Question about wide screen dimensions

well i can't give any direct answer, but what i can do is say your looking for the vertical height not horizontal. Vertical is top to bottom, horizontal is side to side.

my 24" wide screen is lil over 13.75" vertical
my 17" LCD is lil over 11.75" vertical

rofl. I think I'm really tired. You are correct. I'm looking for the vertical haha. Thanks for the measurements.  

well just eyeballing it it looks like my 15 inch 4:3 and my 17 inch 16:9 are within 1/2 inch of each other with the 17 being taller.

They don't cut the verticle dimensions. The screen size is based on the length of a diagonal line across the screen. That said, a 20" or 21" widescreen would be about the same height as a 17" standard screen. 23" widescreen is about comparable in height to a 19" standard screen and a 26" widescreen is about the same as a 21" standard screen.

I wouldn't worry about it though. For most uses, I would personally prefer a widescreen to a standard screen of the same quoted size. The width is beneficial for multitasking as well as giving you a wider view angle for games.

I completely understand about the width being so much better. I have a 20" wide right now and I love it. I was hoping to step up to a wide screen that had the same height as a standard 21" but I think a 26" wide screen is going to be a little too big. I'm planning to have 2 of them.

You can get 22" and 24" screens; they should suit you.

At work I have two computers, two gateway Core 2 Duos, each one has a 22" Gateway widescreen (one runs Vista other runs XP). I will say two 22" widescreens side by side is way too much screen real estate for any common power user and gamer. My Dell 24" in my opinion is an ideal size once you get yourself a good distance from the screen is perfect. After being on the 24" screen even a 22" looks small, i call it the 2 foot curse, but i love it and wouldn't trade it in for the world.

Well, I'm not just a gamer/power user. I'm a web developer as well as a C++ coder. I wanted two of these big screens to help me be more productive in my work.

The site Compute TV dimensions compares 16:9 vrs 4:3 TVs. Its should give you a close approximation of monitor sizes.

Nice find! That's quite a useful tool.