Question. There are several mentions of $gigantic_resolution either providing the same or less display area than $smaller_resolution.

Are there any hacks that can convince macOS (or the older versions of OS X described in this article) not to treat the display as HiDPI? Yeah, I realize the machine will abruptly feel like it needs a magnifying glass to use, but in a pinch (laptop on lap <2ft from eyes) it might work for some (insert standard disclaimers here about eyes being non-replaceable and needing to last the distance).

Also.

The late-2015 21″ iMac is ~$1.5k+, and "has a multi-core Geekbench score of 5623."

Then the late-2011 17″ MacBook Pro which is ~$1.3k checks in with a "9240 Geekbench score".

Is there some datapoint I'm missing here?

>Are there any hacks that can convince macOS (or the older versions of OS X described in this article) not to treat the display as HiDPI?

You can change the display scaling directly in system preferences, I can crank mine all the way up to 1920 x 1200 scale (Late 2016 15"). Beyond that, there's QuickRes: https://www.thnkdev.com/QuickRes/

Another option is RDM, which is free: https://github.com/avibrazil/RDM

(RDM has never had an official home, I don't think, and I don't remember where I got my copy from. Think it was a link from reddit. So I can't comment about this particular version, which I found via Google just now.)