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The new and upgraded Framework Laptop

(community.frame.work)
1680 points etbusch | 7 comments | 19 May 22 12:19 UTC | HN request time: 1.034s | source | bottom
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petilon ◴[19 May 22 14:57 UTC] No.31435505[source]▶
Still no retina display option. Steve Jobs made the right call over a decade ago... the only scaling that looks good after 100% is 200%. Any in-between scaling will have display artifacts.

This laptop has 150% scaling. What sort of display artifacts can you expect because of this? Go to a web page with a grid, with 1-pixel horizontal grid lines. Even though all lines are set to 1-pixel, some lines will appear thicker than others.

I blame Microsoft for this mess. Windows supports in-between resolutions (with display artifacts), and hardware manufacturers therefore manufacture in-between resolutions. Framework laptop is limited to what the display manufacturers put out.

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daemontus ◴[19 May 22 15:44 UTC] No.31436188[source]▶
A gentle reminder that every retina MacBook has been shipping with fractional scaling as default for years now (and it's not even 1.5). Sure, you can put it back into 2x if you want to. But you can do the same on a Framework, and then you get... wait for it... almost the same vertical resolution as a 2x 13" MB Pro (93% to be exact). If you absolutely need more space and a 2x scaling, there is a large amount of 4K 13"/14" laptops that are more than happy to fill that niche. Free market is your friend :)

So the argument that Windows is somehow responsible for the death of perfect 2x scaling is a bit exaggerated. People just want more space and anti-aliasing is mostly good enough so that no one cares.

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1. petilon ◴[19 May 22 16:29 UTC] No.31436762[source]▶
> every retina MacBook has been shipping with fractional scaling as default for years now

I have a MacBook and I don't see the kind of display artifacts that I mentioned (grid lines set to same pixel width appearing to have different widths) on a MacBook. Why is that? I have also tried the same test on nearly every Windows laptop at BestBuy, and every Windows laptop that does not have scaling set to either 100% or 200% has this artifact. Even 300% scaling has this artifact. What is Apple's magic that Microsoft has not been able to replicate?

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2. j3s ◴[19 May 22 17:00 UTC] No.31437180[source]▶
could I suggest trying to figure this out yourself? it sounds like you have the interest and incentive - i'm sure other people would love to know. a blog post about why fractional scaling artifacts exist on Windows but not MacOS would probably be popular (i'd definitely be interested in reading it at least).
3. mumblemumble ◴[19 May 22 19:51 UTC] No.31439297[source]▶
Very wild guess: Display PostScript. Or, I suppose, more accurately, its descendant Quartz 2D.
4. scq ◴[20 May 22 01:26 UTC] No.31442332[source]▶
I definitely see it on macOS. Set your display scaling to a fractional amount, then drag a window around slowly. You should see the border lines subtly get fuzzier/sharper/change width.
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5. petilon ◴[20 May 22 02:36 UTC] No.31442724[source]▶
So you have to set the scaling to a non-default amount, to get that to happen. Of course I would expect display artifacts in that case, because you're forcing it to happen.
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6. diffeomorphism ◴[20 May 22 12:12 UTC] No.31446249[source]▶
> I have a MacBook and I don't see the kind of display artifacts that I mentioned (grid lines set to same pixel width appearing to have different widths) on a MacBook. Why is that?

You just claimed that this is only possible with 200% scaling. Was that wrong?

7. skavi ◴[20 May 22 17:40 UTC] No.31450454{3}[source]▶
The default scaling is fractional on recent MacBooks.