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Wonder when MS will solve the external monitor zoom problem?

mitchellvii

Well-Known Member
Wonder when MS will solve the external monitor zoom problem? [SOLVED]

It is a known problem that when connecting to an external monitor, the 150 zoom factor or on SP persists thus not taking full advantage of the monitor's size and resolution. I have read that MS says they are working on this and will get back to us. Did it not occur to them for the years they were developing this that this might be an issue? But I digress. I guess they were so excited about their one-size-fits-all unadjustable kickstand and power/pen holder this never presented itself?

It just doesn't seem as if it should be all that hard to me. Anyone have some inside info on when this might be done?

** Sorry to rant a bit but the SP is so close to being a perfect device and the things that make it not perfect are so intentional yet so unbelievably dumb it just gets on my nerves.
 
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Heh it is odd when user friendly things like this get skipped. This plus a two stage kickstand would be nice :)
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express
 
Heh it is odd when user friendly things like this get skipped. This plus a two stage kickstand would be nice :)Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express

On a lighter note, it is already a three stage kick stand - first stage @ 22 degrees (or whatever MS made a big deal of); second stage when the kickstand is closed/ shut; third stage (similar to second stage), when kick stand is broken off.
 
I don't think people think about the price they pay for being early adopters of new technology. As for me I don't use 150% and have an external Monitor I use as my Main Screen in the 'docked' configuration. The touchscreen Dell S2340T Monitor is like BUTTA, as they say. I LOVE it. Someone on these forums put the idea to get the monitor in my head. I forget who it was now as the post was part of a response to something unrelated. Whoever you are, thank you, its the ultimate accessory for any system.
 
The amazing thing about the one stage kickstand and the extremely high angle they chose for that one stage is the patently INSANE reason they chose it.

Did they consider that the user would have the SP pointing pretty much at the middle of their chest as opposed to their eyes? No they didn't. What they had in mind was they wanted the user to be able to video tape their kids playing on the floor behind the SP while they used it on the coffee table. I kid you not, THAT was their reason. And why did they choose only one angle instead of making it adjustable? Because they wanted to emulate the sound of a Mercedes door closing when you flipped it closed and an adjustable stand would prevent that. Again I kid you not.

One thing is clear, they smoke A LOT of weed at MS Headquarters.
 
For the time being I have decided to set my SP at 1600 x 900 and my external monitor at 1920 x 1080 with both at 100 zoom. Although 1600 x 900 is not "optimal" I'll be damned if i can tell a difference with how things look on the SP and things are at least readable with the naked eye at 100% zoom. One thing I have noticed. Office 2013 does NOT like zoom ratios other than 100%. Fonts and icons get very weird and distorted.

One side benefit of 1600 x 900 is that you get 4 rows of tiles in Metro (don't ask, you just do).

Running gdipp (get it here gdipp - Customizable Windows text renderers - Google Project Hosting) to smooth out screen fonts really helps too.
 
For the time being I have decided to set my SP at 1600 x 900 and my external monitor at 1920 x 1080 with both at 100 zoom. Although 1600 x 900 is not "optimal" I'll be damned if i can tell a difference with how things look on the SP and things are at least readable with the naked eye at 100% zoom. One thing I have noticed. Office 2013 does NOT like zoom ratios other than 100%. Fonts and icons get very weird and distorted.

One side benefit of 1600 x 900 is that you get 4 rows of tiles in Metro (don't ask, you just do).

Running gdipp (get it here gdipp - Customizable Windows text renderers - Google Project Hosting) to smooth out screen fonts really helps too.

How did you setup multiple resolutions on different monitors?
 
For the time being I have decided to set my SP at 1600 x 900 and my external monitor at 1920 x 1080 with both at 100 zoom. Although 1600 x 900 is not "optimal" I'll be damned if i can tell a difference with how things look on the SP and things are at least readable with the naked eye at 100% zoom. One thing I have noticed. Office 2013 does NOT like zoom ratios other than 100%. Fonts and icons get very weird and distorted.

One side benefit of 1600 x 900 is that you get 4 rows of tiles in Metro (don't ask, you just do).

Running gdipp (get it here gdipp - Customizable Windows text renderers - Google Project Hosting) to smooth out screen fonts really helps too.
Thanks for the tip about changing the screen resolution to 1600 x 900. I am liking the new look much better. One of my tiles wouldn't show the icon correctly, but now does. I also found myself having to use zoom when I used Chrome. Since changing to 1600 x 900, I no longer need to zoom, I can read everything just fine.
 
Thanks for the tip about changing the screen resolution to 1600 x 900. I am liking the new look much better. One of my tiles wouldn't show the icon correctly, but now does. I also found myself having to use zoom when I used Chrome. Since changing to 1600 x 900, I no longer need to zoom, I can read everything just fine.

Yes, oddly enough in many way the SP functions better at 1600 x 900 than it does at its native resolution. Seems that nothing gets broken but a number of things get fixed. Who knows, it's MS.
 
The amazing thing about the one stage kickstand and the extremely high angle they chose for that one stage is the patently INSANE reason they chose it.

Did they consider that the user would have the SP pointing pretty much at the middle of their chest as opposed to their eyes? No they didn't. What they had in mind was they wanted the user to be able to video tape their kids playing on the floor behind the SP while they used it on the coffee table. I kid you not, THAT was their reason. And why did they choose only one angle instead of making it adjustable? Because they wanted to emulate the sound of a Mercedes door closing when you flipped it closed and an adjustable stand would prevent that. Again I kid you not.

One thing is clear, they smoke A LOT of weed at MS Headquarters.

Whatever contest we are currently having, this guy should get a prize for this post! PERIOD!:p
 
Well i didnt think this would work but it does.

If you want to have 100% zoom on both your SP and your external monitor, just set the resolution of you SP to 1366 x 768 and 100% zoom. Yeah I know what you are thinking, my SP will look TERRIBLE at 1366 x 768. Well, actually not. Looks great. As a matter of fact I can't tell any difference at all.

Anyway give it a shot and let me know what you think.
 
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