The official bring back 16:10 thread (part 2)

I'm with you. Where do we sign up? I'd pay serious cash for it, too.

 

It is insufficient to simply ask for 16:10 laptops or monitors. We need to get to the root of the problem: movie format.

Most movies/programs now are shot at 1920x1080 resolution, with the shift to 4K (3840x2160) starting to take place. Of course, these are all in the 16:9 format. This leads to our TV's adopting the same format.

Monitors and laptops were, once upon a time (albeit it lasted for only less than a decade) 16:10. But the transition to 16:9 was inevitable as it was cost saving for screen manufacturers to make screens that had the same format as TV's. Therefore, to simply ask for 16:10 monitors and laptops is insufficient.

There needs to be a new standard, set by some all important committee, or board, or people who have these powers. To adopt the 16:10 aspect ratio as the only rectangular resolution for photo/video. 16:10 is more or less the golden ratio, and it is argued to be the most visually pleasing aspect ratio. And "visually pleasing" comes with functionality perks as well.

Cameras would have to allow for the 16:10 aspect ratio for photography and videography. Video programs would have to be captured and broadcasted in the new aspect ratio. HDMI cables might have to be tweaked to allow for this resolution. And of course, we'll have our 16:10 monitors and laptops.

There needs to be a movement. A 16:10 awareness campaign. Something needs to kick off.

 

No, I agree, but that's not the whole issue. It's hogwash to argue that movies abide by the 16:9 format. Many are actually shot in 22:9 these days--and anyone who wants a laptop with a 22:9 screen should be shot on site to prevent them from breeding.

The point is, trying to play "keep up" with whatever ridiculousness hollywood churns out is a futile endeavor. If I'm going to end up with letterboxing regardless, I'd rather have 16:10. If I want perfect aspect ratios, I'll either plug in a monitor, or use a portable movie player.

 

I really do wonder where in the world this urban legend is coming from, but I'm getting sick and tired of people continuing to parrot this utter BS of those imaginary "cost savings" for the 16:9 screens. Let me spell this out for you: There is nothing, absolutely positively nothing that your typical laptop screen has in common with a standard TV screen as far as manufacturing facilities are concerned. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the format of TV screens should force the same format for laptop screens. Let me repeat: There is no rational reason for this. At. All.

And, lo and behold, little Apple magically manages to keep selling 16:10 screens. Somehow, PC laptop manufacturers are unable to do this, "because these screens are too expensive". These are the same manufacturers, mind you, that seem to have no problem pushing their useless touchscreens on anyone and their brother, never mind the fact that very, very few people actually want touchscreens on a standard laptop. Interestingly enough, all of a sudden the fact that those touchscreens are more expensive doesn't matter, apparently.

So, let's recap here: There is a clear demand, and a market among professionals, for the 16:10 screen format. Heck, we would be happy to pay premium dollars for such a machine. Alas, for some mysterious reason, however, PC manufacturers have decided that they will only offer 16:9 screens, in any form factor (even for tablets, where such a format is complete and utter idiocy). Now, let's look at how well the PC market has been doing those last couple of quarters. Oh, that's right, it's tanking, hard. Well, might that be because those OEMs, just like Microsoft with that turd of an operating system called Windows 8, have forgotten the very basis of their business? You know, the simple idea that you should offer people something they want? I'll just say that these idiots really deserve what is hitting them right now, and leave it at that.

 

legit laughed out loud. Love the 1920 x 1200 res in my gateway.

 

pirks, is that you? where is porkpie?

 

Yes and no.

Indeed I don't think there are any cost savings from having the same aspect ration as the TVs, but... I did some digging some time ago, and I know it's more cost effective for manufacturers to cut in 16:9 than in 16:10. It's not a huge difference, but there is a difference.
When I researched the issue, I know that notebook manufacturers all around said (some even replied to my email), that they use the screens that laptop screen manufacturers offer, which in this case are all 16:9 and they can't offer 16:10 because no screen manufacturer offers them anymore. Apple has a special order for those 16:10, and they are the only ones still in production, but that's because Apple is Apple.

So if you dig to the bottom of the problem, you will find that 16:9 was something forced on the market by LCD panel manufacturers. LCD screens from desktop computers to notebooks are all 16:9 now. I think the reason was mostly related to the lower-end screen, where manufacturers could offer 1366x768 instead of 1280x720 at almost the same price. However everyone else got screwed in the process. Most desktop LCDs for instance had their highest resolution 1440x900... which was replaced with 1366x768. Yes, I know there is 1600x900 and 1920x1080 , but these usually (used to) come at a noticeable price difference.

Another thing that is funny in all this story was the speed with which it happend, 2009 (everyone is still 16:10) , 2010 (everyone is 16:9). Never in the history of IT have I seen such a change in screen standard aspect ration in such a short time, it basically took less than a year, which suggests that the LCD manufacturers were coordinated in this move.

To be honest, this is an issue worth investigation by the European Union Competition Office and it's Equivalent in the USA. There is already some history with these guys: EU imposes record $1.9 billion cartel fine on Philips, five others | Reuters

 

yeah, it is rather surprising how fast it happened. just goes to show that the industry could easily shift back overnight. and yes, i don't blame the PC makers. it's really clevo's fault more than anything. clevo needs a new supplier.

 

You would have to explain to us, or somebody would have to explain to you, why in the world that would be. From a purely physical/mechanical point of view, it is clear that screens should become more expensive to manufacture the more their aspect ratio deviates from a square. In other words, the 16:9 screens should, in fact, be more expensive to manufacture. In any case, the difference in cost will be near-trivial. I'll guarantee you that nobody in the industry would care about those couple of cents.

I am sorry, but you've been had. The above is complete BS. This is how it works: I contact the leading LCD screens manufacturers, and tell them that I'll need x number of laptop screens at some resolution, and that I want 20x14 screens, say, because I happen to like those numbers. They will come back to me with a quote, and I proceed to order the batch. That's it.

Sorry, this doesn't compute. It does not even begin to make any sense at all. As far as manufacturing of laptops and their screens is concerned, there is no difference between Apple and any other manufacturer.

Economics 101 says that this is complete nonsense. Sorry. This is not how a commodity market works, and laptop screens are a commodity market if there ever was one.

Resolution has nothing to do with this. I do note, however, that now laptop manufacturers are offering high-resolution screens in the strangest resolutions. Apparently they have no issues getting those, either. For the Dell Precision M3800, the price differential between FHD and QHD is less than 70 bucks, too.

That part is in fact interesting, I agree.

 

16:9 is evil. There's just something about it. So how do I start this movement?

 

Well you could start by trying to promote the grass-roots movement by telling everyone you know and pushing for more signatories.

...but I suspect you'd have faster results if you found out who the largest MFG is, and holding the CEO's family at ransom until the company agrees to only sell 16:10 screens.

 

Ironically, the rise of 16:9 has given more laptops the Full HD and higher (to which Full HD was never available). On cheap laptops, 1280x800 to 1368x768 isn't a huge loss, base 17.3" screens went from 1440x900 to 1600x900, no loss there. Sure 1920x1200 WUXGA to 1920x1080 is a loss of pixels, but now there is 3/4k screens available on alot of laptops, I think that makes up for WUXGA.

Sure it isn't 16:10, but the loss of pixels should no longer be a point of bringing back 16:10 with 3/4k screens. Sure it is more "wide" but that is the unfortunate trend (yes I do like 16:10 and 4:3 and 5:4, but it was bound to be gone).

 

I won't get into the details because I've read about it a very long time ago. If I recall correctly, it's because of less cuts for the panel and the entire manufacturing process of the LCD cells. In fact the wider the screen, the cheaper is to produce.

That is true. But when I order as a manufacturer, I order from a list of available models. I can't order something which is not offered by the LCD supplier.

So how come the retina displays Apple is using can only be found in Apple computers? I know they are made both by Samsung and LG. Why hasn't any other laptop manufacturer made laptops that use those type of screens. They are now actually starting to offer high-resolution screens but they are all 16:9 and UHD or half UHD ? Do you have an explanation for that ? I assume Apple made an exclusive contract for those panels.

Only if you think the world works according to economic theory. Which is only partially true.

Now, on another note. You seem to have a very aggressive, antagonistic way of writing, which I don't find to be helpful for a constructive debate. If you have any further criticism, please back it up with some data.

 

Are you high or just insane? There's no "alot of laptops" with 3/4k screens. There's apple's 16:10 retina displays, and MSI's 3k display (which is available on ONE model, the GT-60.

And the whole idea behind moving away from 5:4 and 4:3 to 16:10 makes sense, as it was moving TOWARDS the golden ratio. There's no such logic behind the 16:9 movement; it's purely a marketing ploy to sell idiots lower-grade junk than was previously being sold...simply because they can slap "1080p" stickers on everything....and people will somehow believe that it's better than what they had before.

Having a 3k or 4k screen certainly is a much-needed improvement (I'm extremely tired of 1080p), but while we're at it, why do these new screens need to be 16:9?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd rather have WQXGA than 4k on 16:9. And nothing--short of a litany of CEO's handing me their golden parachutes--can "make up for" killing off WUXGA.

 

Yoga 2 Pro, Dell Precision M3800, new XPS 15, ThinkPad T540p, W540, I'm sure I'm missing a few more. Are there boat loads, no but they are slowly rolling out, and in timely fashion that Intel's Roadmap for 3/4k screens.

Again I'm saying I prefer 16:10, but if I need to get a new laptop with 16:10 and I don't want a Mac, there aren't really any choices out. So...deal with it? Do I agree with 16:9? No, but there's not much normal consumers can do. In fact 3k/4k are coming because consumers want it. Alienware laptops for 2 generations low pretty low grade screens. They heard customer wanting higher resolution screens and IPS screens. And now Alienware 14 and 18 come with 1080p IPS panels.

 

No, it does nothing of that sort. I find it interesting how even people such as yourself that prefer 16:10 do not seem to be able to understand the true loss involved in going to 16:9.

See, if your point above made any sense, then you might as well tell me to tape over the sides of my LCD, or just run it centered at a 16:10 ratio (with the resulting black bars on the side) and be done with it. So, let's make it clear what it is we are talking about: I want to run my screen at a certain DPI for best readability of fonts, and I want a certain amount of both vertical and horizontal screen real estate (say, expressed in number of columns and lines of my "optimal font" that would fit on the screen). With these specifications, it should be clear that increasing the resolution is of no benefit whatsoever; all I'd get is smaller fonts.

 

Yoga is a netbook/tablet, btw. The rest are all lackluster pieces of junk that any self-respecting gamer wouldn't buy. Even the XPS 15 has a lowly 750 vs. the 780 in the GT60.

And why does Intel get to dictate this crap? They have practically nothing to do with it. It makes ZERO sense to put out high-resolution stuff on systems that don't need it and can't benefit from it. Let's put a 4k screen on a system with an integrated GPU--because derp.

1080p on 18" isn't acceptable. That's just abusive one customers.

 

This is just an assertion, which explains nothing. So it seems you do not know what the explanation is. Mind you, that's perfectly fine, I don't expect you to, and I do not criticize you for not knowing. In fact, I would expect that no rational explanation exists.

No, that's patently false, see the Apple examples below. The LCD supplier can, and will, sell me any LCD I want (well, as long as there's a reasonable number of screens in the order, not just a handful of them, which is obvious if I'm ordering as a major laptop OEM). If I am Apple, or Dell, or Lenovo, etc., and I am going to order, say 100,000 LCDs with a 1910x1234 resolution because those numbers give the birthday of the CEOs mom, then I can get those LCDs made for me, and I can get a quote for what the cost would be.

Well, you were the one who said that, somehow, Apple is special. Feel free to explain the magic by which Apple can order stuff others can't. Or, you may just look at my example above.

If Apple decides they want to equip the upcoming iPad Pro with a funky resolution such as 2732 x 2048, they just go ahead and order it. In exactly the same way, if I, Pirx, sign a contract with those very same manufacturers buying x hundred thousand 17" LCDs with a 2560x1600 resolution, and those manufacturers trust that I will be able to honor the terms of that contract, then they will make those screens for me. That is all there is to it. There's no magic, and no mystery in that part. I repeat, there is absolutely nothing that is special about Apple as an OEM.

I was not talking about economic theory. I was talking about the way things work in the real world.

Let me note that I was not criticizing you. I was criticizing the line of argument you were presenting, noting that this line of argument quite possibly is not even yours, but is presumed to be put forward by laptop OEMs/LCD manufacturers. So, no, I am not attacking you, at all. I am sorry if you took my post this way.

 

oh please. everyone on this thread would easily shell out $200 for a 16:10 WQXGA or better screen in their laptop. don't even tell me that it's not cost-effective.

 

Then why are you here?

And my point is simply that if MFG's would "cater" to "us enthusiasts", they would quickly find that we would attenuate most of the "cost hit" for migrating to a different aspect ratio--enough so that it would become quite feasible to offer it to the mainstream market.

I don't really buy the "more expensive" argument anyways. The total area of a 15.4" screen is only marginally larger than a 15.6" screen (accounting for the difference in aspect ratio). And with so many chassis from 5+ years ago that were 16:10 sized, I don't think it's at all difficult or hard to build one around that size...especially when a MFG decides on a case refresh.

 

I never once said that the selection was wide, but it exists. When 3/4k becomes more popular....the prices drop and more and more laptops will have it. Personally I'd take a 3/4k screen over a 1920x1200 anyday, unless we were comparing WQXGA+, which has never made it laptops anyway. I agree, 1080p on 18" isn't acceptable, one step at at time. Highly rumored new Alienware/Clevo models will sport a 3/4k screen.

I've owned the Alienware M17x R2 which has a 17.1" 1920x1200 screen to my 17.3" Sager's 1920x1080 screen. TBH, in terms of DPI/resolution, I don't notice much difference. The quality of the panel is a little worse, but from a DPI standpoint, no difference really. I never did any productive work on the WUXGA, but just normal browsing, again I did not notice a difference. Like I said, I would prefer 16:10, but if it's not possible...it's not possible. At least 3/4k screens are becoming more and more readily available.

 

That's pretty much my reasoning as well.
BTW, rumor has it that Apple will soon move to 16:9 as well...


I don't know about 3K and 4K panels in Clevo/Alienware notebooks. Maybe only for 15.6 inch notebooks. So far there is only one 4K 15.6inch model on the market, made by Sharp. All laptops that are 15.6 inch use that model. Which goes back to my previous argument that notebook OEM choose from what panel manufacturers offer. Yes, they could get in the end whatever screen resolution the wanted, but I reckon that would come at a significant premium.

 

I don't think it costs substantially more to make 16:10. As I stated, the OVERALL DIMENSIONS of a 15.4" 16:10 panel are barely 1% larger than a 15.6" 16:9 panel. Look it up.

 

yes but scale does affect it. I still find as what blacky said....the whole 1 year transition sketchy. I still believe it was forced on the market by manufactures and hollywood. Corporate groups tend to be the one that set standards...not consumer. I don't think the consumer has wanted to be stuck with crap HDMI...plus HDMI 2.0 is only a damn band-aid. Seriously? 5 years too late and it just barely makes 4k work? 60FPS? #$^&#$& Seriously? Couldn't even get 120FPS? What a damn joke. The companies are the ones that force these crap standards....i am largely thinking for the whole....err not designed to fail....it is designed to force another upgrade. I can't think of the term. I generally dont buy into the market creating a system to milk the consumer like the whole intel crap but the HDMI/DP thing is totally half asrsed to milk the market. Same with SATA and USB...no real reason in my mind to create a standard that is sub standard.

IDE PATA SATA were all standards that were way way faster than needed but now they suck...taking their sweet time. If you look at the history SATA IDE PATA ATA USB VGA DVI and all of those were way way beyond any current tech but now we are getting standards released that are not even sufficient for what is out??? Really? I was really looking forward to lightpeak but intel is putsing around with it. If they just released the stupid thing with 20Gb to begin with, with 30-50Gb as second gen it probably would have taken off big time but they didn't bother.

 

Can we actually start some sort of petition to screen manufacturers on 16:10 over 16:9? I'm sure we can make some sort of difference. Everyone on this thread.

 

I already did that 2 years ago. There is even a model letter on our website, sixteenbyten.com

 

I got replies from 3 or 4 of them.
2 involved saying the redirected my email to the proper department and 1-2 saying they will take my suggestion into consideration.

 

Worst case, they offer 16:10 in WSXGA, or upgradable to WUXGA & WQXGA. You can't convince me that 16:10 WSXGA costs more than 1080p.

 

I think our best bet would be if a smaller boutique manufacturer decides that there's a market for professional workstations in 16:10. If a place like Razr, say, took their existing Blade chassis (in 15" and 17") but with a 16:10 screen, made the design a bit more staid so that we can show up at a board meeting with these things without attracting stares, and maybe replaced the GPU with an NVidia Quadro, I think they'll find that they can eat Dell's lunch with these things, and make a nice profit. Maybe even keep that LCD touchpad and buttons, and offer them pre-programmed for some business applications (Office, etc.). Throw in a decent docking solution, and I would order two of these the day they became available, at any price.

As an aside, it looks like 17" screens (any resolution/aspect ratio) are also in the process of going away.

 

That would be great and all, but there is a reason why mobile workstation desktop replacements have gotten alot cheaper in the past few years, the quality of parts, ie LCD have gone down (but still giving you the latest Quadro/FirePro GPUs, newest Intel CPUs). If you want everything a mobile workstation offers like in the M6500 (RGBLED, wide viewing angle, WUXGA), then be prepared to pay 2-4k for such a machine. When you can find new Precisions for ~1100, that is the reason why quality has gone downhill. People screamed for cheaper laptops, and this is the result.

 

That's exactly what I am talking about. When I said "any price", I meant any price. I paid a lot more than $4k for my M6400 Covet (with a screen that is unmatched by anything currently on the market), and I wouldn't blink an eye to do it again if only I could get such a machine. I have recently upgraded the machine to dual-SSDs in a matrix RAID configuration, so it's still quite competitive performance-wise, but it's four years old now...

 

Yep.

Machines like that also offer the manufacturer an option of making more than $25 per laptop...

 

I wish I could say the same about Think.

Well I'm not disagreeing with you, but in general consumers want to pay less and less (of course). If I needed a 3-4k machine for work, I'd gladly pony up the money for a computer (when I owned my Alienware, it was ~3500 new with i7 Extreme, dual video cards, 1200p RGBLED screen, I bought it used though).

 

Don't feel bad. I just got myself a refurbished M17x R2 (has an i7-940XM) for the same reason. Can't wait to put that RGB LED screen inside it.

 

Oh I know, we are not arguing here. All I am saying is that there is a certain market (and I acknowledge that it's probably not huge, but I don't think it's negligibly small, either), of professionals that work at a level of value (and compensation) where money is not the deciding factor, at all. Increasing the productivity of such professionals by even a small amount has a payback that will dwarf the cost of any laptop within a couple of months, at the very most.

And, yes, that would be a high-profit market...

Well, right now I'm good. But just the other day I took my M6400 out of the bag at home, and realized that it had not shut down when I had taken it out of the dock (first time this has happened, ever), so the machine was overheating and had to perform a thermal shutdown. It was quite hot to the touch when I took it out (event log shows that the shutdown had occurred just minutes before). It booted up fine afterwards, but that incident probably shaved off months off the live of the laptop, which reminded me that at some point, I am going to have to replace it. Hopefully that's going to be a while.

 

Not really.

If you are a big enough player, you can spec your own screen.

Take it from someone who's been building custom laptops around a Hydis AFFS LED panel that was custom-ordered (not by me) in 2011, and is a 4:3 15" UXGA format. No more than 10K were produced, if that many. Money talks.

And you'd be correct. They would hardly be the only one with such contracts, though.

 

This is great. It could probably use some UI and content refresh. I'd be a little more ambitious and target the media people, the people who decide on the HD standard. The people who decide on the aspect ratio for photos/videos in camera. Perhaps they could set a new definition for HD (from 720 to 800) and FHD (from 1080 to 1200).

I'd also target the layperson, the average Joe, and to explain to them the magic behind the 16:10 aspect ratio, and why they should advocate it.

The more advocate we have, the better chances we have in winning this battle.

I'd like to contact you in the future to provide content for your website. I'm glad something like this exists.

 

If it up to me you can remake the whole website. I have where to host it and all.

 

17" isn't going anywhere. let's not forget that alienware killed off 15".

 

I do miss my 16:10 screens. Interested to see where this goes.

 

Huawei's new high-resolution tablet may give the Nexus 7 a run for its money

Somehow, they can built a 16:10 screen for tablets but not for notebooks.
I don't get it... so we can have high resolution phones and tablets but not notebooks and desktops.

...

 

Then I HOPE it's just a phase, and as with breaking through the 1080p barrier, tablets will be leading the charge, and laptops will eventually follow suit.

It's a WONDERFUL thing to have space for a playback toolbar and/or my windows toolbar while I'm watching shows/movies.

 

Simple: It's not a Windows PC. The Windows PC industry seems to be inflicted by a contagious brain disease forcing them to slap 16:9 screens on any and all devices they produce, even if, as is the case for tablet devices, such a format doesn't even begin to make any sense whatsoever. Correspondingly, these things are the roaring successes they are. Morons.

As an example, I am really looking forward to the upcoming 12.9" iPad Pro. This is exactly the size and form factor us executives have been waiting for. I would have loved to have such a device running my Windows applications but, alas, there is no device of that sort in the Windows world, not even on the horizon, that I would find useful. Too bad. If it turns out, as some rumors suggest, that this iPad Pro will run both iOS and OS X apps, I may be on my way out of the Windows world. The value proposition that such a device would present within the OS X ecosystem would be quite enticing. Of course, Windows would have allowed for exactly the same opportunity, but the Windows PC world decided they needed to screw this up, and continue offering crap that people don't want.

 

yep. that sounds about right. the day that apple offers something truly unique without a peer from the windows side...is the day that something is VERY wrong with the tech ecosystem.

 

Off topic, but how exactly do they get two OSes and native 3rd party apps for different arches running on the same machine?

 

VM?

10 char

 

As far as I know, the iOS is a stripped down version of OSX. So in theory, you could make apps to run on both.

 

Yes, that is what I hear; on the other hand, OS X binaries are built for Intel X86/x64 architectures, and I doubt those will run on the typical iPhone/iPad processors. So, some sort of a VM would probably be necessary. In any case, it's just a rumor at this point, one of many, and one of the less likely ones, I think.

 

Maybe that's one of the reasons behind the 64-bit transition of iOS?

 

It's still ARM.