21.5 inch 1080 monitor looks better than 15.6 inch 720. Why?

[Kaiyaq]

I've been running two 21.5 inch 1080 monitors and they look good. Good picture, colours etc.

I've recently bought a 15.6 inch 720 touch screen monitor and straight away the text and icons look blurry! Initially I thought this was because I was connecting via VGA but then I tried DVI and it was the same quality.

Even though the 15.6 is 720 I would have thought it would look the same because of it's small screen. Am I missing something? Have I forgotten what small monitors looked like?

 

[little_me]

Yes, pixel density on 720P 15.6 inch is less (46 pixels/inch) than on 21.5 inch 1080P (50.2) so it might look more blurry.
another thing is, if the resolution is set to 720P or if display does scaling on its own, which might also cause anti-aliasing/blurriness, this is more likely reason since 46 vs 50 isn't big difference.

 

[Kaiyaq]

How can I find out if the monitor is auto scaling?

The monitor in question is this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01B6JD7DA/

 

[10tacle]

It's about pixel density, or more commonly referenced in specs as pixel pitch. It's a number used to represent the distance between the center of two adjacent pixels. In monitor specs, it is referenced in millimeters. The smaller the number, the higher the quality of the display. But this only goes so far because resolution also matters. For example, the pixel density of say a 21.5" 1080p monitor will be much greater (smaller in mm) than a 1080p 27" monitor. When you start comparing different resolutions however, it's rather meaningless. You need to compare the same resolutions compared to various pixel densities and display sizes. Also, image quality including text is always best when the monitor or HDTV is run at native resolution. Hope this helps.

 

[little_me]

the display itself should not do it but windows might. Windows sometimes does that when you have two screens with different resolutions.

Assuming windows 10 since nothing different was not specified:
settings -> display (or right click on destop and select Display settings)
check that scale and layout on all screens is at 100%
check that resolution for all screens is what it should be.

Edit: The page specs seem to say that displays Native resolution is 1920x1080 while it only displays 1378x720, so windows might have auto-set resolution to 1080P and screen scales it to 720, causing blurriness.

Display Resolution Max 1366x768
Native Resolution 1920 x 1080

 

[Kaiyaq]

It's running at native resolution and I will check the Windows scaling in a few minutes, thanks.

 

[little_me]

If its running at native but only showing 1368x768, it's scaling it down which is most likely reason for the blurriness. said display should most likely be run at the maximum display resolution even if it'd allow it to run at 1080P

 

[Kaiyaq]

Sorry, I got the max resolution and the native mixed up. The monitor is running at max res. 1366 x 768 and at 100% scaling.

It seems like it's just a rubbish monitor.

 

[Kaiyaq]

Any other ideas why this maybe so?