Chrome OS gets option for scaling at high dpi

Chrome OS gets a new ‘Display Size’ setting for resizing the display. The user can thus make the operating system more usable in combination with high-resolution screens.

The slider for Display Size comes with Chrome OS in the display settings. The setting enables scaling of the display so that screen elements are not displayed too small on high-resolution displays such as 3840×2160 pixels. For example, scaling makes icons and buttons appear on a 4k screen at the size they would be on a 720p or 1080p screen, but sharper. The option works in combination with external monitors and internal screens of, for example, Chromebooks.

The slider’s arrival has been announced by developer François Beaufort, who regularly highlights upcoming Chrome OS functionality early. If you’re running Chrome OS’s Dev Channel mode, you can enable the setting by using the experimental flag ‘Enable display zoom settings’ at chrome://flags/#enable-display-zoom-setting. ChromeUnboxed infers from another commit separately that Chromebooks with 4k displays are on the way, although the “secret 4k Chromebooks coming” passage could also be a joke. The highest-resolution Chromebook to date was a 13.3″ model from HP, with a resolution of 3200×1800 pixels.