Why is my 3200x1800 laptop delivering a blurry image to my 1080p monitor??

I have a new Dell M3800 Laptop, screen resolution 3200x1800, and an external 1080p Samsung monitor.

No matter what I do, the external monitor is slightly blurry.

Laptop: Dell M3800 (the 3rd one that is listed at $2484)
Vid Card: Nvidia® Quadro® K1100M, w/ 2GB GDDR5
Monitor: Samsung PX2370
OS: Windows 7 Pro
Connection: HDMI. And it's not the cable - I tested with another HDMI cable, no difference.
Desktop Background: is at least 1800 resolution, set as "fit" not stretch.


This is a breakdown of how settings affected the two displays.

Display Mode:
- Duplicate mode: adopts the lower resolution for both.
- Extend mode: see below
- Projector only: Samsung display is same as in extend mode


Regardless of settings, these issues persist for the Samsung display:

- Display is expanded, edges go off sides (e.g. only half taskbar visible) ------> Scaling aspect ratio to 66 (both vert and horiz) brings it back into frame.
- Some entire lines of text are blurry/shadowed while other entire lines are fairly clear. ------> running ClearType made almost no difference.

Samsung display only changes under 2 circumstances:

Background size: changes depending on laptop resolution if laptop is set as primary.
- When laptop is at max resolution, Samsung background looks "zoomed in."
- Lowering the laptop resolution to 1152 and 1080, Samsung background zooms out until normal size.

Text/object size: changes only by scaling text, regardless of primary or resolution.


Laptop display:

When laptop is set as primary, changing its resolution or scaling text have the expected effects on the laptop display.

But when Samsung is set as primary:

- If laptop is at 1800 resoluation: the laptop background image is sized like a 1080 image on a 1800 screen (a small background image framed by black a rectangle in center of black background).
- Bringing laptop down to 1080: background image is framed normally, and everything is larger, but I lose all benefit of QHD resolution.


And even then, the Samsung monitor is still blurry.

It's overall worse than with my 5 year old laptop on a VGA cable.

What is going wrong?

I've been researching for hours but can't find a workaround anywhere for this particular issue (it's usually a higher res monitor with lower res laptop).

Its the HDMI. Others here will be able to fill you in on possible solutions better than I can but its the HDMI input. If it were DVI I bet it would be perfect.

I see your laptop is supposed to have mini Displayport. Does your monitor have Displayport?

If not then you are probably left with driver configuration.

Specs updated in post.

Interesting - my prev monitor, and husband's prev desktop, were connected to this via DVI without problems. I thought HDMI would be better.

And I wish the Samsung (PX2370) had a DP.

Should I try an HDMI -- DVI converter? Or a Mini DP --- DVI converter for this monitor?

I planned on getting a new monitor in the next couple of months: the 1440 IPS Dell U2713HM
Am I going to have the same scaling type of problems with that one? It has DP, but it's still lower res than my laptop...
Should I just go with 4k like the Dell UP2414Q ?

External monitor issue solved!
Thanks for the advice! By compiling replies to my post on several forums, I finally found the solution.

(Now only the laptop display issue remains: I can't use its native 1800 resolution, it has to be set to 1080 when the external display is primary… see details at the end of this post.)

Solution Steps:

Ensure monitor is set to PC, not AV. I rechecked my PX2370 in-monitor settings and it somehow had reset to AV mode instead of PC. Changing to PC helped clarity, though only partially. It also fixed the issue where the desktop was extending beyond the edges of the screen. Now it fits perfectly.

No custom aspect ratio. After fixing step 1, I re-reviewed the scaling settings in the Intel Graphics Control Panel. At the very beginning of this disaster, in order to actually fit the desktop on my external monitor, I had set it to "custom aspect ratio" of 66. That brought the edges of the picture within the boundaries of the screen. I didn't realize that that was a scaling effect, and per advice to check scaling settings, I set it back to "Maintain display scaling."

This fully fixed the clarity issue. Finally, the external monitor is clear, crisp, and scaled correctly!

_________________________________

Now 1 major issue remains: I lose all the benefits of the QHD display whenever I use the 2nd monitor.

In order for me to have the external monitor be the primary, my 1800 laptop has to be set to 1080.

• 
  This is because the laptop display can't have separate settings for object/text size. In 1800, it has to be set to 150% or it's illegible. But 150% makes everything comically large on my external monitor.

• Also, the 1800 resolution background is shrunken and framed in black when laptop is set to 1800 and ext monitor is primary. (My conjecture is that the system rescales it to 1080 for the primary display and then uses that on both displays?)

Any idea if this can be fixed?

I'm willing to live with this for now, until I get a higher res monitor (which was the plan in the next few months).


But will this still be a problem if I get a 1440 monitor?

What about with a 4k monitor?

When Laptop is at 1800




When Laptop is at 1080





Other settings:

Glad to see you got your scaling issue fixed. HDMI is a spec more intended for TV's and not PC's where you really want exact 1:1 with no scaling or overscan.

To fix your resolution issue I would try a DP to DVI cable and take the HDMI with its TV oriented crud out of the equation.