Kensington M Series manual Changing the Video Configuration, Resolution and Color Depth

Changing the Video Configuration

Your computer includes either a DS-STN screen or a TFT screen. DS-STN screens use less energy than TFT screens but are not as sharp or bright. TFT screens, or active-matrix displays, consume more power but create sharper and brighter images. The capabilities of the screen plus the video drivers installed on the computer determine the quality of the image your LCD can display.

The following sections describe the display capabilities of your computer.

Resolution and Color Depth

The resolution of the LCD is the sharpness of the image it can display. Resolution is measured in number of pixels (individual dots) displayed on the entire screen. In general, the more pixels the LCD can display, the better the image.

Your LCD screen is either SVGA or XGA:

∙The maximum display for the SVGA LCD screen is 800x600, about 480,000 pixels.

∙The maximum display for the XGA LCD screen is 1024x768, about 800,000 pixels.

The number of colors the LCD can display is measured by how many bits the LCD uses to represent each pixel:

∙8-bit color can support 256 different colors.

∙16-bit color can support 64 K (65,536) colors.

∙32-bit color can support 16 MB (16.8 million) colors.

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