My Old Tired Eyes ...

[easysurfer]

Tried using my laptop with a 14 inch screen tonight but was struggling.

Finally, gave up and now am snipe bidding on a used 15.6 inch screen laptop.

Funny, that about 10 years ago, I even used a a 10 inch netbook.

No fun getting older and feeling like Mr. Magoo .

 

[Telly]

I need a desktop display to be comfortable. When my old LG Flatron became intermittent, all the new monitors on the market seemed to be the wide-screen 16:9 aspect ratio. With those, for a given diagonal measurement, the vertical screen size is less than a 5:4 aspect ratio of the same diagonal. So either a gigantic 16:9, or a reasonable sized 5:4. So the hunt was on for a 5:4. Few made, but found a 19" diagonal 5:4 Dell that has been running fine for a few years now.

I heard there are people who need 5:4 for some uses, job-wise.

And I also run a low resolution, 1024 x 768, IIRC, to help me. Amazon recently added a few more choices on their account box, the one that has the logoff way at the bottom. So the logoff went below the screen, and attempting to scroll down pops it out of that view, a Catch-22!
Found after fooling around a while, that I can use the scroll wheel on the keyboard (never really used it before), to stay on the screen, and scroll down to the bottom of the list, to logout.

 

[euro]

Tried using my laptop with a 14 inch screen tonight but was struggling.

Finally, gave up and now am snipe bidding on a used 15.6 inch screen laptop.

Funny, that about 10 yers ago, I even used a a 10 inch netbook.

No fun getting older and feeling like Mr. Magoo .

Nothing a six pack of reading glasses from Costco can't take care of!

 

[Amethyst]

Some years ago, I was talking with a 38-year-old coworker about smartphones. I said their Achilles heel was the tiny screen, which nobody over 50 can read comfortably without blowing up the view so that only a small part of it appears at a time.

He opined that by the time HE was that age, "they will have technology that fixes that."

Well, he'd be in his 40's now, and I'm still waiting. The clock is ticking!

 

[easysurfer]

Nothing a six pack of reading glasses from Costco can't take care of!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid not. I'm already using my computer glasses which work great on my desktop.

The 14 inch laptop screen is just a bit too small where I can feel the eyestrain. Hopefully, going with a 15.6 or 15.4 inch will get me over the hump.

I don't need powerful laptop, since my main use of that is just to remote into my desktop when I'm away and want the comfort of my home computer set up. But I need to see .

 

[Dawg52]

I'm still pretty fortunate. I'm using a small Chromebook. The 11.6" screen version. I had my doubts I would adjust, but my eyes handle it fine. Sure beats the heck out of looking at internet stuff on my phone.

 

[Music Lover]

Will your TV accept a computer signal? Rather than buying a larger monitor, I now send my desktop display to my 67" TV.

 

[easysurfer]

Will your TV accept a computer signal? Rather than buying a larger monitor, I now send my desktop display to my 67" TV.

My TV isn't that fancy but good idea. The use of the laptop is for when I travel for a few days. At home, when the laptop is on, that's hooked up a separate 19" monitor which works out fine for me.

 

[Scrapr]

The old guys way to cheat is adjust the screen resolution to 125%. I started a few years ago. Every once in a while you'll get a screen that you have to scroll back & forth. And I have one site I go to for payroll for our business that really only works at 100%

but 99% of the time I can use 125%

and I am on a 15.6 inch laptop. The tiny 11" screen would be a squint fest

 

[AllDone]

Bifocal contact lenses here. Magic.

 

[JoeWras]

W*rk is tearing up the place and creating "open space." They show us pictures of people hanging on out couches with their laptops to work, and tell us, "won't this be wonderful?"

Sorry, no.

Funny thing is that the millennials don't even like that. Many of them actually have 3 huge screens on their desk. Many also turn those 16:9 screens 90 degrees (yes, you can do that).

The eye thing is what is driving me to ER nearly as much as the political BS.

 

[Tadpole]

I use IE11 set on large text size and accessibility "Ignore fonts specified on webpages" check. This usually works and most webpages scale (not all).


Our portables are 17" but they are usually located in a fixed location so are more like desktops that can travel if necessary. My husband never uses his 17 in screen because he has a 23 inch HP monitor attached to his hdmi port and cloned to his computer screen.


If your computer location is static and stable, a large external monitor with sufficient resolution will solve the problem for your current computer.

 

[easysurfer]

Decided to cancel my snipe bids and do a bit more homework. Thinking now that the solution may not be as easy as just getting a larger laptop but there is screen resolutions to consider.

Maybe I can get by with a better resolution 14 inch screen laptop. The one I have now is a low level Dell wtih 1280 x 800 resolution. A really don't want to lug around the extra weight of a larger laptop either if I don't have to.

 

[Mo Money]

I was just reading this thread and thought "Gee, I don't have that much trouble reading the screen (yet), but wow, I'm feeling eyestrain right now, just reading these posts. What the..."

I scrolled through the various posts thinking your thread had jinxed me, or caused me to feel psychosomatic eyestrain. Then I got Scrapr's post about screen resolution. I checked it. My decade-younger SO set it at 90%! Back to 100% and feeling fine. Thank you for not jinxing me.

 

[Tadpole]

I checked too. I'm also at 125% so it's not just my browser settings I've changed over the years.

 

[Souschef]

I had a pair of bifocals made so the upper portion focused at 30 inches, which is the distance to the monitor, and the lower for close up. Works for me.

 

[W2R]

Why not go all the way and get one of those laptops with the 17" screen?

I had one at one time, and it was really nice. My vision has never been all that good, and age isn't helping (although cataract surgery sure did).

Right now I have a 15" screen and it's good enough, and less cumbersome than the 17" screen. For me it's kind of a tossup between those two sizes. I have the resolution set at 1920x1080, and magnification at 150%-175%. That seems to be good enough for me to see stuff.

Frank has better vision than me, IMO. Still, he likes to use a huge external monitor with his laptops. Big external monitors are surprisingly cheap these days, especially if you look for sales.

 

[easysurfer]

Well, after spending the past day and a half scouring ebay, decided to pull the trigger and just ordered a used laptop at about the cheap price I was looking at.

As mentioned before, my need in a laptop primarily is to use as a dumb terminal to remote into my home desktop, so I couldn't justifying going all out and getting a new, powerful one.

The one I ended up getting is a used Thinkpad, 14 inch screen but has better resolution: 1600 x 900 instead of my old Dell with 1280 x 800.

I'll still keep my old Dell as that's now my Win 10 computer. The laptop I just ordered came without an OS, but that's okay as my plan is to slap on Linux Peppermint as use the as my dumb terminal .

 

[TromboneAl]

I discovered a problem with vision that can be fixed with a pair of scissors.

One day, I was reading a book on my Kindle, unhappy with my tired old eyes. All of a sudden, the text got a lot clearer.

What happened? I'd raised my eyebrows!

When we get older the skin above our eyelids sags, and our eyebrows get bushier (think Andy Rooney). I realized that my eyebrows were between my pupil and the text. They are close enough to the eye that I hadn't realized they are degrading the image. Also, when I had trouble reading, I'd squint, and the problem would get worse.

So, trimming my eyebrows has improved my vision.

I think this eyebrow sag runs in my family. I've also heard that you can have an operation done that can fix it.

Note the glasses in that picture (my first mirror selfie). They're from Zenni Optical, $6.95 + 4.95 shipping. They are my reading glasses prescription, but I've recently found they work well for my computer (17" laptop). Having a larger lens area to look through (that is, not bifocal) seems to help, perhaps because it's easier to avoid a smudge or dust on the lens that you haven't gotten around to cleaning.

Finally, I've found it's easy to hold my table too close when reading or watching videos. That tires my eyes out.

 

[easysurfer]

resolution, resolution, resolution

As an update, got my used Thinkpad laptop today and installed Linux (Peppermint OS) to use to remote to my home desktop.

I'm a happy camper . The extra resolution of this laptop makes all the difference in the world. Though the screen is smaller than my setup at home, text and graphics are quite legible when I connect to my home pc.

An added bonus is the keyboard on the old Thinkpad laptop have great feel and I can actually touch type, unlike my Dell which is a struggle.

 

[jimbee]

As an update, got my used Thinkpad laptop today and installed Linux (Peppermint OS) to use to remote to my home desktop.

I'm a happy camper . The extra resolution of this laptop makes all the difference in the world. Though the screen is smaller than my setup at home, text and graphics are quite legible when I connect to my home pc.

An added bonus is the keyboard on the old Thinkpad laptop have great feel and I can actually touch type, unlike my Dell which is a struggle.

If you don't mind me asking, which Thinkpad model did you get? Their Linux compatibility is usually pretty good.

 

[Carpediem]

Where did you get your used laptop from? We're thinking about buying another one for my DW. Thanks.

 

[easysurfer]

If you don't mind me asking, which Thinkpad model did you get? Their Linux compatibility is usually pretty good.

I don't mind at all. After doing some looking around, I ended up getting a used Thinkpad T420s for a little over $100 off ebay. Only has 2GB ram, 320 GB HD instead of SSD. But in the price range I was looking for and works well enough for my needs with Linux just to connect remotely.

The T420s does have a 16:9 screen ratio which some do not like. There's also a T420 model but most don't have the higher resolution which I needed for my old tired eyes .

 

[easysurfer]

Where did you get your used laptop from? We're thinking about buying another one for my DW. Thanks.

I got mine off ebay from a place that sells recycled laptops and parts.

Here's one similar to the one I got:

Lenovo ThinkPad T420s Laptop w/ i5-2520@2.50GHz 2GB RAM 320GB TESTED #454 | eBay

If looking at ebay, be careful to read the details though as you might find one that looks good as for price, but then may have no HD or no OS or not working and for parts only.

Also, newegg has 3rd party sellers that sell refurbs if you don't want to go the ebay route:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...ion=thinkpad+T420s&ignorear=0&N=-1&isNodeId=1

 

[jimbee]

I don't mind at all. After doing some looking around, I ended up getting a used Thinkpad T420s for a little over $100 off ebay. Only has 2GB ram, 320 GB HD instead of SSD. But in the price range I was looking for and works well enough for my needs with Linux just to connect remotely.

The T420s does have a 16:9 screen ratio which some do not like. There's also a T420 model but most don't have the higher resolution which I needed for my old tired eyes .

Thanks for the update, that should be a good machine. The T series is a real Thinkpad.