highest quality 1280x1024 is recommened", I was still expecting to be able to check layouts at 800x600 and 1024x768. At lower res the picture is not just "a bit off", but surprisingly blurry and very low quality. The monitor looks so good at 1280x1024, I don't think it's defective. I'm just curious if it's generally normal for good hi-res LCD monitors to only be 'usable' at the highest settings? Thank you.
OK. You verified what I suspected. Now I need an easy way to check my work and layouts at 800x600. Thanks.
http://www.pixy.cz/pixylophone/favelets/ Scroll down to the Browser Window section, then drag the desired sizes into your bookmarks toolbar.
Really helpful, thanks. It's about 80% of what I needed. A great way to see where the scrollbars are, and how much of the layout will show , but I'm not seeing the 'end-user quality' on the low-res monitor setting, 'blown-up' larger pictures. Very nice tool, I'm glad to get it.
I wouldn't go by "quality" as there are thousands of different monitors in the world, all of which are configured differently. When I make websites, I only concern myself with the important stuff fitting within 800x450 and that the colors are good ... it's not really my concern if a visitor doesn't have their monitors set up right
That's true. At best the only thing you can really do is to make sure that the site layout looks good at 800x600 [user viewpoint] resolution. All the rest is up to the user. There's just too many variables when it comes to monitors.
Thank you for posting that tidbit of information. Now I know that I have to see the monitor in action and at the distance I prefer to sit to know which one to pick. You may have just saved me from a terrible mistake.