[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lin_ux:
"How To" change the Y550 screen DPI

Here is another of my mini "How To" posts with comments on changing the Y550 screen DPI.

By far the best system tweak I have made on the Y550 is to change the screen DPI to make everything look more detailed and less blobby.

If I had not done this I probably would not be able to use this phone as my main mobile device, it makes such a huge difference!

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DISCLAIMER – THERE ARE ALWAYS RISKS WITH EDITING SYSTEM FILES, IT WORKED FOR ME, BUT I BEAR NO RESPONSIBILITY IF IT DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU AND/OR DESTROYS YOUR PHONE..!!!

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Glad I got that out of the way first, there is only a very slim chance that anyone would stuff up, but I felt compelled to add it as a cautionary reminder. As always when editing system files on a rooted device, proceed with extreme caution, and remember you chose to do it so you only have yourself to blame if things go wrong....

Note: You deserve to have problems if you don't make a backup of the original file first, so make a copy of it in the user memory space or on the SD card. ;)

Okay, here we go!

You'll need to open the /system/build.prop file and look for this line:

ro.sf.lcd.density=240

then change the "240" to anything between 240 ~ 200 then reboot.

That's all, there is nothing more to do, how easy was that!

[Using The Stock EMUI Launcher]

I tested various dpi settings of 230, 220, 215, 212 and 210 I've found that when using the stock Huawei EMUI launcher anything lower than 230 looks a little odd, although 220 is probably usable.

*With a setting of anything less than 220 the desktop icons are shifted into strange positions which is quite off putting, and having only 4 rows of desktop icons looks kind of odd when the icons are shrunk, although there is easily enough room for 5 rows. Unfortunately the EMUI launcher does not allow you to configure many of it's display elements or features much, so you are stuck with this.

*On Nova launcher my desktops are set to show 6 rows and it looks great. As always Nova cures most of the visual pain that most supplied manufacturers launchers cause, and I'm sure many other 3rd party launchers would help too, so no big problems...

[Using Nova Launcher]

When running Nova Prime as my default launcher I've found that when I changed the DPI to 212 it makes the Y550 desktop icons, status bar content and in-app fonts sizes look 99.9% identical to my Huawei G526 which has a 4.5" native screen resolution of 540 x 960 pixels (~245 ppi pixel density) and looks razor sharp with good proportions for the 4.5" screen size..

There is "almost" no visible difference in the sharpness or clarity of the fonts on my DPI tweaked Y550 compared to my Huawei G526 even though the Y550 only has 480 x 854 pixels (~218 ppi pixel density).

We know that the Y550 has a physically lower resolution screen, but if you don't hold it next to another phone with a higher resolution screen to compare against, then I can't imagine anyone would know. I've tested this out by showing many people my DPI tweaked Y550 and my G526 next to each other and everyone has agreed that they look the same, and equally good...

[Common Forum Comments Re DPI]

I've read comments from people saying that changing the DPI will mean the Play Store does not work correctly anymore, luckily I have not found this to be the case, none of the installed apps on my phones perform any differently at all, they just look MUCH better due to the higher DPI.

Some "clever" people will post comments saying that being able to change the font size in the system settings means there is no need to alter the DPI, this is obviously totally wrong!

Changing the fonts size only affects the fonts, whereas changing the DPI scales everything on the whole screen, which is a very different story.

I'm posting this tweak again because I think it often gets overlooked, I'm sure that many people don't realise what a HUGE difference it makes to visually improve this phone, especially when using alternative launchers where many elements of the home/desktop screen layouts (number of icon rows & columns, size of text & icons, dock size & shape, etc...) can be freely configured.

As always, everyone has different opinions on things, so what seems essential and great to me might seem like a total waste of time to others...

I hope it works for you! Enjoy... :D