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Windows XP had an older version of “Clear type” that I was never satisfied with so I always ended up using zero font smoothing technology. The fonts in XP were either too thin or too thick and it just didn’t work right with Clear type.

But I got an even bigger shock when I looked at a Mac this week. I was at a colleague’s desk and noticed how messed up his fonts were on his shiny Mac so I asked him to capture a screen shot of his Safari web browser pointed at the bnet.com website and send the image to me. Once I got the image I went ahead and captured a portion of the screen with black text on white background and created a 300% zoom of the image. Then I created a comparison chart of the fonts side by side along with the magnified version below.

Clearly, Mac OS X was the blurriest and faintest of the three major operating systems and it’s the least readable by far and even pales in comparison to Windows XP. Windows Vista using sub-pixel rendering (which works best in landscape display mode) clearly has the best font rendering technology.

Update 1:30AM - Reader “tombalablomba” submitted a screenshot of Ubuntu and Firefox in the talkback section so I’ve added the following comparison for it. Thanks!

I would probably rate Ubuntu and Firefox same or slightly better than Windows XP but below Vista. The font looks clean but it’s too thin and the “e” doesn’t look as true to the typography like Vista and Mac. Mac OS X 10.4 is true to the typography but it’s way too faded out and it doesn’t use sub-pixel rendering sticking only with grey scale edges. Vista seems to strike the right balance of typography and readability. [Update 2:40AM - the sample submitted for Ubuntu may have been tweaked to be thinner to the user’s liking and it’s using a different font than Vista or Mac OS X.

While font technology isn’t what’s typically considered a killer application or killer feature, it is by far one of the most important usability features in an operating system. We simply cannot place a price tag on eye strain and someone who works all day long in front of a computer like me greatly appreciates the font rendering technology in Windows Vista. Mac OS X might have the fancier animated UI but I can’t imagine myself looking at those fonts. Even if you gave me a brand new MacBook Pro - which I happen to think is a very nice though expensive notebook - the first thing I’ll do is install Boot camp and Windows Vista.

[Update 2:40AM - Some insist that this is simply a difference in design philosophy from Apple where typography and being faithful to font size is king. They argue that is Apple is geared for its desktop publishing roots. I can’t accept that for the following reasons.

* What percentage of Mac users sit around all day doing nothing but pre-press work?
* Even if a Mac user works in the desktop publishing industry, do they need that while surfing the web or looking at desktop screen fonts? What In the world do you need to pre-press a web browser for?
* I can understand prioritizing the font size and typography for something like PageMaker or QuarkXPress, but do it there and leave the desktop and browser fonts alone.
* There’s nothing to prevent a Windows computer application from doing its own pre-press rendering.

I don’t care if someone is using a 30? LCD with 2560×1600 resolution; you’re not going to remove the need for sub-pixel rendering and sub-pixel shifting to account for the pixel grid. You must respect the grid if you want to respect the user’s eyes.