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Comment by meritt | Hacker News Reader

Why is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768? Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080 (I'll leave my rant about 16:10 vs. 16:9 for another time).

Technology is so ridiculous at times.

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> Why is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768?

Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

> Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080

Because they know they can rip you off, and because it's a lot more expensive to produce high resolution displays (or rather, displays of any resolution) when they're being produced in small quantities.

> Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

If I'm not mistaken the new, formerly known as "Metro", UI is vector based and any applications built with the WPF which includes all Windows 8 GUI based applications (at least the non-html one's) are of course vector based so it's simply up to the designer/developer to scale it however they want.

Not completely true. The metro app developer will still have to include pixel art at varying resolutions since these do not scale automatically very well.

unless you develop metro apps using javascript/html - then you can use vector art.

XAML is very vector orientated, most apps will (should) not include pixel based art-work unless really necessary.

> Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

This is not true. Windows has had very good support for custom resolutions since Vista. Windows 7 actually looks great when set to higher resolution. Windows applications is another story, but the number of DPI aware applications is growing http://www.rw-designer.com/DPI-aware

I didn't see a list of DPI aware applications at the link you gave me, is that a typo?

that was not the list of applications, but a guide on how to write one with and example at the end

I want to know what applications are already DPI-aware and could run on say...a Retina MacBook Pro running bootcamp and Windows 8. As far as I can tell, there are no such apps yet, even Microsoft's own Office. But I would be happy to be corrected!

"Windows," if defined as "the windowing library", does. Even Explorer doesn't work correctly at 200% DPI scaling (you get a tiny nav bar and a really long search bar). It's junk.

What's worse is that VS2012 is nearly unusable because IntelliSense explodes all over the screen. I have many sads when I have to deal with that on my rMBP.

you can drag the splitter between the navbar and searchbar to adjust the sizes as you see fit...

VS2012 is still a problem though

At 200% DPI, I can't even find the splitter. Like, my mouse cursor doesn't change to the two-headed arrow.

Windows seems to have to have the support, but is not widely used http://techreport.com/review/23631/how-windows-8-scaling-fai...

Larger screens are much more expensive to produce than small screens unless the defect rate is very low. For this reason new LCD technologies are always perfected on smaller screens before migrating to larger screens.

> Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

I upgraded my HP 17" laptop panel to 1920 x 1200 (bought less than $200 on ebay 2 years ago). That was on Windows 7. I don't notice any visual issues. Just upgraded to Windows 8 and all Windows apps look just fine too. So applications aren't real issues here.

1920 x 1200 is nowhere near 2x resolution. Its more like 1.2 or 1.3.

Indeed. 1920 x 1200 on a 17" screen is about 133 dpi, not even close to the 300 dpi on the Nexus 10.

Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling.

Yes they do. It's just not automatic - you tweak it in control panel to suit your preferences.

Because of the leading desktop operating systems, only Apple has started to divorce screen resolution from UI element sizes, and even that support is half-assed.

People are giving you software answers, but I think the answer is actually about hardware. Monitor manufacturers realized they could brand their screens as "1080p HD" to match them up to the TV marketing pitch. Why bother trying to make a screen with 1600 vertical pixels when you can just use that magic word, 1080p?

My 15" laptop has native resolution of 2880x1800 (though I typically use it scaled to 1920x1200). It did cost a lot, though, so despite being a best-selling model it may not be 'commonplace'.

Apple's Retina displays (in the new Macbook Pros) have very high resolutions. The latest Macbook Pros have either 2560x1600 or 2880x1800 native resolution, depending on when you bought it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5266

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