Say you’ve got an Android phone with a nice high resolution 800 x 480 pixel display. You can fit an awful lot of text and graphics in 800 x 480 pixels… but the way Android works, the home screen and most apps pretty much look the same on a high resolution display as they do on a 400 x 240 pixel screen… just sharper.

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ResToggle is an app that lets Android users who have rooted their phones take better advantage of high resolution displays. Basically you can toggle between “standard” and “hi-res” mode, or enter a custom value to make things even sharper. After you’ve made your selection you have to reboot your phone before the change takes effect.

The end result is that text and graphics will take up less space on your screen — giving you more room to view web pages or apps.

Honestly, I found ResToggle just made my home screen look funny, and thanks to the zoom features in the Android browsers I use, I didn’t see much value when reading web sites. The one app where ResToggle really did make a big difference was Pocket Informant, my favorite calendar app, which lets you view your day, week, or month at a glance. You can fit far more appointments on the screen in hi-res mode than standard mode. It also made a big different in the Android settings menus.

ResToggle is available from the Android Market for $0.99. Just remember it’s only good for rooted phones running Android 2.2 and up.

via jkOnTheRun

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...