Agreeing with the 4:3 love. People will tell you it makes sense for notebooks, and especially netbooks, as there is a certain minimum width needed for the keyboard to be usable. In contrast, there's leeway to cut the depth, and with it screen height. Fine, sounds good.
Then why the heck are we seeing so many laptops with a battery hanging out the back? Dell Adamo being the first example that comes to mind, along with both the convertible tablets in our office. That's unused depth. You could easily put the hinge back there and get a taller screen.
Well you could if your true motivation wasn't smaller screen area for the same x-inch diagonal measurement. Cost saving, that's all it is. I'd pay more for a tall screen any day.