The official 16:9 screen protest thread

I can only imagine how much pain one of those could inflict on my eyes after a few hours..

 

I agree. I'm an advocate for and content with 16:10. I guess I won't protest too much because I most likely don't have a choice. 95% of the general PC using public doesn't care and just takes what's considered "normal". They don't know any different.

 

I wouldn't mind if it meant 1920x1200 would get replaced by 2133x1200 (16:9) instead of the lower resolution 1920x1080.

But this is not the case.

 

Have no worries, they always store a couple of extra LCDs just in case the old ones get broke.

 

Seriously, that's the most idiotic thing about it. If the move to 16:9 was not a reduction in vertical resolution, then there wouldn't be as much negative response over it. Why the hell should we have to give up vertical resolution for a comparably sized screen?

On the positive side with regard to desktop monitors at least, I have not seen any *VA and IPS panels in 16:9 computer monitors. Since the demand for quality panels shouldn't change, perhaps those of us who don't want TN pieces of garbage have a little more time. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a bit difference with non-tablet laptop panels since they're all TNs already.

 

I'm glad that Dell is offering optional 1600x900 resolution on 14.0" and 15.6" models. Compared to the 1440x900 resolution (WXGA+) that was available on similar 16:10 displays, there is no loss of vertical pixels! It just adds 160 horizontal pixels...unlike going from 1280x800 to 1366x768 (which loses 32 vertical pixels and gains 86 horizontal pixels) or 1920x1200 to 1920x1080 (which simply loses 120 vertical pixels)!

 

That's the thing. The reason people didn't complain as much when we went from 4:3 to 16:10 was because all(or at least most) resolutions didn't lose vertical space, but got horizontal space added. For example, 1600*1200 became 1920*1200. If the same procedure happened for the 16:9 transition, it'd have gone more smoothly at least.

For example, 1440*900 going to 1600*900 isn't technically a loss of vertical space as allfiredup mentions

Also, my main objection to the current trends is that everything is turning too rectangular. When I first got my desktop LCD monitor which was a 16:10, I found it wwaayyyy too rectangular for my tastes initially. The screen also looked smaller(and it was a 19" vs the 19" 4:3 CRT I had).

Past a certain point the form factor just won't be convenient anymore. For now we're ok, but if the rectangle gets too small in width compared to length, it'll be a hassle to carry in a regular bag(which would be made for textbooks which are of a higher length-to-width ratio).

 

Well that's what I meant, just didn't feel to do the calculation.

 

I didn't calculate it. i took the 0 away

 

you know why i actually protest? because there is not even the option.

a 30" 1:1 screen would cost about 2x as much to produce as the 24" 16:10 screen. but i would pay that money without a problem. but there is no option.

if i want a 4" screen, or a 60" screen, the only available new produced screens are 16:9. this is ridiculous. why can't they produce any size and res a consumer wants?

and btw, the more square the screen, the less cost on the electronics per aera of screen surrounding it. => it would, at relative cost to the area, cost less to produce

i see tons of places where i could use small square screens, and 2:1 screens, and even more-high-than-wide screens (but i'd still have the pixels correctly aligned to gain from clear type, for example).

but there aren't ANY such options. all i can do, is buy 16:9 screens.


and the next thing that i hate is, from now on, all we will be able to buy, will be, at max, 1920x1080. what if i want twice that resolution, at 48"? or, at 34"? like a laptop 17" screen, just like 4 of them together.

the options get wastly reduced. and this is no fun.

i have a full hd beamer at home. it's gorgeous. but at 2m width, and around 1m height of the picture, i'd love to have 4x hd (2xwidth, 2xheight), when doing some work on it. 3840x2160 pixels, woah


it's just ridiculous how nowadays, the tv industry forces our screens. and manufacturers are not even creative with what they have. laptop screens as ordinary external screens? full-hd 16", why not? but no...

 

Moving the Taskbar from the bottom/horizontal to the side/vertical may be the wave of the future.

 

Some programs with fat UI give you only ~300 pixels of room on 1280X800. It would really suck for 1366X768.

 

never did, never will (and the vista sidebar, a new feature vertical on the side, did never really got liked, and dropped in win7 again).

according to the win7 blog, how much percent used vertical taskbar during the last years? i think it was 1%..

 

you mean like pre-ribbon office 2003 ?

 

I had a reality check last night when I used an HP Compaq (from 2006) with a 4:3 15.4" display! It basic XGA (1024x768) resolution and, compared to my 16:10 14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900), it's hard to believe that I used one of those for years!

The IT manager gave it to my dad for free, so he figured it'd be a good basic laptop for my mom to use for basic tasks. He dropped it off for me do a clean-up/tune-up and remove all the HP crap installed. It's slightly better than a netbook (1024x576 on most) and it didn't cost a penny, but it would be very difficult to go from a 16:10 back to a 4:3 for someone like me! Although the 1.6GHz AMD Sempron is even more painful to work with (wait on) than the 4:3 display.

I'm wondering how much longer business notebooks (like my Dell Latitude/Precision and ThinkPads) will continue to have 16:10 displays?

 

well, reality check is all nice, but it's mostly about resolution.

you lost 416 pixels in width, and 122 pixels in height.. so it's a big loss in both dimensions => bad.

and 1024x768 15" laptops where hated by most, even back then a friend has a 1600x1200 14" display.. now he can't even get a 18" laptop delivering that height


edit: i could give you a 15" 1400x1050 screen to work with.. that would be a more comparable realitycheck. but as the laptop died consuming too much hard alcohol *smile*, you would not see much

 

Actually, the last 4:3 display that I had was a ThinkPad T60 14.1" SXGA+ (1400x1050) resolution. It was awesome in comparison the to 1024x768! It was replaced by a ThinkPad T61 with 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050). The IT dept (at my former company) got a lot of complaints for switching us from 14.1" to 15.4" models, but it was better than getting a 14.1" with 1440x900 resolution....I just realized why they did that!

Of course, I've accepted WXGA+ (1440x900) as the highest resolution available now on a 14.1"...and I'm willing to live with the lower resolution rather than luggging around a larger 15.4"+ laptop!

 

hehe, yeah.

my 12" is now about as wide as my 15" was back then.. tells something about screenspace loss

 

What and protest 16/9 ??
are you out of mind?
when i take a look on 16/10 laptop it so awful
16/9 looks proffesional nice I have 2 pages shown on open office /office thanks to 16/9

 

hah. you don't get usability at all

but nice that you're happy.

 

if you dont like it shut up about it. there is no point in complaining about something you cannot change. the fact is for as many of you who dont like it the are many of us who do.

 

omg, if one doesn't like one shouldn't complain.

why do you complain to me, then?

fact is, 16:9 means less vertical space. fact is, too, most don't even get, that most of what we do on a pc, except for movie watching, involves downwards scrolling, a.k.a. only needs vertical space.

 

sorry about that but even notebook review discussion section is designed for 16/9

 

There are people who say that for text, wider screens are better. But that just isn't true. Go to any news site like nytimes.com, or even facebook.com or myspace.com, and even if you maximize your browser on a widescreen display, those sites will not use up all the horizontal space. They fixed the width on their sites, and you end up with a lot of white space on the left and right sides. You figure if wider was better, they would have designed their sites to use up all the horizontal space in the browser.

And now you say 16:9 is good because you can open up 2 Office windows side by side. OK, but then why stop there? Why not go 16:5 and then you can get 4 Office windows all next to each other? Heck, let's just get it over with and get to 16:1 already!

 

slnotebook
I know there are plenty websites and I have them in the middle of my display
BUT
when I enter to website it will show me website in the middle and then in few seconds it will switch to 16/9 ebay amazon wikipedia etc
in first place its up to developer how he will design website (my girlfriend is web developer in dreamweaver she can choose 4/3 or 16/9 or both formats)
yes there are more 4/3 websites than 16/9 I know cos everybody had square old sity mega monitors so web was designed for that horrible monitor when internet was launched and spreaded

 

Well, the reason a lot of people are protesting the switch is simple: there is no option to go back to a 4:3 fullscreen format, or even a 16:10 wide format! I'm sorry for saying this, but a computer isn't a TV... I use my computers to actually work and game on, not watch movies. If you're happy with 16:9 because you have different expecations of your computer, more power to you... but I think the LCD manufacturers that are pushing silly crap like low-quality TN panels and only selling in 16:9 format just to save a couple of bucks are full of crap.

I'd pay more for at least a high quality matte IPS screen, even if I didn't have a choice but 16:9. I love my 4:3 T60p just for that reason... the display is simply superb. I want a high quality screen with the highest resolution I can get, and I'm seeing those options shrinking considerably. This is why I've been beefing my machines up quite a bit... I want them to last a while, so I've got some time to enjoy some of the last mice, great quality notebook screens we're ever going to see.

And, sorry, the loss of vertical pixels just kills it for me. I won't put my taskbar on the side of the screen; to me it just looks silly. I keep my IM clients open over there, anyway.

 

I want my 4:3 back, I'm sticking with my 4:3 t61p. You don't need widescreen to have documents side by side.. just need more resolution. I have myself a 15" 2048x1536 4:3 IPS screen for t60p(which is only as wide as the 14.1" widescreen t400,t61), frankly amazing in terms of space. Due to the trends in the laptop and lcd monitor consumer market, there are no more such high ppi displays or good quality screens anymore...

 

Wow... QXGA and Flexview on a 15" T60p. Coming from a UXGA panel, I definitely envy you.

 

keep staring on that massacre display and soon your eyes will be blur forever ..

 

On the contrary having high pixel density allows for great text size scaling, preventing any unaesthetic deformations such as squishing, irregular widths, of text, a godsend when reading pdf's. Therefore, it allows for a much better viewing experience. As for eye strain and eventual nearsightedness, it could be genetic, and also could be mitigated by proper long term computer use procedures.

 

Such as? 10char

 

I know that IPS stands for In-plane Switching as opposed to the far more common TFT (thin-film transistor). An IPS display has two transistors per pixel vs. one in TFT displays, correct? So it has a brighter backlight but also uses more power, at least that's how I understand it. I've never seen/used an IPS display before, so I can't fully appreciate the differences without a visual reference....

I have been impressed with the quality of my matte-finish LED-backlit display! I have a Dell Latitude E6400 (16:10) with a 14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900) display and it is the better than any of my previous ThinkPads or various other laptop screens! The combination of the bright, efficient LED-backlighting and anti-glare surface is a perfect pairing.

The most amazing display I've seen is the RGB-LED WUXGA 15.4" on the Dell Precision M4400! Every time I find an M4400 with the RGB-LED in the Dell Outlet, I toy with the idea of buying it...but my 14.1" E6400 is the perfect size and weight for my mobility needs. It's also just large enough to serve as my primary computer at home and on the road...a 15.4" M4400 adds about 1.5lbs and is larger is in all dimensions. But I still flirt with the idea....

 

I'm sorry, Babel Fish can't even help decipher that one. Also as a Web designer, I'm not going to waste my time disputing all the other inaccuracies and falsehoods you wrote in this thread because the very essence of a Web site, which is to display formatted data of varying lengths on a screen, precludes any notion that you can fit content into a particular aspect ratio. Ever heard of scrollbars? Ever heard of optimal character counts per line for maximum readability? Ever heard of form following function and not the other way around unless you're a hack artist? Seriously, stop spreading misinformation.

You mean TN (twisted nematic), not TFT. Here's all you really need to know about the different panel types.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD

As far as the quality of an IPS or successive variant, the key selling point is that the colors stay true regardless of your viewing angle. It's most helpful for work where color accuracy is of utmost importance. It's also nice on laptops since there are so many different angles from which you see the screen while you use the laptop.

 

allfiredup, here's an example from behardware.com on the difference between IPS and TN at different viewing angles:

IPS


TN

 

One of the major advantages of an IPS screen is having a very large viewing angle. As a test I am actually typing this post with my T60 opened completely flat... I can still read my text just fine, even at this extreme viewing angle.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2767

This is a review of a T60, with a nearly identical screen. I'm not sure about other manufacturers, but as far as I can recall only 15" Thinkpad T42/43, R40/R50, and T60 models had it as an option, and all of them are 4:3.

 

*throws hat into the protest ring*

 

Really? then why do I have to scroll down everywhere on NBR? espencially in the forum? even on 16:10?

you should use the web on a tablet, 10:16, for a while. even while only 800 pixels wide (quite small), the web suddenly works with much less scrolling around, tons of pages just work, or have just a bit on the side cut (but mostly advertising stuff anyways).

so, no, sir, you're rather wrong.

 

Most paper has a vertical aspect. In US the letter and legal format are much longer than wide. In Europe A4 is the standard which is also much longer than wide. I don't know why, but it seems it's easier to read when lines wrap than going a long way across the screen. Books and magazines are the same way too. So not sure how/why they ever get the notion that wider is better.

Wider is better for movie viewing and game playing. But it is NOT for any kind of desktop work, web browsing included.

 

there are scientific explanations on why vertical is more easy for us, when working with text. but it doesn't matter. we all don't like very wide textlines.

and besides movies, where wide is better, and games, where it doesn't matter (depending on the game, wider isn't better, or is), there is about no task where widescreen helps.

 

Snakecharmed
go and study web developing and then say something
and think about what i was pointing on :
Originally Posted by eatbuckshot
I want my 4:3 back, I'm sticking with my 4:3 t61p. You don't need widescreen to have documents side by side.. just need more resolution. I have myself a 15" 2048x1536
if he having this resolution on that little square display in front of his eyes
and if he looking on that monitor 0,5 m or less distance
i must say that guy is crazy
anyway that display what you put pictures here is very bad how a very baad quality, oh dear what ti is??? IBM from 1996 year ?

 

don't worry i had laptop with 16/10 1920x1200) so I know how it looks like

Just press and hold CTRL and then press + and you can arrange your website as you want it

 

i do on all.. but that means even less vertical space.

in tablet mode, in normally don't zoom, as, as said, normally, nothing gets lost on the side, even while pages often are "optimized for 1024x768" as they state, they're more optimized to 800x1280

 

ALL who use 4/3 must use scrolling from left to right and from right to left
me am scrolling only up and down .. (16/9)
it depends what resolution you have on as well

 

hahaha no, most who use 4:3 never have to scroll left to right, and less up down

as by default, there is not much content to the right, but much content downwards AND display didn't got much wider, but less high.

 

mostly forums formats web is wider 'cos people write posts which they are wide
must have scroll <-- /--> on small display (14'' 15'' 16'' etc..)
from 17'' dislpay an above is better and better
anyway I CANT imagine monitors bigger than 18'' be 4/3 that will be so awful
so i have at home 40'' and if I should imagine this 4/3
OMG! I dont have a words

 

you know that text can break into multiple lines if the screen isn't as wide?

and you know that it's more nice to read?

well, my fullhd beamer, 2m width, would be nearly filling the wall. i would like that, at least for work related stuff. it would mean quite a bit more screen space.

is it that hard to imagine?

you just got used to it. i got used to it, too. but still see the benefit in not going that way, actually.

 

How about I say something when the words you're putting on the screen make any sense whatsoever, because you haven't posted anything factual or coherent in this thread about the anatomy of a Web site.

 

4:3 ftw!!!!

I've never cared for horizontal space anyways since I don't open more than one window at a time anyways lol

 

4:3 all the way, I still have a desktop with those amazing 4:3 CRT screens.

The 16:10 aspect ratio of my new samsung X360 was the main reason for buying...

 

CRT was the bomb! No fuzzy scaling issues like LCDs and their native resolutions lol Course, they were a pain to move and took lots of space, not to mention power consumption, but man, they were gorgeous little things(irony intended) I only upgraded to LCD because we got a free one otherwise I'd have stuck with my 4:3 CRT till it died lol