iPad raises questions about laptop display options | Hacker News Reader

iPad raises questions about laptop display options

geek.com

16 pointsthomas18 comments

I really don't get this article. The iPad can go 4:3 because Apple can guarantee 1 million orders and so their manufacturer is willing to set up a separate line to produce just 4:3 panels. Nobody else can do this because there isn't a million customers who regard widescreen as a critical point of differentiation on a laptop when the same specced 16:9 can be had $10 cheaper.

Exactly. The author backs up his assertion that "the supply is clearly there" with a single example, as if that's enough.

I figured the iPad wasn't widescreen because it doesn't work well vertically.

4:3 is also the aspect ratio of almost all digital photographs, and I'm sure that was a consideration.

Yeah. 4:3 is closer to the aspect ratio of books, newspapers, etc.

The missing/sacrificed vertical resolution could be solved if more laptops would offer better, higher resolutions than 1280x800 / 1366x768 on laptops as large as 15.6". High resolution 12/13/14/15 inch laptops are ridiculously niche.

butbutbut people will complain that everything is too small!

I am not one of those people. And I wish OSes would get off their asses and do resolution independent rendering so we could move on.

I was able to buy a 15" widescreen laptop from Dell with 1060 vertical resolution in mid-2006 for about $700. I only recently upgraded because the wifi card on it started to flake out, but I was sorely disappointed that I couldn't find resolution that matched or exceeded that in today's laptop, without paying a premium. It didn't help that I was searching via the Dell Outlet, where you can't sort by screen resolution (something they're supposed to be fixing in the next couple of months, I've been told) I ended up settling for a 14" w/ 900px vertical resolution, but I definitely miss the 160 pixels I lost.

I've gone to Dell custom screens and MacBooks to fight this trend. I feel some distress that all the reasonable priced retail laptops seem impossible to use for real work anymore.

My last 2 work laptops have lost vertical pixels from the previous model. It's very frustrating when at least 80% of what I work on is in a vertical format.

I love 4:3 screens, but they are very hard to get as the article states.

I thought we were few, but it seems there are enough 4:3 lovers out there :) (Apple included?)

Ditto. 3:2 is ok, 16:10 is pushing it, and 16:9 is getting into the absurd. Especially since most windowing UIs have fixed-size vertical elements, so eliminating 10% of the vertical pixels actually loses more than 10% of the usable space.

Agreed. Right now I have two 19" 4x3 screens, and cannot imagine one or two 16x9's replacing them. I like to maximize windows, though, so not sure if that makes me an outlier or not.

I love high resolution screens first and foremost. Any reasonable ratio will do.

I understand the move to 16x10, but why the change from there to 16x9? That doesn't seem to do anything but lose more vertical space.

I also don't understand why there doesn't seem to be enough demand to continue offering 4x3 models. Maybe not in every size range, but it seems like there should be enough demand in a couple popular sizes.

I've heard (no article link) that the panel makers are pushing to standardize on 16:9 formats. They don't want to have two manufacturing processes for tvs and computer display screens.

It seems like a weak argument though, because there are more computer screen resolutions than there are "HD" resolutions.

edit: grammar.

(1) It's cheaper for the manufacturer as others have stated.

(2) Normal consumers don't like black bars. So they playback their increasingly-common 16:9 dvd/youtube/hulu content and complain that there are black bars at the top and bottom of their 16:10 or 4:3 screen, and feel like it's being "wasted," never mind that everything else you do on a computer (read web pages, edit documents) is done vertically and the extra lines help. Same reason why you see 4:3 content being played back stretched on 16:9 displays in coffee shops -- people would rather see a grossly distorted image than see black bars. Same reason you find really messed up in-between screen ratios being sold retail (stretch both 16:9 and 4:3, take the worst of both worlds but hey! no black bars). Personally, I'll take square pixels and correct aspect ratio with black bars any day.

I thought this article would be about other laptops lacking IPS and having a terrible viewing angle. For something that promotes more social usage like the iPad, the viewing angle being huge is critical. Most laptops in my experience are hard to view and share at the same time.

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