[Q] Any way to improve text sharpness of web browsing?

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I'm finding the standard text size on a lot of non-mobile websites very difficult to read. After comparing to my iphone its just not sharp at all. I have to enlarge it to get it readable, and the double-tap-to-zoom feature just sucks. Pinch to zoom is a non-option for one-handed use.

I've tried increasing the text scaling option, and this does the trick when raised to 150%, but then all of the larger text on mobile websites or similar are ridiculously large and unusable. I've also tried raising the minimum font size, and in the little image of the font sizes this does the trick since it makes the "tiny" and "small" sizes much larger but doesn't affect the larger ones, however, this doesn't seem to actually do anything in practice.

I've tried using other browsers (Dolphin HD), but though they work, they're buggy and they don't really fix the problem I'm having anyway.

Anyone have any suggestions for better browsing? As it stands right now, I really prefer iphone browsing (not flaming here) just because 1. text is really sharp, and 2. double-tap-to-zoom is awesome and works perfectly. I thought with the much larger display, the Galaxy Nexus would be perfect for mobile browsing, but I'm finding that I have to zoom in no matter what to see what I want, so I'm not sure the res is really helping me.


Edit - Here's a thread talking about the problem with double tap zoom:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...light=tap+zoom

and

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ver...oom-issue.html

Why do you feel double tap zoom sucks?

Originally Posted by aznxk3vi17

Why do you feel double tap zoom sucks?

Because it's very hit or miss as to whether it zooms on what it's supposed to. Even a pretty well defined block of text is often cut off after I use it. Plus, it doesn't work at ALL without auto-fit pages enabled, and that just makes webpages look like crap.

if you are just trying to actually READ what's there, the reflow works very well. Haven't had any issues with it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

You can also change the minimum font size in settings?

I just don't get this.

I got the nexus out and tested it on several websites, mobile and desktop versions. Everything displayed perfect, and was easy to read at an arms length away.

What really doesn't add up is the comparison to the iPhone. Both screen are high resolution with the Nexus having a better contrast ratio, and deeper blacks. Because they both are high resolution how would a screen almost half the size have larger font?

I'm not a big nexus guy or anything, it just doest add up to me, but I could be wrong.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium

Originally Posted by kangxi

if you are just trying to actually READ what's there, the reflow works very well. Haven't had any issues with it.

Make no mistake - there IS no "reflow"...yet. Gingerbread reflows just fine, but ICS has yet to implement this feature (at least as of my official build). what they have is a feature called auto-fit pages. Basically this just puts all of the text into a column of sorts, and does NOT dynamically render the text correctly no matter what zoom state you're in. It's very much inferior to actual reflow, which I'm dying for.

Originally Posted by Dakota0206

I just don't get this.

I got the nexus out and tested it on several websites, mobile and desktop versions. Everything displayed perfect, and was easy to read at an arms length away.

What really doesn't add up is the comparison to the iPhone. Both screen are high resolution with the Nexus having a better contrast ratio, and deeper blacks. Because they both are high resolution how would a screen almost half the size have larger font?

I'm not a big nexus guy or anything, it just doest add up to me, but I could be wrong.

Look, I'm not hating, as I have and love my Galaxy Nexus, and I use it WAY more than my iphone (which I'm considering selling), but have you actually used the iphone 4S? (or 4 for that matter) The screen is amazing, and just as much so as the HD AMOLED in the GN... maybe more so, except the pitiful size. True, the contrast isn't "near infinite" like an AMOLED screen, but this is somewhat an academic number for bragging rights. After all, a very dark screen of infinitesimally above zero would have a much (infinitely, in fact) lower contrast than infinite. Regardless, it's about more than specs, and the text on the iphone is insanely sharp. I would have thought with the PPI on the GN being what it is (nearly parity with the iphone), it would be the same, but it's definitely not. I don't know if its the pentile, or what, but I'm just calling it like I see it.

Regardless, does any of this actually answer the question? Not to be an ass, but why would you come into my [Q] thread just to say - essentially - "this problem doesn't exist"?

Originally Posted by Neon01

I'm finding the standard text size on a lot of non-mobile websites very difficult to read. After comparing to my iphone its just not sharp at all. I have to enlarge it to get it readable, and the double-tap-to-zoom feature just sucks. Pinch to zoom is a non-option for one-handed use.

(...)

Anyone have any suggestions for better browsing? As it stands right now, I really prefer iphone browsing (not flaming here) just because 1. text is really sharp, and 2. double-tap-to-zoom is awesome and works perfectly. I thought with the much larger display, the Galaxy Nexus would be perfect for mobile browsing, but I'm finding that I have to zoom in no matter what to see what I want, so I'm not sure the res is really helping me.

You are generally right that text/paragraph formatting looks ugly in ICS browser (and actually I made comparison a few weeks ago to show exactly this: http://imgur.com/B6Lx6) though it also has its advantages.

For instance go to hardocp.com and open some article on both iPhone and your GNex - the page will be barely readable on iPhone and will be just fine on GNex, thanks to that "ugly" column formatting thing.

Honestly I learned to live with that; it's just ugly on page overview, doesn't matter at all when you are actually reading the content.

Though, you also brought up another problem which is annoying the hell out of me: on many pages double tap shows bad paragraph/place. I double tap a text in some column, and it zooms & scrolls to a completely different piece of the page, forcing me to scroll back manually to the content I was interested in. Very annoying. I hope they will fix that bug soon. It's still not fixed in 4.0.3, as I tested it already.

Originally Posted by macfre

You are generally right that text/paragraph formatting looks ugly in ICS browser (and actually I made comparison a few weeks ago to show exactly this: http://imgur.com/B6Lx6) though it also has its advantages.

For instance go to hardocp.com and open some article on both iPhone and your GNex - the page will be barely readable on iPhone and will be just fine on GNex, thanks to that "ugly" column formatting thing.

Honestly I learned to live with that; it's just ugly on page overview, doesn't matter at all when you are actually reading the content.

Though, you also brought up another problem which is annoying the hell out of me: on many pages double tap shows bad paragraph/place. I double tap a text in some column, and it zooms & scrolls to a completely different piece of the page, forcing me to scroll back manually to the content I was interested in. Very annoying. I hope they will fix that bug soon. It's still not fixed in 4.0.3, as I tested it already.

The problem seems to be that for whatever reason they have decided (or its bugged) reflow the text as the page loads Instead of doing it dynamically on double tap ala pre ICS. Which makes the overview mode look like crap.

Considering ICS was supposed to be a giant leap forward in everything for Android including UI, and by doing this they have made web pages look ugly.

One of the best things about Android is the dynamic text reflow and i hope they bring it back or get rid of the bug that's stopping it from happening. I can't believe they would have sat round in a meeting and actively thought this would be a better solution.