[flagged]
I have looked at screenshots of ChromeOS and, for obvious reasons, they don't seem to be using it - they use Roboto and Product Sans just like they do in Android.
That said, I don't use Noto and I replaced it with Tahoma. :)
What I meant is that this style of font is soooo generic at this point that it screams cheap
Noto is a variant of Open Sans with a much wider symbol set.
A font specifically designed for UI like Inter would be better choice as it’s a bit more compact and better for information density.
Verdana, the font HN uses, was designed to be readable at small sizes on lo-res screens, so has very wide counters. It’s also why it looks ugly in high-res or when printed.
Good interface fonts tend to be more condensed, so you get more on a line - think Roboto or Inter. It’s also probably why Apple moved from Helvetica, a good print font, to San Francisco which was specifically designed for UI.
Verdana is actually undersized relative to most fonts. The ascender range is too large, so the baseline is off as well. And as you pointed out, the blue zones are similar to Noto anyway, so that aspect wouldn't affect readability.
I think you probably just have a low-res monitor. Noto has no bytecode hinting, so it would fall back to an auto hinter or remain unhinted and wouldn't present with the same sharpness.
About paddings and margins I didn't say anything because that's really old. They haven't got that right since the KDE 3 days.
There are certainly still problems with spacing in various KDE applications, but this screenshot is not an example of that. Rather, I think you're deliberately looking for something to complain about.
Panels have massive areas of empty space, with all the UI elements huddling together in the corner as if for warmth.