How You See the Web: Getting the Most From Your Monitor

by Paula Eisenberg

(September 27, 2002) Did you know you might be missing a lot as you surf the Web? If your monitor is more than a year or two old, and unless you've explored its settings, you're probably viewing the Web at a fairly low resolution. And a low resolution can mean you're not seeing webpages as their designers meant them to be seen.

If you use a PC older than the first generation of Pentiums, and the monitor is smallish (13"-15"), you probably can't do much better than a resolution of 640 x 480. Many webpages will look rather awful to you. The same is true for Mac monitors of the same vintage.

Early Pentiums, later PowerMacs and early G-series Macs with 15" + monitors are probably set to a resolution of 800 x 600. Many websites are designed to work with this resolution.

Most new monitors can deal with a resolution of 1024 x 768, and many cutting-edge websites are designed to take advantage of this greater amount of screen "real estate." Even though the viewing experience is often better at the higher resolution, many monitors are shipped with the lower setting, and most users don't bother changing it. You should, though, just to see whether or not you like the change.

How does our front page look at different resolution settings? I've made screen captures at high, medium and lowest resolutions. You can see why we hope you're using as high a resolution as possible!

1028 x 768 resolution (high)

800x 600 resolution (medium)

640 x 480 resolution (low)

To see what your current resolution is on your Mac, choose the Display control panel. For a Windows machine, right-click on your desktop, left-click on Properties, then choose the Settings tab. This is how the settings area looks in Windows 2000:

Use the Less/More slider to change the resolution, then click OK and follow the prompts. Surf the Web to see how some of your favorite sites look at this new resolution. You should also set the Colors choice to the highest level your computer can handle. This will also improve the quality of the graphics display.

A nifty little utility program called Rapid Res for Windows lets you quickly and easily change from one resolution to another. You can get it as a free download from PC Magazine.

Computer equipment in general is continuing to plummet in price. For well under $1000, you can upgrade to a fast, graphically terrific new system. You could even buy a new 17" CRT monitor for only around $200, but if your computer is old, its graphics card might not allow you to take advantage of the new monitor's power. If you want to really enjoy the wonders of the Web, the spiffy new home office programs, exciting games and thrilling audio and video possibilities, treat yourself to a new system. After all, it's a new century!

Send this page to a friend

Discuss this topic in our forums, or send a letter to the editors.