Aspect ratio nitpicking

I've got an almost-3-year-old D901C (Sager NP9262) with a failing 9800M GTX card that has me in a quandary. Basically, I'm fussing over whether to: A) blow $500-$650 on a replacement 280M card (or possibly $200-$350 on a QuadroFX 3700M, if I can find one that I'm sure is compatible) as a slight upgrade just to keep the thing running another year or so... or B) blow $3700-$4500 on a whole new X7200 system.

One thing that is actually bugging and making me resistant to a new Clevo is the fact that all the new systems appear to come only with 16:9 displays as an option. I've never been a big fan of widescreen for comps in general, and even for gaming, I'd much rather have a more equitable ratio. 16:10 is a nice compromise, and I've been happy with the 1920x1200 on my current machine. Somehow "upgrading" to a loss of 10% of my screen pixels at max 1920x1080 resolution just runs counter to my grain.

To be fair, this isn't solely a Clevo issue, but seems to be the general trend of display manufacturers everywhere. It's almost impossible to find a 4:3 display these days, but recent monitor shopping for my work reveals that even 16:10's are becoming uncommon. I realize this is probably a matter of personal taste (heck, I still prefer a cheap CRT to 99% of the LCD displays out there,) but I am curious as to how others feel. Might the extreme push to wider and wider screens be a bit of catering to a preconceived demand on the industry's part, or is it a move toward a justified standard?

 

The reason 1080p displays (16:9) have saturated the market to this extent is almost solely due to TV's. Lots and lots of cheap HD TV's have made it so that these panels are cheap and common for other uses. 16:10 was never as popular, but it's even more rare now because the price delta between the two has grown. They make 16:10 in smaller and more expensive batches which passes on directly to the consumer.

I agree with you and prefer 16:10 because of the extra vertical real estate, but for the increase in price that it brings, you could almost have an SSD instead. (Which would have a far more immediate effect on performance and useability).

Long story short, thank mass production and economies of scale for cheap 16:9 and expensive 16:10

 

That's pretty much what's stopped me from getting a P150HM.

I'm kind of waiting to see if anyone makes a laptop with a higher resolution than 1920x1080.

 

There are threads like this pretty regularly and I always have to wonder why do you need 120 more vertical pixels?

 

Sorry if I'm repeating old ground, here.

Yeah, as the subject says 120 pixels does seem like nitpicking... But again, if you're coming from 1200px, it's 10% of your vertical res. If you think about it in terms of window formatting in regular, non-game apps, that's basically the cost of your "housekeeping" items: things like the taskbar on your desktop; title, menu, and toolbars in your browser; that confounded ribbon in Office 2010; etc. Similarly, in MMO type games, if you're like me and keep your interface elements along the bottom, that's about the size of the band of real-estate it takes up. Essentially, with 16:10, after accounting for for all that stuff, you've still got a 16:9 area of open, real work/game space. For me, in 1080p the space left over after accounting for the clutter feels kind of too narrow and squeezed, and results in much more mousing around to get the whole picture.

 

I think you're probably right for laptops, and except for specialty monitors, probably for computers in general. High-end manufacturers like Eizo seem still to be focusing on 16:10 due to resistance to 1080p widescreen from traditional printing and graphic design users.

The monitor-shopping mentioned above for my work finally resulted in the purchase of an Eizo CG245W 24", which is 16:10, like the rest of their current ColorEdge line. As Malibal says above, though, it comes at a hefty price: $3K suggested retail (although that does include the cost of a built-in colorimeter.) To get the equivalent display in a (smaller, 22") 4:3 model almost doubles that price.

To be fair, it is one of the most amazing displays I've ever used (and I guess it should be,) but in terms of gamut, tonal accuracy, and viewing angle, the new "cheaper" ISP+LED LCD technology is only just now approaching the picture quality of good old trinitron CRTs that cost less than 1/8 its price twenty years ago. I know, you can't put a CRT on a laptop... but I'd still be willing to pay more for a really good display with more real estate.

 

Any interest in my Sager NP5797? I'm looking to upgrade to the 8170.

T9600, GTX280M, 4GB DDR3, 750GB 7200RPM WD Scorpio Black, 1920x1200. $750.