[svenka]

Why does text look so bad in portrait mode? It is almost impossible to read, which is a real shame because it is much more convenient to read in portrait mode. This is especially true with the browser. The text is worse than on phones with much smaller screens.
I am considering bringing back my Playbook just because of that, even though I love it for other things. Is there perhaps a setting somewhere to adjust the aliasing? Is this a known issue that RIM is going to address?

[wscotchmer]

I never noticed a difference. I do all my book reading in portrait mode using Zinio and BookReader. Depending on the web page, I also read some forums in portrait too. Never had a problem. Note that if you switch to portrait, the page width is smaller so your text will obviously be smaller. You might have to zoom in (reverse pinch) when in portrait mode... depending on what you are doing.

[kbz1960]

Not sure what you mean but you see that book icon underneath the browser back arrow? Tap it for reading Web pages.

[guerllamo7]

Good point. There is a major design flaw in the product that can just never be fixed. It is called user error.

You just can't fix that. I've had mine from day one and there is no difference reading books, magazines, or anything else in my view.

Just kidding. I've never seen this issue so maybe you should call the free tech support (90 days from RIM).

[alnamvet68]

I have never noticed a difference. Reading my Kobo books is a wonderfull visual experience in the portrait mode.

[BackDaws]

i dont notice any diffrence, infact i prefer to read in portrait mode.

could you post a pic or youtube vid describing the problem, at least then we can compare

[svenka]

I'm sorry guys but it is perfectly obvious, even on this very thread here.
I can actually make out the letters much better on my small 3.5" iphone 4 screen than on the Playbook. There is definitely something wrong with the way the aliasing is being handled.

[BackDaws]

Are you double tapping the writing to have it fit ?

[omniusovermind]

portrait mode: bad for most web pages, good for ebooks. right tool for the right job

If you want good portrait mode for web pages you need a larger sized tablet

[Superfly_FR]

1,2,3 ...
no feeding.
Edit: I'm a baaaad boy.

[EpicSoftworks]

I'm sorry guys but it is perfectly obvious, even on this very thread here.
I can actually make out the letters much better on my small 3.5" iphone 4 screen than on the Playbook. There is definitely something wrong with the way the aliasing is being handled.

There is something going on. On that i could agree. Not so much though that it is really obstructing my read in either the browser or an ereader app.

If anything, most apps do support a zoom/pinch control that lets you zoom to your liking so this never has been an issue for me.

[kbz1960]

Can you post some examples?

[omniusovermind]

Can you post some examples?

kyuk 10 char

[pmccartney]

I'm sorry guys but it is perfectly obvious, even on this very thread here.
I can actually make out the letters much better on my small 3.5" iphone 4 screen than on the Playbook. There is definitely something wrong with the way the aliasing is being handled.

Looks the same to me, be it a bit smaller. Zoom it a bit and its the same in Portrait and Landscape.

[svenka]

Ok, I'm not saying there aren't workarounds. Yes, you can zoom in, yes, you can use the "book" mode. But that doesn't change the fact that smaller text is weirdly anti-aliased on the playbook and that it makes it a challenge to read. It is obviously a problem with the way the text is handled since you don't have that problem on other devices, even with smaller screens and/or resolution.
I am not trolling, just trying to understand what is going on and if there could be a solution for it. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I can post a screencap but just try it for yourself on this very thread and you'll see what I mean. The letters are blurry, making them difficult to read. It's something that could probably be improved with better handling of the anti-aliasing.

[svenka]

Looks the same to me, be it a bit smaller. Zoom it a bit and its the same in Portrait and Landscape.

Thank you for the caps, I think they illustrate what I mean. Actually it probably isn't specific to portrait mode, but to small font size. My point is that even small font sizes like that could be much better handled for readability.

[Superfly_FR]

The font size in portrait mode is just ... too small.
Then - sorry guys - the CSS used on CB is using point size for fonts, so that when you go portrait, the size is reduced by a factor resulting in decimal value for the font size, which is not recommended. [to be constructive, I'll suggest : use "em" size instead (actually a 10pt font size is approx 0.85em ... ahum ... see W3C tips bellow)].

The "tweak" is more on "older" devices that use their internal/navigator CSS to get rid of this. This is why this behaviour won't show on e-readers.
W3C recommendations - if you're curious about it : Care With Font Size - Quality Web Tips

[anon(1429304)]

Yea, I agree with the anti-aliasing. Though I think its partly browser related as it generally renders a 100% view of webpages in portrait so it crams everything into view. I generally double tap on text I want to read to isolate it from the rest of the webpage.

[svenka]

The font size in portrait mode is just ... too small.
Then - sorry guys - the CSS used on CB is using point size for fonts, so that when you go portrait, the size is reduced by a factor resulting in decimal value for the font size, which is not recommended. [to be constructive, I'll suggest : use "em" size instead (actually a 10pt font size is approx 0.85em ... ahum ... see W3C tips bellow)].

The "tweak" is more on "older" devices that use their internal/navigator CSS to get rid of this. This is why this behaviour won't show on e-readers.
W3C recommendations - if you're curious about it : Care With Font Size - Quality Web Tips

OK, that makes sense, I guess other devices use their own CSS when the font gets too small, in order to allow for readability without having to zoom in all the time. I wish that would be implemented in the Playbook as well, it would make the whole experience that much more enjoyable. It's really one of the things that bug me the most. Again, I know there are workarounds, but too many workarounds end up ruining the user experience.

[togardergrosse]

The reason is PB, the same with most Android tablets, use widescreen screen. Hence 16:9 or 16:10 ratio.
That's why they seems kinda different in portrait mode.
Different with iPhone or iPad that use 4:3 ratio.

[Superfly_FR]

OK, that makes sense, I guess other devices use their own CSS when the font gets too small, in order to allow for readability without having to zoom in all the time. I wish that would be implemented in the Playbook as well, it would make the whole experience that much more enjoyable. It's really one of the things that bug me the most. Again, I know there are workarounds, but too many workarounds end up ruining the user experience.

Well, it's power/cpu/gpu consuming ... so they have to make choices. Addition of many "little" choices like this makes big difference in terms of rendering speed and battery consumption. In my case I won't ever consider portrait mode for web browsing without the reader mode ... old eyes ... that even the best anti-aliasing won't make able to read such small characters.

[peter9477]

Why does text look so bad in portrait mode? .... This is especially true with the browser.

Especially true with the browser, or only true with the browser?

Or are there other apps where you're seeing this?

Battery Guru supports portrait mode, and I can see no difference in the appearance of the text compared to landscape mode.

It may be that AIR apps are fine, but that anything using the QNXStageWebView component (the native browser component), including WebWorks apps, are affected by whatever you're seeing. Clearly it's not a hardware issue.

[milan187]

Ok obviously this is because of the resolution of the screen. In portrait mode the resolution is not high enough to see the small text clearly. Especially because the whole page is displayed.

[rotorwrench]

I see no difference at all. I read in both and have experienced no change in text, in Kobo, nor my documents. I have several manuals on my work PB and see no changes there either.

Edit: I just went to a few websites and tried it, still don't see any change.
Edit: No font size changes for me until I went to Fox News site. When switching to portrait the font reduced in size. Still readable but not pleasurable. I pinch zoomed and it was sharp and clear. I tried it on several other sites and it didn't reduce fonts on all sites, 2 out of the 7 I tried. I'm ok with it as I rarely use portrait.

[PanaSama]

Ok i think the OP is right, i went to Crackberry.com on both my playbook (portrait) and my 9900 (full website not mobile), looking at the "Could RIM's future be in cloud connected cars?" article without any zoom on both devices and i can clearly see that the text on the 9900 while smaller is actually clearer, for example on the PB the "t" and "h" became very blurry with the words "the" or "that" (not capitalized), this doesn't happen on the 9900 wich is weird because like i said the letters are actually smaller, now obviously this doesnt bother me at all since the letters on both devices are way too small for me to read comfortably and everything is fixed once you zoom in on the text.