Widescreen Cheaper than Standard?

Is their a good reason why the widescreen T61 is cheaper than the standard? I would have prefered a standard screen but when configued to match my widescreen t61 it cost almost 300 more.

T61
14.1 wxga+
2.0 gghz
2 gig
80gig
Intel AGN
Bluetooth

 

i think kevin made a thread about this before. i didnt have the chance to read it but imo widescreen uses less material because the surface area of a widescreen display is smaller than standard

 

Because the LCD for the standard screen is actually both significantly larger and better quality than the LCD for the widescreen.

 

what makes you think it is higher quality?

The reason the prices for standard size screens are more then wide screens is because they cut them from a sheet and they can get more widescreens vs standard/sheet.

 

I'd love to see some proof on this. I've been hearing it for ages... since widescreen's inception... but let me ask you the following:

Pretend, for a moment, that you're building an LCD factory. Widescreen LCDs, at this point, are rare to non-existent. You have to build 4:3 and 5:4 displays for your consumers. What do you do? Do you:

a) Build a factory that yields less 4:3 and 5:4 displays by setting it up for 16:10 and 16:9
b) Build the factory that yields more 4:3 and 5:4, but less 16:10 and 16:9
or
c) Build a factory that only makes 54542:11 displays and pray?

 

Supply and Demand.

300 more? are you configuring a T61p?

 

Widescreen is great. If you get wsxga, there is plenty of vertical viewing area to view documents and web pages. Plus, if you want to watch a movie, its super convenient.

 

Widescreen is great if you use your machine on trains or planes.

 

Mine is just a normal T61. The way i have it configured it only cost 1056. When i did the same to a Sxga+, it came out to 1350 something.

 

I don't know that the quality is any better or worse on a standard vs widescreen. Truth be told my R60 is fairly dim at like three or under depending on the lighting condition. Cranked up it looks good, but that leads to lower battery life. Good thing I don't need a lot.

I dislike the fact that widescreen is being jammed down our throats without much debate. Widescreens do have their advantages like a lower profile and movies fit the screen better to name a couple. For a 15" notebook it doesn't matter much as WSXGA+ and SXGA+ both offer the same vertical resolution. However, on a 14" notebook I personally find the 1050 vertical resolution of SXGA+ to be much more useful for things like office and internet which is mainly what I do. It's almost as wide as well. In my personal experience WXGA+ isn't really wide enough to have two things open side by side comfortably.

Bottom line is they don't produce as many standard screens which is why they cost more.

 

I took what you listed as your configuration, added the camera to substitute the WXGA+ option, and got $1054.50. Took the exact same specs and configured it on the regular aspect screen and the price was $1211.25. This was using the SPP pricing, so I see a $156.75 difference here. Both have the Intel AGN, integrated graphics, regular cd-rw/dvd-rom, 2GB(2 dimms), vista home basic. Are you sure you're not pricing the one with the Nvidia card?

 

I work for ibm and have both, which i've compared side-by-side. It's quite obvious actually, especially in 15". Either they source better materials for the standard and being quite more expensive perhaps it's better built/assembled (different location still?).