4k on 15.6" laptop display, a pain in the... neck? Thread poster: Merab Dekano
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I just retired my Oldy, a 17” HDD-based pretty-heavy-to-carry-around machine. It got replaced with a slim yet powerful 15.6” machine with 4k display and SSD. As a side note: try SSD and you will never go back to HDD. The thing doesn’t gallop, it flies…
Sounds great, right? Wrong. All programmes display tiny little dots where previously my Oldy proudly portrayed what we call ‘icons’. I can’t see a thing. All windows got four times smaller, and all icons turned into u... See more I just retired my Oldy, a 17” HDD-based pretty-heavy-to-carry-around machine. It got replaced with a slim yet powerful 15.6” machine with 4k display and SSD. As a side note: try SSD and you will never go back to HDD. The thing doesn’t gallop, it flies…
Sounds great, right? Wrong. All programmes display tiny little dots where previously my Oldy proudly portrayed what we call ‘icons’. I can’t see a thing. All windows got four times smaller, and all icons turned into unrecognizable vicious dots. I am working “head first”, with my neck resampling that of a rhinoceros and my eyes, those of a koala.
When I turned to forums, the solution seems to be lowering resolution to 1080.
To spend or not to spend on 4k display on a 15.6” laptop, this is the question (well, I already spent, but…). In other words, is there any other solution different from lowering the resolution?
Thanks in advance for your help!
[Edited at 2016-09-16 20:22 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Short answer... | Sep 16, 2016 |
I had some similar problems when using my 12 inch retina MacBook. Fortunately there were some who had made a work-around patch where I could run Wordfast through their patch and afterwards it looked fine rather than grainy.
My suggestion with small screens is to have a dual screen setup, using an iPad. This will make your life so much more bearable on a small laptop.
| | | | Merab Dekano 
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER
DJHartmann wrote:
I had some similar problems when using my 12 inch retina MacBook. Fortunately there were some who had made a work-around patch where I could run Wordfast through their patch and afterwards it looked fine rather than grainy.
My suggestion with small screens is to have a dual screen setup, using an iPad. This will make your life so much more bearable on a small laptop.
Thanks. And what was the work-around? I agree, 15.6-inch screen for 4k resolution is rather small, but is it that bad?
Office programmes are fine, but Studio, for example, is terrible.
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 22:26
Member
Chinese to English
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| Right click on your desktop | Sep 17, 2016 |
Display settings - Change the size of...
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| Mac-specific | Sep 17, 2016 |
Merab Dekano wrote:
And what was the work-around ?
It was a Mac-specific patch, where I dragged Wordfast app into it, it made its adjustments, and then all was fine.
I'm not sure if retina screens are 4K, but they must be close.
12 inch MacBook plus iPad works as well as my dual screen iMac setup in the office. Your 15inch will be fine! Just get an iPad (or other tablet) to use as dual screen!
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:26
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Size matters | Sep 17, 2016 |
Merab Dekano wrote:
To spend or not to spend on 4k display on a 15.6” laptop, this is the question (well, I already spent, but…). In other words, is there any other solution different from lowering the resolution?
Not really. There are semi-workarounds as suggested by the others, but given the as-yet imperfect scaling of Windows 10 it is still a work in progress. Basic physics right? You're trying to stuff more in a smaller space. Something has to give.
I plan to get a 4k display soon, probably well over 40-inch as then the perceived size of the image on the screen will be comparable to or larger than that of my 24" monitor.
Admittedly, a 43" monitor doesn't fit in a sleek Porter-brand briefcase, so it wouldn't be practical for travelling. Still, if you work mostly from home, why don't you buy a big monitor and an external keyboard & mouse, disable the sleep function of the laptop, close it, plug in all the devices and use it like that?
Best of both worlds. Big monitor with 4K at home, but you can pop off for the weekend and take your PC with you.
Dan
| | | | Ben Senior
Germany
Local time: 16:26
German to English
Merab,
If it's the icon size that you want to change try:
Hold down the Ctrl key, press down the mouse wheel and rotate it.
That will change the size of the icons and the setting is remembered so you only have to do it once.
Ben
| | | | Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Ben Senior wrote:
Merab,
If it's the icon size that you want to change try:
Hold down the Ctrl key, press down the mouse wheel and rotate it.
That will change the size of the icons and the setting is remembered so you only have to do it once.
Ben
Thanks, Ben. It works, but only for Windows icons, which are fine. It doesn't work with Trados icons, for example.
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Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Dan Lucas wrote:
Still, if you work mostly from home, why don't you buy a big monitor and an external keyboard & mouse, disable the sleep function of the laptop, close it, plug in all the devices and use it like that?
Dan
Thanks, Dan. I do have an Asus 25" high resolution monitor and external keyboard with brown mechanical switches. I couldn't work without those. However, I am now in my Tenerife apartment and the only thing I have here is a small Samsung TV, very low resolution. I’m almost avoiding using it.
I do work from home most of the time and yes, when I close my laptop, nothing happens, it keeps working. However, at times, when I edit texts, I also use my laptop monitor to open, say, a reference file.
I’ll try to play with scaling. Let’s see what comes out of it.
| | | | Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I just realized, it's Studio only. DVX3 is fine, office programmes are fine. The issue is with Studio.
| | | | Emma Goldsmith
Spain
Local time: 16:26
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
| Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Sounds great, but it had no effect | Sep 17, 2016 |
Thank you very much. No, I didn't know anything about this article. It sounds great on paper, but unfortunately this did not have any effect on Studio:
Workaround 1: Disable display scaling for specific applications
1.Locate the SDL Trados Studio (or other SDL application) icon on the desktop or Start menu.
2.Right-click the SDL Trados Studio icon.
3.Choose Properties.
4.Click the Compatibility tab.
5.Under Compatibility mode from the dropdown menu, select Windows 7/8.
NOTE: This runs the program using settings from a previous version of Windows. Try this setting if you know the program is designed for (or worked in) a specific previous version of Windows.
6.Tick the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings box.
7.Click OK to confirm the changes.
I tried with Windows 8 and 7, but nothing.
Thanks anyway.
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Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Dear colleagues
I’d like to thank you very much for your help. Despite your exquisite help and my research efforts, I was about to give up, but today I had to open a Studio package and it happened: icons are in the right place, no ugly overlapping of lines, it’s all neat now.
I didn’t do anything, it all clinked back on its own.
Studio happens...
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