What screen do you prefer? (standard vs. wide)

I don't know if anyone posted this yet but from a mathematical standpoint, a standard aspect ratio screen has more area than a widescreen with the same diagonal length. So the argument that a widescreen is bigger is false, it is the other way around.

16:10 or 16:9 is very similar to the golden ratio or approx. 1.618 and it is an aesthetically pleasing ratio.

 

We are customers with "special needs", like people with big feet or petite bodies. There should be a market for us.

That's exactly why the screen makers switched to wide screens: to make more profits with less materials. Those wide screen lovers who think they are getting more have been fooled.

 

You're right on. That's what I was saying in my post ... widescreen looks better, but standard has a practical aspect to it. That's why I only weakly prefer widescreen. I think there can be a compromise: high-res widescreen. :GEEK:

 

I have a preference for standard screens, but I really want better panels than the crap TN panels we get now. I'd take a quality WXGA+ over a crap SXGA+ every time.

 

The thing is that for almost all practical matters convenience bits mathematical reasoning ...

To have multiple windows open, to have different docked panels in Visual Studio (or other development environments) or, say, Photoshop etc.

What good can you make out of few vertical lines? Programming: few more lines of code? Word processing: few more lines in document?

For me it is much more annoying not to see the rest of the line (and be forced to scroll horizontally) than scroll vertically ( even with trackpoint it is easy to do it with one hand!)

Personally I prefer two monitors side by side for my programming activity (professional), but also am using my notebook (R51, standard screen) a lot. And, oh boy , sometimes I'd kill for additional space to the right

 

If the lines are too long it doesn't work that good either.

Yeah, I really prefer the 150 pixels vertical above 40 horizontal.

But also what ZaZ says: bring back IPS, or even better.

 

Slight preference towards widescreen 16:10. 1280x800 on my X200 has more viewing space both ways than the old standard X61 with 1024x768 resolution so I'm happy .

 

And now compare to the 1400x1050 X61...

 

i prefer standard because i am mostly on the internet or looking at documents. Screen real estate is wasted on the sides imo.

But then again it seems that other people have the opposite problem having to scroll from side to side.

 

I prefer 16:10 now, for instance you can now get a 1680x1050 screen - great for coding as you have the tool/directory panel on one side and then a nice big area for writing in.

It's also very close to the golden ratio which humans tend to find aesthetically pleasing - and even better, on a 24" 16:10 WUXGA screen you can fit 2 A4 pages side by side in word or a DTP program.

The problem there is that you're not comparing like for like. The successor to SXGA+ (1400x1050) isn't the WXGA+ (1440x900) but WSXGA+ which is actually 1680x1050, so higher resolution.

 

When folks criticize widescreen, it indicates to me that they're using widescreen that's too low-rez. Netbooks shouldn't be shipping at a pixel below 1366x768, as that's the "widened" (16:9) version of 1024x768 to my eyes. This sudden 1024x600 love affair -- even if was born purely out of low priced panels -- breaks my heart.

1280x800 is another junk resolution, but as long as it's displacing what would have otherwise been 1024x768 panels, there's no good reason to complain. I find that a lot of folks who have a negative perception of widescreen own gigantic 15.4" Best Buy laptops that were inexplicably shipped with 1280x800 screens.

The 1440x900 vs. 1440x1050 thing is another silly comparison. 1440x900 is kind of an in-between res since 1152x900 was never super-common (or was it?). In my mind, all laptops that were packing 1440x1050 should have been widened out to 1680x1050, which is again a "proper" widening. The pixel density on a 14.1" ThinkPad T61 at 1440x900 is tolerable, but I sure would have preferred 1680x1050 if it were an option. I guess you have to look at a 4:3 14" ThinkPad vs. the newer 16:10 14" ThinkPads in terms of physical size. If the 4:3 ThinkPad was much taller physically, then you're at least reclaiming some of that footprint, though tragically at the expense of pixels.

I'm pretty comfortable in 1440x900 on my notebook, though I'll always opt for more pixels when it's possible. The 1440x900 screen is a great fit for me on the 12.1" X200s, but again, I really think there needs to be a 1680x1050 option on the widescreen 14.1" offerings, because that would silence the lament for 1440x1050 once and for all.

A peculiarity I noticed on desktop monitors was that I was never happy with anything below 1600x1200 when everything was 4:3. I was convinced I'd need to spring for a 1920x1200 LCD when it was replacement time, but I tried out a friend's 1680x1050 screen for awhile and found that it was plenty of space for me. Ended up getting two of them fairly recently because they're a great value -- one hooked to my laptop (or its dock) and one hooked to my Newegg'd desktop with the mouse/keyboard shared via Synergy. It's pretty awesome.

To summarize, widescreen only sucks if you're doing it wrong.

 

To add to the widescreen side, I decided to give Windows 7 a spin and it contains several nice enhancements over Vista. One of the better enhancements is the new Taskbar—which has a decent amount of redesign done and actually feels VERY comfortable on the left or right side of the screen versus always being on the bottom. I never thought I’d get used to having my Taskbar on the side, but with a widescreen it actually makes a lot of sense and takes much better advantage of the widescreen’s layout and maximizes your vertical real estate.

 

I prefer a 2nd monitor anyway...

Yeah.. and you know that a double/triple widescreen set-up looks more like the poo ratio...?

I'm comparing a X61 with a X200. The X200 is the succesor of the X61, so what's your point?

1024x600 should be some kind of phone resolution... perhaps it will happen when they remove all the buttons of a phone

Well, no. I own a 14" W T61 and it's screen stinks... virtually speaking.

Yeah, but they didn't! And if they did it would come at a cost of a smaller pixelsize.

Agree, but I'd still take 1600x1200 4:3 above that...

And what you see: a T61 4:3 14" with a 6 cell battery inside and a T61 16:10 14" W with a 6 cell battery that sticks out and is in effect larger on both sides. Now, what's the gain for me?

Yeah, but since I like some batterytime too it isn't...

So we get:
sticking out battery
lower resolution
wider laptop
deeper laptop

I would trade it in a second for 1400x1050 like on the X61

Yes, there is. But still: I prefer 1600x1200 and no sticking out battery, a larger palmrest, no wasted space besides my keyboard.

No, it would come at an additional cost in money and with a smaller pixelpitch, so there will still be people wanting 1400x1050.

1600x1200 rocks. Agreed! Especially three side by side . Imagine that with 1680x1050: you would get a very small slice of monitor: 48:10 instead of 48:12

And guess what...: 1920x1200 monitors are much more expensive then 1600x1200 monitors. So what's the deal? €350 for the first 1600 pixels and €200 more for those last 320 pixels? No deal...

So because you overestimated what you wanted in the beginning is widescreen now fine....

I ended up getting three times 1600x1200. A Samsung 204T first. But couldn't live with the inputlag so got a Dell 2007FP, couldn't stand the lag difference and color difference so get another 2007FP and now hooked up the old Samsung on my old 7900GTX (Dell's on GTX260). The Samsung is also connected to my Advanced Docking Station

Untill you try the same thing with 1600x1200...

.... widescreen either comes at a big loss of pixels, or comes at an high additional cost in money.

And look at the slow progress in monitors: Four years ago you could buy a 2048x1536 CRT for under € 500. Today you can just get a 26" 1920x1200 for the same money.

Note: I leave TN out of the comparison, since it's junk. Comparing a CRT to a TN panel is comparing an orange to a banana.... the first one is full of vitamines and the second one has barely any...

As does it in Windows XP...

Do you actually use the taskbar? Seriously; i only use it to see how late it is and for the quickstart icons. All the other stuff I do with shortcuts using my keyboard. Switching windows: use Alt+Tab. I do the same thing when playing Age of Empires II with my friends. Guess why I always get the lead in the first few seconds...

h > select town center
c > create villager
, > select idle military unit
CTRL+1 > number selected units with the shortcut '1'
then comes the first click: sending the scout away
. > select idle villager
b > select civil building menu
e > build house
then comes the 2nd click to position the house I want to build
. > select another idle villager
b > select civil building menu
i > build mill (if I see berry bushes)

Now image the same thing but clicking the buttons on the screen; good luck...