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Screen Sharpness

caverunner17
over 5 years ago

How is everyone's screen sharpness? Just got my 530 yesterday and the text, lines, etc aren't nearly as sharp as I'd expect for a high(ish) res display - especially coming from a Wahoo Bolt with the same screen resolution. For example, lines have weird half-pixel shadow. Same thing with or without a screen protector. My Forerunner 245 is noticeably sharper. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I was also a bit taken aback by the "smudginess" of the display when I first turned the unit on and put it 10 cm close to my face (like I would use a phone with a tiny screen). However after 2 weeks of using it heavy on my bike, I got to like it. I'm pretty happy with the contrast and visibility it provides in all conditions, either in strong sun and after sunset.

    I put in the data of the display to a calculator and it gave a ~156 PPI (pixels per inch) result. Which is quite low, even compared to my aging OnePlus 5 with 401 PPI. However I'm sort of happy that Garmin was reasonable with the amount of pixels they use.

    I think the key here is that this is a small 2.6" screen, and we look at it from quite a bit farther than our phone while riding, it just doesn't really need the same pixel density as a phone which we put up to our faces. As far as the lack of sharpness goes, I think that might be actually a feature. I think if the display had the same amount of pixels but with sharp, blocky pixels, it would be a lot more unpleasant to look at it from far than it is at this smoothed out edges.

    Probably updating this few pixels has a good effect on battery life as well. The only time I think higher res screen would be useful is when I stop and look at maps up close, or making the elevation graph nicer. But again, this is not the case 99% of the time, and probably this is worth it because of the increased battery life.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Compared to my 510, I thought the 530 looked pretty good