Varying display quality between programs

I've just switched back to windows 8 after years on OSX and I'm having some weirdness with my external display. Some programs look really good and some look pretty bad. I suspect there is some simple setting or other tweak that I can do, but I don't know what it is...
Things like evernote look great but chrome and outlook do not. I've attached two example screenshots (one from evernote - good, and one from chrome - bad). Is there something obvious I'm missing?

(everything looks good on my laptops main screen and everything looks great on the external monitor with my old mac plugged into it).

For background the laptop is a Gigabyte P35X and the external monitor is a Dell U2711.

Thanks for any advice and help!

[edit: I've realised the compression on the jpegs i've attached kind of hides the degree of difference between the two screenshots - i can add some better ones if that will make a difference in diagnosing the issue but I'm sort of hoping that this is something of a known issue]

more detail

i worked out a way to show the issue more clearly - on the left of this image is chrome on the right is evernote. Evernote looks great and chrome looks pretty rough. Its like a different dpi is being used by each program (i realise that is not likely to be the issue).
Anyone got any ideas?

Turn off Clear View. It does help to know what GPU your laptop is using. Also if your laptop is connecting to the monitor either with DVI, HDMI or VGA. If you are not using the Software Control panel for adjusting the output settings, suggest trying.

Also yes, different software can appear good to bad, depending on what the person or writers of the software set it to use for font, etc..