I prefer 16:10 laptops more than 16:9. Wide is good, too wide is stupid. 16:9 is only good for gaming or video watching, but when working, you'd want a more boxed screen since you would like to see more of what's below and not everyone likes to keep scrolling.

The reason I waited to go LCD for so long was that your normal 16:10 LCDs weren't available in a vertical resolution greater than 1024, which is not enough for me. Granted laptops are expected to be smaller, but 768 vertical pixels is just going backwards.

People keep complaining about aspect ratio when what they are saying clearly states that vertical pixel count is far more important. Please be specific in your gripes, as the symptom does not seem to match the cause.

I want my 4:3 back....it's getting hard to even find a desktop LCD in larger sizes that isn't "widescreen"

amen to that "Wide is good, too wide is stupid" -deltatux
"LCDs weren't available in a vertical resolution greater than 1024" ???Gateway FX P-780 1920x1200

Who are you talking about, me? My point with wide-aspect screens is that typically they have lower vertical resolution. It took a few years before a 16:10 1680x1050 monitor was an affordable price.

The move to 16x9 means less vertical resolution with the same technology. As the article states, Dell currently offers 16:10 resolutions of 1200x800 and 1440x900, but their new 16:9 comes in 1366x768. Therefore, the move to a different aspect ratio has led to a decrease in vertical pixels due to the constrained size of the laptop itself. Here, resolution and aspect ratio are directly tied together.

Interestingly enough, it brings back more practicality to having an autosensing rotational display.

Granted that has been around for a long time, but having an even (proportionally) narrower feild of view makes it notably more useful to be able to rotate your monitor vertical for many apps (surfing, typing) and then flip it back wide for others (spreadsheets, gaming and the like).

I meant they weren't available "at a good price" early on, not that they didn't exist.

Who needs more horizontal resolution on a monitor? This is just to make manufacturing cheaper (i.e. same panels as a TV).

I don't want 16x9.

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16:9 is nice if it has at least a 22" diagonal. Many Applications like Most IDEs and Painting programs have a sidebar that fits well in 16:9. It's also nice to have firefox on the left while watching tv on the right side... I like my 16:9 monitor more than my 5:4.

yeah i know what you mean.. ;/

im with u bro... i want 4:3

I'm mixed on this.

This is a bummer for older games and other programs that don't support the 16x9 resolutions. I have a 24" LCD monitor and a 46" HDTV. One supports 1600 x 1200 resolution for some older 4x3 games, while the other only supports up to 1024 x 768. Guess which is which...

I know this is as much the software author's fault as anything else, but that software was here first.

On the flip side, there is a real possibility that this can help drive a convergence towards standardized aspect ratios across computer and entertainment equipment, which is a good thing given where things are headed with internet TV, media centers, etc.

This will only be a good thing if they start making more rotatable monitors. There's a line from HP that rotate from landscape to portrait, but I still hate the 16:9 concept for computers. They are productivity machines, not just entertainment machines.

I'm on to 16:10 anyday.. 16:9 are too wide for a computer screen. Not practical at all.. I even keep my taskbar to the right side of the panel just to increase the overal size of the pages I'm working with (meaning spreadsheets, text editors, image editors)..

16:10 is preferable for both my laptop screen and my desktop monitors.

I will not purchase a 16:9 laptop unless the vertical resolution was at the very least 1200 or more.

Bash me if you will, but I like standardization. It simply makes things easier. I never liked 5:4 because it was a deviation from standard 4:3. I think 16:10 should have never existed. We should have had 16:9 from the start, so it would be compatible with the HDTV ratio.

I also agree that rotatable monitors are nice. Mine is! I use it in portrait mode for office/web surfing, and in landscape for gaming/watching video.

I'll concur with the arguments for standardization, but the fact of the matter is I want a 17" 1920x1200 notebook for serious work use and they are becoming just too hard to find or overly expensive. Professional users who need the screen real estate won't be too happy moving down from 16:10 to 16:9.

I guess it's time to invest in that 30" panel - wonder when those disappear.

Now if Microsoft would only fix Cleartype for portrait mode ...

hmmm, I really don't understand how manufacturers think... I love my dell 2407 (1920x1200 @ 16:10), but yeah, it's more expensive. But why? same technology just a different setup... I guess they really don't care about what people think. I think if they would just drop prices on them to normal price ranges for similar sized monitors, then they would have a lot more people buying them, and they would make more money, instead of just everyone manufacturer banding together and just stop making them without user opinions. I love my display. the wider the better. Seriously, I know that user opinion is split. but, A lot of people prefer dual screen and or widescreen. I prefer widescreen over tall screens because they are better for gaming, and movies. Anyways, just saying, why do they always make these decisions without first asking people, instead of letting some bean counters make the decisions. ???

When you're on the web, content always extends vertically and they usually crop the horizontal at 800 pixels so older PCs can display the pages properly. They should make these 16:9 screens rotating so you can flip it into web mode. (but with greater than 768 pixels on that axis)

Now that would be an idea, a laptop with which you can rotate the screen and I don't mean Tablet PC's either as I want my screen to be standing up, not laying flat. I also want to be able to use my keyboard.

No no no no no.. What's practical is 4:3! Whenever I start up my old 15" laptop from around 2001 I just feel so relaxed! You can feel the difference in working space compared to my newer 15" 16:10 laptop.

These wide aspect ratios has nothing to do with practicality, but indeed everything to do with manufacturing processes and cost. I don't need widescreen on my laptop. I connect it to my TV if I want to watch a movie I have on it.

My laptop's 16:10, and I'm sticking by it. If all the manufacturers move to 16:9, then I just might have to consider other manufacturers. Perhaps Asus or maybe even ones like Fujitsu. The latter still makes 4:3 screens I believe.

I to prefer 16:10 over 16:9, I have a 19" 16:10 1440x900 LCD display and I have enough space horizontally and vertically but with a 16:9 display the vertical resolution would be to low for a 19" display.

I find 16:9 stupid because it's somehow a resemblance of the 69 sex position, so I think that the adoption of the 16:9 aspect ratio it's based on humans obsession on the 69 sex position.

I too prefer 16:10 over 16:9, I have a 19" 16:10 1440x900 LCD display and I have enough space horizontally and vertically but with a 16:9 display the vertical resolution would be to low for a 19" display.

I find 16:9 stupid because it's somehow a resemblance of the 69 sex position, so I think that the adoption of the 16:9 aspect ratio it's based on humans obsession on the 69 sex position.

No I was not referring to you, but you give me a good jumping off for my main point.

'Sweet-spot' resolutions have progressed as follows:
800*600
1024*768
1280*1024
1440*900
1680*1050

Note that except for the dip from 1280 to 1440, the vertical pixels have continually increased. The next 'sweet-spot' is clearly the 22-24" 1920*1080 screens, which have 30 more vertical pixels than the previous resolution. Yes, 1600*1200 monitors are pretty hard to come by (and are expensive as they've always been), but that's why we have 1920*1200 aswell, and the 2048*1152 is becoming more common (see: Dell, Newegg, etc). Yes, the resolution of certain laptops is a problem since notebooks aren't getting any wider, but you can hardly complain about the desktop LCD market as you can get a 1680 monitor for <$160 and a 1080p monitor for <$200. Compare this to the prices a year, 2 years or 5 years ago and you'll see there is hardly anything to complain about.

I don't need wide.
No love for those with dual-displays?

I don't need wide.
No love for those with dual-displays?

I'm running 2 22" wides, its not so bad, but you definitely need to desk space.