Comments on: The Widescreen Laptop Conspiracy

By: Richard Hull

Richard Hull — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:58:18 +0000

I completely agree – the shift towards widescreens is decidedly a STEP BACKWARD for people who actually use their computers to do work… thanks for the article!

By: Freaky

Freaky — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:51:18 +0000

Eh this site should replace greater than and less than signs with the proper HTML encodings…

By: Freaky

Freaky — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:49:42 +0000

@quux, you want the truth? Very simple, 15,6 diagonally at 4:3 is more surface than it is at widescreen. Yet when there still were 4:3 screens the same diagonal 4:3 (with larger surface and thus more material) cost the same as it’s widescreen diagonal equivalent.

Hence, more profit. That and the BS argument (invented to refrain from stating the more profit argument) that people want to watch movies on their PC’s without having black bars… Yes, obviously something I do >=95% of time.

By: Freaky

Freaky — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:44:23 +0000

These !@#$!%!#$ manufactorers need to get it into their heads my computer is for WORKING. Their BS but when watching movie arguments should be shoved where the sun don’t shine. If I want to watch a movie I’ll use my TV and yes widescreen is fine for *televisions*. When it comes to working however vertical space is about equally important to horizontal space. Which is why 4:3 does so well. Currently running a 1400×1050 laptop. Try replacing that… You can either get 1600×900 loosing not only 150 vertical lines but also a drop in total pixels. Since a certain horizontal portion isn’t even really usefully usable that means loosing even more pixels.

The best you can do on 15″ w/o loosing vertical lines is 1920×1080. But at 15″… that’s rather small letters and increase letter size voids the additional pixels. Not to mention it’s quite hard to find FHD 15,6″ at certain brands…

So let me repeat, since repeating works. My computer is NOT, I repeat IS NOT a television nor should you (manufactorers) want it to be.

By: Mike Taber

Mike Taber — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:23:54 +0000

I certainly don’t have concrete information. But I don’t see any other reasonable explanation aside from the economics and an overall trend towards consumer devices, rather than business devices. IT departments are being asked to support more and more consumer devices these days.

By: quux

quux — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 06:33:10 +0000

Thanks for this article.

Does anyone have any solid information as to why the whole industry changed to widescreen with less vertical pixels? Usually it is economics or some manufacturing and/or materials process optimization which drives these things. It would really be nice to know the ‘root cause’ for this as fact rather than theory.

Because if we know the facts, maybe we can do something about it. Theories are only good for whining with!

By: jun

jun — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:48:26 +0000

i too am very disappointed with the way these laptops look nowadays. I was out shopping for a new laptop for my son … looking for a screen display of 17″ but seeing the 17.3″ widescreen was a terrible sight! I went to computer websites hoping i could find the old type of display (with lots of vertical space!)… but to my horror, everything was on widescreen! I am very very frustrated …. i don’t mind paying extra for that vertical space but where to look for one ? Are we going backwards or what? i am trying to convince my son to go for a desktop (although, here again, widescreen is prevalent) … these manufacturers should read reviews and comments from people …

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:42:46 +0000

Couldn’t agree with you more. Its insanely annoying to constantly have to work in the bloody header area of any page. Apple nailed it with the ipad (again) – guess what ? a device designed to complement its intended use.
I got handed a shiny new HP DV6 with a 1366×768 res screen.
It almost met the wall in the setup phase let alone use on the web and in the real world.
Manufacturers need to know that some of us don’t just use these devices to watch home movies on.
Solution? an old flickering 23inch HP monitor turned portrait is a happier user experience than spending my life scrolling.

By: why no choice

why no choice — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:17:52 +0000

I have just got a business laptop from Toshiba to replace my previous tosbhsiba laoptop… which I really liked. I have had to buy widescreen… no choice available dispite it being a fairly premium machine. I am not doing coding or anything so exotic. I want to mainly use boring old word documents, the sort that are printed out on to A4. The sort which I imagine many business people who buy business lap tops will want to work on regularly, sometimes for long periods. The sort that DO NOT FIT WELL on to widescreen. Not only am I forced to by widescreen I am then forced to have almost half of the screen unused for the majority of the time (websites usually also leave a nice border eiter side )… yet I still have to lug these unused pixels arround. Won’t someone pls sort out this insanity!

By: homeuser

homeuser — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:26:38 +0000

What a pain. I was quite looking forward to upgrading my recently-dead computer until I realised you can only get “shortscreen” nowadays. Now I’m looking for a repair shop.

Have any of you programmers on this site considered developing a new internet browser with all the commands down the side? There could be a big market…