Windows 8 Is Retina-Ready

windows8.pngAll the talk these days is of the new iPad and its magical screen. Apple isn’t the only one who can do that, you know. In fact, most display makers are looking forward to post-HD resolutions as one of the big selling points of the next generation of displays. Other tablets are already approaching iPad levels of pixel density and it would be foolish of the likes of Google and Microsoft not to be planning for it.

Fortunately, Microsoft is well aware of the trend and has plans in place for dealing with pixel-dense displays (or “Retina” to the vulgar).The specifics are laid out with no quarter given to laymen in this post at Building Windows 8. The gist is that they have analyzed the expected range of display sizes and resolutions, and have identified a sort of “Goldilocks Zone” for the three general classes of resolutions: standard, HD, and quad-XGA (2560×1440). Inside this zone, text and UI elements aren’t blown up to cartoonish proportions or shrunk down to a size that’s frustrating to touch.

Read more here

Scaling to different screens - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Windows 8 Is Retina-Ready | TechCrunch
 
At last an intelligent use of high screen resolutions! On a PC desktop, too high a resolution makes the text unreadable for many and the usual solutions are ugly. So I hope this works aesthetically as well as practically.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    self built
    CPU
    i5-2500K
    Motherboard
    Asus P8Z77
    Memory
    16Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD5700
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HPLP2475w, AOC
    Hard Drives
    SATA 3 SSD, SATA 2 5 drives total 6Tb
Inside this zone, text and UI elements aren’t blown up to cartoonish proportions or shrunk down to a size that’s frustrating to touch.
Meh, I don't feel like they're really there yet. I'm running WCP on a 1366/768 10.1" screen and I'd like to see some more customization with text and elements sizing. As it is, my only option is to increase the size of text and images to 125%, which magically makes the maximize/minimize/close and file/etc buttons touchable but makes some software unusable on the desktop, and other elements "blown up to cartoonish proportions" as Kostas7 said. This means that I have to go back to 100% sizing to run certain apps by logging out and then can't touch desktop buttons until I logout/login again under 125%. Total hassle.

Oddly, in Metro/start I only get 3 tiles vertical in 1366/768 but if I go down to 1024/768 I get 4 tiles vertical, regardless of weather I'm running 100% or 125% text and images sizes. Does this make any sense at all?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Viliv S10 3G
    CPU
    Atom Z530 (1.6GHz)
    Memory
    1GB DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel GMA 500
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Screen Resolution
    1366/768
    Hard Drives
    SanDisk 64GB SSD
    Internet Speed
    6.41/5.47 MBPS
    Other Info
    WiFi 802.11 b/g
    Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
    Internal 3G (Huawei EM770W:
    HSPA/UMTS 850/900/1900/2100MHz,
    HSUPA: 5.76Mbps (UL) / HSDPA: 7.2Mbps (DL))
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