16:9 now the "norm"!!!

I have been informed by a very reputable source (you most likely own laptops from them) that the LCD suppliers will now only be selling in 16:9.

If your like me, and 16:10 was already a stretch (think CAD and photoshop on the go)...

This stinks xD

 

Its just LCD manufacturer's way to squeeze more money out of us. Pretty soon we'll have something even worse, just so they can make some more profit.

 

A lot of laptops are using the new 16:9 aspect ratio, and I agree, it sucks! A reasonably sized system is going to be bulkier now, I bought a 14.1 inch laptop for a reason, to be more portable than a 15/17 inch behemoth!

Hopefully, it won't be so widespread that business systems and such have 16:9, at least not right away

Looks like I'll be looking at a netbook for my next laptop, it'll be the only thing relatively portable by the time the old D630 needs replacing...

Then again, many complained (and some still are) about the death of the standard aspect ratio models.

 

Yeah, the only reason why they're pushing 16:9 is because the screens are cheaper to manufacture. They would get more profit because they're pushing the idea that 16:9 is better because it's the HDTV aspect ratio. 16:10 is the best mix of FoV and productivity. Next thing will be 17:7, then 19:6, then laptops will start looking like strips of paper.

 

Frankly, if i could get a 4:3, i'd most likely take it!
And yea, I noticed that a 15.6 in 16:9 is almost the size of a 17in!

 

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.
I personally find that its easier to fit a 16:10 15.4" laptop into my backpack.

 

Eh. I think the switch is a bad idea, but not having seen a new one in person I'm not sure if there will be a real difference. That said, I find 16:10 to be too wide and too short at 15.4". I wouldn't want a 16:9 unless it got purely wider, which would just be a waste of power for me.

While this is annoying, I think you might want to consider the bigger picture, and as such a little history: Movies were originally filmed in a format that was 4 spaces tall and 35mm wide. This turned out to be a ratio of 4:3, or in movie terms 1.33:1. I know what your thinking, "Movies aren't in 4:3!", and your right. When TVs came out the movie industry realized that they had to compete against the TV and thus came up with a great idea to screw over consumers who wanted to enjoy movies on TVs, they created 1:85:1, or 16.65:9 (notice how close this is to 16:9). Movies have since gotten ever wider with the current standard being called 2.35 or 2.4 while it actually is 2.35.1.

This scale, to give you an idea of how it compares to current standards translates to 24:10, 21.6:9, and 7.2:3.

Now, movies as they get wider look better because they already fill your entire vision in height, and thus additional length looks good because it fills your peripheral vision which, believe it or not, approaches 90 degrees to either side for most people. I would tell you that TVs don't have anything to gain from the switch past 4:3 because few TVs (spare projectors) are tall enough to fill your vision completely, thus for a diagonal of a given size a more square shape give the most area, and thus the most pleasing shape. TVs however won't have any real problem from getting wider, and will do such as people are often displeased to find their new 16:9 TV has black bars both while watching much of current TV (4:3) and new movies (2.35/2.39/2.4:1). Also, salesmen will love to tell people that the new resolution is 'better'. TVs are sold by diagonal and producers of LCDs and Plasmas (where cost is a function of area) will love to get a free increase in perceived value.

Now were back to laptops. I'm sure that some people will love them. Some people will love the look, some people will love the return of 1-9 number pad on the right side to what are currently mainstream 15.4" laptops. I would guess that most spreadsheet users will love it too. Videogames will benefit as will movies for computers that can run them well with the new pixels. While I play video games, I expect the losses to be larger than the gains. For me much of my time is spend on the web and with CAD (mostly 3d). It seems to me that in recent years cad has transitioned from having toolbars mostly on the top and bottom to more and more on the left and right side. Currently using solidworks and I've found that it enjoys using massive sections of the left and right screen in order to return the main window to a more square shape. Unless you work with long sheetmetal/bars, there is no use to a wide screen, most parts are roughly 1:1 or 2:1 in some dimension, or massively longer then the screen will be for any usable height. Catia hasn't really changed yet as far as I can tell, and inventor has a bit, but not as much.

Long rant, short form: The switch to 16:9 will not be great, but the future will be much worse and you'll be dreaming of the days when you had 16:9.

 

I dont really like the whole shift to widescreen.
I know back when I had a C640 with the 4:3 screen it was so easy to read documents, cause of the height of the screen. 16:10 is nice because of the high resolution, but I can say its really annoying to view pictures on it. If I need to view pictures, I end up using my external screen, or I turn my laptop on the side, so I can see the pictures better.

K-TRON

 

I would also happily go back to 4:3 because I spend much of my time working on documents. The only advantage of 16:10 is that it is easier to see over the screen to talk to someone sitting on the other side of my desk.

We have to hope that the current economic squeeze will encourage manufacturers to provide what customers want. With Windows 7 looking to be less resource-hungry than Vista, there will no longer be a need to upgrade to get better performance.

But, if we have to live with widescreen, I would love to have a mechanical scroll wheel on the notebook (like the wheel provided on most mice). That is the main reason I use a mouse when I can.

John

 

I agree with the general sentiment- 16:10 is the widest I am comfortable with, and I use my laptops to work on documents most of the time. At the moment, I am using a dual display setup: the NEC is connected to a secondary HP 17" (5:4) LCD, and everytime I open up a pdf or want to work on a Word document, I just prefer to do it on the 1280x1024 of the 17" rather than the 1280x800 crippled resolution of the NEC.

I would not want to buy a 16:9 at all!

 

i had once a 4:3 15" and it fit perfectly into my bag. a 14.1" 16:10 was about as wide and thus fit into the bag as well. now i'd need to buy a 13.3" 16:9 as it's the largest that fits the bag.

ridiculous. espencially, as the first res i had was 1400x1050, and i've yet to see a notebook that small with that many pixels.. espencially in height. a 13.3" with the same height would be fun (1680x1050 or even 1920x1080 ).

my preferred aspect ratio would be 1:1.

 

i want a 14in 4:3 with a 9800GS power, and a decent size...

too bad that that will not happen for a few years, and it will not be 4:3, but 21:9

 

If it ever hits 21:9 ratio, I'm gonna cry.

Wonder if Apple is gonna follow the same trend?

 

I'm using a 16:9 acer now ( 1366x768 ) and i'm pleased with it. I'm using it for some basic programming and normal surfing and gaming stuff.

But if you use office (or something similar) a whole day i can understand the need for a "higher"/less wide display and the dislike of wider displays.

It seems desktops are evolving in the same way, 16:9 lcd's are a lot cheaper then same size 16:10 lcd's here (belgium).