MBP 17" Killing my eyes

[newmbp17]

Hi,
Just got my MBP 17" (Core 2 Duo).
I have to choose now between my sight or my new laptop.

The 17" native resolution is great, but everything is so small that after an hour my eyes start tu hurts. So much so that I have decided to return it (and get hit with the 10% restocking fees - yes it hurts).

If I change the screen resolution, then everything seems to be blurry.
I cannot believe the new MBP was made for 20/40 eye sight...

Does anyone has a quick fix? I call the help desk, the guy who answered had actually never seen a MBP 17" ... so no much help there... so please only response if you have actually used a 17" mac book...

Ps: I don't use glasses, so please refrain from sending me to the ophthalmologist.

Thanks for your help

 

[wmmk]

Hi,
Just got my MBP 17" (Core 2 Duo).
I have to choose now between my sight or my new laptop.

The 17" native resolution is great, but everything is so small that after an hour my eyes start tu hurts. So much so that I have decided to return it (and get hit with the 10% restocking fees - yes it hurts).

If I change the screen resolution, then everything seems to be blurry.
I cannot believe the new MBP was made for 20/40 eye sight...

Does anyone has a quick fix? I call the help desk, the guy who answered had actually never seen a MBP 17" ... so no much help there... so please only response if you have actually used a 17" mac book...

Ps: I don't use glasses, so please refrain from sending me to the ophthalmologist.

Thanks for your help

please describe what was small. you can always make icons, system text, browser text, and windows themselves bigger.
why did you return the computer? we could have helped you out and saved you the 10% restocking fee. anyway, what help do you need, considering that you no longer have the computer?

 

[jonutarr]

it could be the brightness thats hurting your eyes,

put it on low

 

[jsw]

I didn't get the impression that it had been returned.

Anyway, yes, you can alter the size of almost anything on the screen. Also note that, in a few months, Leopard (OS X 10.5) will make this issue even less of a problem by making it easier to resize more things.

10% restocking is a pretty severe hit - are you sure resizing some things wouldn't be better?

 

[hayduke]

I believe the new OS will offer what is termed "resolution independence." (I'm also sure someone will correct me if I have this all wrong...). A problem arises as screens get larger and pixels get smaller. Menu fonts and menubar items use the same number of pixels regardless of the monitor size and resolution. This means that they are the same on a 12" powerbook as they are on the 30" LCD. My understanding is that the new OS will account for this and either allow you to scale these things are scale them appropriately for the screen size.

That doesn't help you now, but it might help out later. Some of the other tips might help you out until the OS is updated.

 

[Lenti]

same problem

The same problem happened to our MBP 15, I always feel the text on the screen is not very clear, compare to my IBM before, it's a little blurry.

 

[wmmk]

I didn't get the impression that it had been returned.

i believe you're right. i assumed 'have decided' meant 'did.' anyway, I don't think he should return it.

 

[gr8tfly]

The pixel size (DPI) is about the same for both the 15" to 17". Have you played with the text smoothing (anti-aliasing) settings? There are different smoothing styles, and you can turn off smoothing below a specific font size.

edit: I calculate about 5% smaller for 17" (110.26dpi vs 116.54dpi calculated on diagonal)

 

[dbater]

Hi,
Just got my MBP 17" (Core 2 Duo).
I have to choose now between my sight or my new laptop.

The 17" native resolution is great, but everything is so small that after an hour my eyes start tu hurts. So much so that I have decided to return it (and get hit with the 10% restocking fees - yes it hurts).

If I change the screen resolution, then everything seems to be blurry.
I cannot believe the new MBP was made for 20/40 eye sight...

Does anyone has a quick fix? I call the help desk, the guy who answered had actually never seen a MBP 17" ... so no much help there... so please only response if you have actually used a 17" mac book...

Ps: I don't use glasses, so please refrain from sending me to the ophthalmologist.

Thanks for your help

go to view and adjust the view options. I have a 17" as well and I use glasses to read and everything is fine here.

 

[Legolamb]

newmbp17, is it glossy or matte? Glare could also be a problem.
I wear glasses with my 17" matte MBP and have no problems with the default resolution. That said, I found that I do sometimes lower the brightness as jonutarr suggested. I actually use reading sunglasses a lot.

 

[Deputy-Dawg]

Hi,
Just got my MBP 17" (Core 2 Duo).
I have to choose now between my sight or my new laptop.

The 17" native resolution is great, but everything is so small that after an hour my eyes start tu hurts. So much so that I have decided to return it (and get hit with the 10% restocking fees - yes it hurts).

If I change the screen resolution, then everything seems to be blurry.
I cannot believe the new MBP was made for 20/40 eye sight...

Does anyone has a quick fix? I call the help desk, the guy who answered had actually never seen a MBP 17" ... so no much help there... so please only response if you have actually used a 17" mac book...

Ps: I don't use glasses, so please refrain from sending me to the ophthalmologist.

Thanks for your help

To give you a bit of my bono fides, I was for 15 years the manager of a large engineering computer center. The problem you mention is one that I frequently ran into on all sorts of machines with high resolution screens. The image, be it text or drawings or what have you are small but decreasing the resolution doesn't improve things because as you decrease the resolution the anti-aliasing funtion of the software softens the image by putting small blobs of grey were ever there is a change in direction.

But the major source of the problem is that as we get older our eyes loose their ability to "accomodate" that is focus at short working distances. But as the type gets smaller, and to some degree the characteristics of a notebook the working distance from your eyes to the screen are reduced.

So... You are faced with two bad solutions, glasses, reading glasses that is, which you apparently are loath to use. Or increase the working distance to the screen which will make the all ready small type appeare even smaller and you will also need longer arms to reach the keyboard.

Getting old is H*** but it sure beats the only known alternative.

 

[board2death]

I am coming from a IBM Thinkpad T60P with 15inch screen
and there is no comparison.
The macbook pro screen is terrible compared.
I had to use the thinkpad again today and was blown away... (seem such a tall screen coming from the widescreen on the macbook pro though

Love the macbook pro other then that....

Anyone else find theirs sluggish?

The same problem happened to our MBP 15, I always feel the text on the screen is not very clear, compare to my IBM before, it's a little blurry.

 

[newmbp17]

Thank you all for your reply.
Actually my new MBP 17 is back on its box, I already got a RMA #.
Before I ship it back I will go to an Apple Store so check on the new iMac 24" to see if the “native resolution” of the 24” makes a difference. If it doesn’t I’ll wait for Leopard.

I am currently using an old Acer with a 1024 x 768 14" with XP Pro, not remotely as fun to use, but at least my eyes don't hurt.

As of for getting everyday older, well… I think about it … tomorrow.

Thanks again for your time.