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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

> 3:2 screen ratio, I really wish the whole PC industry including Mac moves towards it. Even 16:10 is not enough when we increasingly clutter the vertical space with OS menus, controls, dock. And then Browsers address bar, tab bar, then we have the WebSite layout which is also taking vertical space at the top for navigation.

I hated the 16:9 popularity of computer flat screens. Definitely agree about needing lots of vertical space. I was content with 1600x1200 for years, and then 1920x1200 (1.6 vs 1.5 ratio) was available that was acceptable. Amazing how much smaller 1920x1080 felt, and is just a joke for anything other than watching videos (maybe games? i'm not a gamer) in my daily usage. Never tried one of those rotated 90, but it might be more useful as 9:16.

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Haha, same here.

Last week I watched a review of the LG gram and the reviewer said he liked the new 16:10 screens more, because they are higher and this new [sic] trend was promising.

Meanwhile I'm using one of the last reasonably priced 16:10 screens I could get 10 years ago before the whole industry decided people only want 16:9.

Same goes with glare and non-glare

It's like display creators lost their minds in 2005.

For laptops/smaller desktop screens, the taller ratio definitely makes sense, although for laptops it makes for some form factor challenges in terms of overall and perceived size.

For larger desktop screens, I definitely prefer the aspect ratio most closely matching full screen video. And for my comically large (43”) monitor, I couldn’t use the extra vertical space if I tried. Reducing the width would just limit my usable horizontal space and shrink video for my dual purpose TV use.

> Same goes with glare and non-glare

On this I’d also distinguish portable/desktop use cases. And weirdly they’re the opposite of what I’d prefer. It’s almost impossible for me to find large screen glass-front monitors with the contrast and color space benefits that come with that. And portable usage definitely benefits more from glare protection.

> And for my comically large (43”) monitor, I couldn’t use the extra vertical space if I tried.

It's actually pretty hilarious if you have a monitor arm that allows rotating the monitor, the amount of vertical space is ludicrous. You can fit a side by side diff with over 200 lines of code visible.

It's not very practical, though.

My goodness my whole body got tired trying to imagine using this.

I got nerdy about it and measured the ratio... you'd get 250 lines at my not very good eyesight 12pt font size. A more common font size might eve yield 300 lines

Keep in mind that the monitor will be pretty far from your eyes at those dimensions. For me, when rotated, the monitor extends from below waist height to the top of my head when standing straight at a standing desk.

It's a bit silly though, since the keyboard is far too low for typing comments on a diff. And if one raises the desk so that the keyboard is at the right height, it's a good workout for the neck to put it mildly.

One of my monitors is a widescreen that I have rotated. It's great for having lots of code but unfortunately too narrow for diffs.

I'm really digging my 2560x1440 display. Lots of vertical and enough room for two side by side windows.

I am still using two 1600x1200 screens at home, since 2007. Samsung 204B, replaced capacitors once.

I didn't see 1920x1080 as worth the upgrade. Although I have recently had to tweak/mod a few games as they didn't support my screen resolution.

Now, I want 2x 4k screens: - play games at 1080, I have not the money for 4k gaming at high refresh rates.

- and desktop productivity at 4k, with one screen portrait for reading.

Wowza! Is your skin semi-transparent with all of those rads streaming at you? Those old school CRTs were gorgeous, and I kept ahold of mine until it bit the dust in 2008. I do enjoy the desk real estate that was recovered after getting rid of those dinosaurs.

I had a massive Trinitron before these but no, a Samsung 204B is nothing like those glorious old CRTs. A 204B is old tech LCD now, not that great really, but functional.

I do sunburn far easier than I'd like though! :-P

I went the 4K route. I initially wanted a 40 inch 4K but settled for 32 inch. I'd recommend to get a single 40K display. You'll have the screen real estate of 4 24" monitors at 1080p side by side plus some extra space on top and bottom.

You can probably use it without scaling so high dpi compatibility won't be a problem.

Don't settle for 32 inch get a 40+ inch one.

Once you went the 4K way every other DPI resolution looks awful. I had a private 4K monitor and got a company laptop update and a new monitor at the office. I first thought what the heck can't the IT department get their video drives right on a fresh install until I realized that unsharp resolution just is the native pixel densitiy of the display.

So in order to get crisp DPIs, 32'' with fractional scaling might still make sense. At least to me, it's like reading crisp sharp paper online.

Not sure how you arrived at the 40" number, but I tried this when shopping for a new screen and could not stand the head movement needed to handle that size, as well as the geometry distortion due to the flatness. 32" ended up the sweet spot for me. Maybe a highly curved 40" 4K would work better? That I haven't tried yet.

>I'd recommend to get a single 40K display.

Hellzyeah! Where can I get one of those bad boys? And how many arms and legs plus first born children are needed to give up to get one of those mythical beasts?

Can't decide if you mean 40" display or 4K display? Or did you combine 40" + 4k into 40k?

I've had a Thinkvision 1920x1200 IPS for years. I'd love to get a higher resolution replacement, but nothing modern has that 1.6 aspect ratio that I've found to be so practical.

I have two 24" 1920x1200 (16:10) monitors at work, one of them rotated 90 degrees. I previously had to 24" 1920x1080 (16:9) monitors in the same configuration, and 16:10 is far preferable imo. The 1080 pixel width is often just a little too narrow for comfortable browsing (causing mobile layouts to be used or horizontal scrolling to be necessary), and I haven't had any of that since switching to the 16:10 monitors.

My home (and home office) setup is 14" 1920x1080 laptop + 24" 2560x1440 screen (1x scaling), and I like that a lot, too. The WQHD screen is wide enough to have two things open side by side, which can feel cramped on FHD, while also having sufficiently many vertical pixels.

I always figured that 16:9 screens took off because they could leverage the panels being produced en masse for HDTVs.

That sort of made sense for desktop monitors, for a little while, but the overlap between laptop/monitor and TV offerings has almost completely disappeared-- 17" and smaller TVs are not mass market items.

I wonder if part of it is just as a penny pinching gimmick now: a square monitor of X diagonal gives you more square centimetres of panel than a wider screen does.

Last week I finally upgraded my home setup to two 27" 2560×1440 displays which are 16:9. I had two 1920×1080 before that, while at work I have two 1920×1200 (16:10), not that I've seen those in a year. I'm only a week in, but I have to say it's a really nice setup.

The increase in vertical space is exactly what I was missing while coding: that alone is a significant and worthwhile upgrade, and for that the fact it's 16:9 is kind of irrelevant. Because it's 16:9, YouTube, games, etc still work the way they always did.

Compared to my monitors at work (1920×1200 / 16:10), the benefit is I can run two browser windows side-by-side with a comfortable 1280px width that most sites work great with. 1920px is too narrow to run 50%/50%, but I find also usually wasted at 100% width.

There's not that many other options.

I can't actually find many 16:10 on the market.

4K is usually 3840x2160, which is 16:9. For me this doesn't make sense: either the monitor(s) end up being too massive, the text is too tiny, or I have to scale up and basically have the same vertical space as 1080p 16:9 just with sharper text.

21:9 3440x1440 is probably the next most popular aspect ratio, but two are just way too big for my desk space and I didn't think I'd be happy with one (it's only a tiny bit more area vs 2x 1080p).

The 32:9 "ultra-wide" 5120x1440 look pretty great, but in practice seem to have some challenges. As an example, you can't really do full screen sharing anymore because no one else can see it. Window management becomes a constant pain because "full screen" most apps/websites are just not going to be useful at 5120px wide. And for games it seems to be mixed: when they work it looks pretty cool, but many don't work properly. And on top of that, going fullscreen gaming means you don't get a second monitor to keep an eye on something else, even if your game is running in 16:9 with black bars. For video editors or people working on stupidly big spreadsheets it might make sense, but not for me. (Doesn't help it's 4x the cost of a 2560×1440 display, either).

Doesn't the display driver have an option to pretend to be 2 separate monitors?

> 4K is usually 3840x2160, which is 16:9. For me this doesn't make sense: either the monitor(s) end up being too massive, the text is too tiny, or I have to scale up and basically have the same vertical space as 1080p 16:9 just with sharper text.

But the sharper text is the whole point. That's why I abandoned the idea of getting a 4k 43" monitor, the DPI is the same as on a FHD 22" one. Even a 32" is "pushing it", as in the DPI isn't that high.

However, note that not all text needs to be big. In my case I run a 4k screen at 100%, which allows me to have tiny title and toolbars, which means more actual space. I don't need the UI elements to be huge, and since I mostly use terminals and web browsers, adjusting the "content text" is enough. Of course, YMMV on Windows and Mac OS where you have to click a lot of buttons, so their being tiny might be an issue.

Of course, if for your use and / or preference "sharper text" doesn't matter, you can save a bunch of money by staying with lower-resolution screens and / or get a single giant one if that's your cup of tea.

>The 32:9 "ultra-wide" 5120x1440 look pretty great, but in practice seem to have some challenges. As an example, you can't really do full screen sharing anymore because no one else can see it.

I only have a 21:9 ultrawide but this is definitely a drawback. I have a second monitor that is just 16:9 that is used for all of my screen sharing

> the same vertical space as 1080p 16:9 just with sharper text

I work with text all day. I want it as sharp as I can get it.

3440x1440 is 43:18, not 21:9.

games/videos on 3:2 is just huge black bars. Definitely not for extended gaming.

I used (and still have) the original Chromebook Pixel in my closet with a 3:2 screen. amazing for browsing documents, but YouTube videos always felt off.

If I can ask, what is so bad about black bars? (For video that is, for a modern game it's inexcusable)

If your primary use of a computer is for gaming or video playback, then 16:9 does seem the right choice. If that is your use case, having anything taller than 16:9 means all of those extra pixels will primarily only ever be displaying black. What's the point of that? If your primary use of a computer is anything but games/videos, then the occasional letterboxing is much less egregious. As a gamer, instead of paying for more pixels, that money can be spent on faster refresh. Less pixels also helps allow for faster refresh, etc.

At home with TVs, I'm okay with the letter boxing to watch 1.85,2.35 type content on my 1.78 screen. It's the trade off as making a movie buff 2.35 screen would force majority of 1.78 content to be window/pillar boxed.

It's not a deal breaker; videos are just a mild inconvenience from the screen ratio. But if most of my usage is in media instead of documents, I'd prefer to utilize as much of the screen as possible.

My Pixel was mostly used as a portable school laptop for web browsing and development, so for those tasks it did a great job. But there was always that nagging feeling when viewing videos and seeing even more black bars on top/botton than even my 16:10 monitor at home.

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