Is there any alternative to integer zoom? Perhaps something that doesn't actually resize the image? Not sure if that's even possible...
There's no way to zoom by a non-integer factor (such as 1.5x) on a digital display without some kind of distortion, simply because the screen cannot set "half a pixel" to a certain color. CRTs worked a bit differently, but modern displays are literally made up of individual pixels - and even on the older CRTs, I'm fairly sure other hardware in the chain still required everything to be done in terms of whole pixels, either directly or through simply not being powerful enough to do otherwise.
I've ended up setting my screen resolution to 1366 x 768: it's actually better for most of the applications I use, NeoLemmix included. I think laptop screens don't need to be as high-res as they are, especially for an OS like Microsoft which attracts and supports an enormous range of software in all kinds of different resolution sizes.
Then your screen will
always either be blurry, or have the disproportionate pixel effect as illustrated in the image above. For the same reason as the above, it isn't physically possible to display a different resolution without this (unless it's done by adding black borders rather than by resizing - which is technically still running at the original resolution, just with part of the screen unused), with one special case: If the native resolution of the screen is an
integer multiple of the resolution. For example, a 2560x1440 display could render a 1280x720 resolution image with no distortion, because it's exactly double (on both dimensions) 1280x720.
Setting your resolution to 1920x1080, then slapping on 150% OS zoom, gives you
exactly the same amount of screen space, and makes everything exactly the same size (except apps that are aware of, but specifically choose to ignore, the scaling), as setting your resolution to 1280x720 with 100% zoom - but with less distortion, as the apps can make use of the higher resolution for
finer detail. (1366x768 is pretty similar in practice to 1280x720, but much less nicer numbers for doing the theoretical calculations. More or less the same concept applies, except that 1366x768 displayed on a 1920x1080 screen will be even
more distorted / blurry.)
Pretty much - the only time you should be running a modern display at any resolution other than its native resolution, or an integer divisor thereof, is if it's needed to squeeze out more performance from a game / app that your system can't handle running at the higher resolution. Otherwise, you sacrifice visual quality for no gain. (I will stress though that it does not, as far as I'm aware, actually
damage the screen.) If you prefer actually working with a 1366x768 screen, you'll get a much nicer 1366x768 by buying a (laptop with a) screen that natively has that resolution.