Why Widescreen LCDs Suck

You want a pivot screen? Get a Zune. (oops. wrong forum.)

As an artist a widescreen on a computer monitor is a blessing… I keep all of my palettes on the right side of the screen and it allows me to view the (top half) of the page comfortably. Yes, vertical would be nice but by the time you add room for all those much needed palettes the page would be to small to read.

I have to disagree with you on this one. Widescreen monitors are great. As a web/media designer and developer, I find the wider screen is great for working in Photoshop (as well as Final Cut) and tiling browser windows (or Terminal shells, for that matter) for at a glance viewing. But I suppose it depends on what you find yourself doing most often — if all you do is surf the web and read email, that extra screen space isn’t very useful.

Slow news day, eh?

Sven,
You missed the mark, as many critical journalists seem to do. Frequently, when you focus on the weaknesses of people or things, you don’t bring enough journalism to the positive light. And, in my humble opinion, there are many in today’s new breed of monitors.
1. Innovation now and in the future. You know…innovation breeds innovation?
2. Room for palettes and docks (or system trays) and other GUI paraphenalia.
3. Many applications, such as spreadsheets, have yearned for a wider screen. I’m sure there are others. Graphic artists I work with have no complaints.
4. Displaying multiple windows, side by side.
5. Having space on the left or right of your open window to see desktop icons.
6. Being able to see the desktop so one can “OPTION + CLICK” on it to HIDE the foremost application. (One of my favorite shortcuts).

So, all in all, I believe I have pointed out more positives than even the negatives you had to share. Look at the bright side…your Mac Book Pro has some really excellent performance. And the Intel Duo processors promise more of that to come.

And remember, Manufacturers are building for the masses. If “pivoting” monitors was such a great idea, why wouldn’t everyone make them?

David Stark
Anchorage Alaska

Coming from my experience, widescreen monitors are nice for CAD work. I am an apprentice architect and they’re great for showing more of the building and because I can get more of my button menus on the screen.

Not true! I just bought a DELL 24″ and it works perfectly the way it should: rotated 90 degrees. Great for working on photos, but even better for programming and displaying long webpages like this one. So widescreen, I still have to get back on that, but loooong screen is definately great! :-)

Go into any Best Buy and look for the Samsung 204T. It rotates! I do wish Radius were still around like it was in the old days, though. Last I heard, Radius was making software for PC’s. For example, web pages reflowing to a second monitor.

My Dell 2407, the Dell 2007 and 3007 all have this 90 degrees tilting. It’s GREAT for coding and great for portrait photos (although the colours on the Dell leave something to be desired)

Widescreen is a product of the limited display area in a cinema, it is a absolutely tragic joke that we now have TV’s and monitors that shape.

I agree 100%. This revolution of widescreen is horrible.
No matter what you use the computer for, the intranet has to be a very large part of computer usage and all web pages and documents work better on 4:3 format. Nothing looks more silly than reading 4 lines from a webpage with all that empty spave to the right. Then, you have to scroll up and down to read the other lines. If you realy need to watch DVD’s so badly, go sit on your couch and watch TV or buy a cheap portable DVD player, but please bring back a normal computer screen to the world!!!

I agree Sven. Widescreen LCD’s suck.

I use my computer for reading on the internet. For that purpose, taller is better.

Text runs down the page like it does in books and magazines for a reason. It’s the most comfortable way to read.

I watch movies on TV.

In OS X it’s really easy to turn any monitor 90 degrees. There is an option for “rotation” in the display settings. The right Vesa mount should solve the issue of actually rotating the display,

Wide screens on laptop computers suck. They are a pain in the ass. What in the heck is the matter with computer manufacturers, are they on dope?
There is zero benefit to a wide screen laptop, except that they are cheaper to manufacture and computer makers now charge a bundle extra for a sxga or a uxga screen. GET STUFFED COMPUTER MAKERS!!!

I agree widescreen suck for laptops.,,causes too much scrolling down.

for watching movies…good, but how often or how many hrs a day you watch movies on notebook!!

a similar size diagonal ws is smaller than a 4:3, so its cheaper to manufacturers.

Widescreen sucks, especially for laptops. They didn´t suck on desktop because you can rotate it, but only for that. Obviously the reason the people love widescreen is because they can rotate it, so widescreen sucks even for the people who loves it (if they love widescreen WHY they rotate the screen????). I have to buy a laptop and I deside to buy an old one with a normal and usefull screen.

I couldn’t agree more, widescreen sucks hard. To all people saying it is better because “you have more room” or ” have two apps side by side” WRONG! What gives you that ability is real estate, if you can do that in a 1280×800 (16:10), you can always do better in a 1280×960 (4:3) or even better in a beautiful 1280×1024 (5:4). If you’re thinking of a 1440×900 or 1440×960, better go all the way for the 1600×1200. You can always accomodate all that crap you’re arguing you can accomodate plus some really meaningful space below. Plus widescreen gives manufacturers a nice opportunity to cheat on you, do the math, a widescreen will always have less surface than a standard 4:3 claiming the same diagonal size.

I totally agree that widescreen displays, especially on laptops, are a bad idea. At the very least we should have a choice, but being in the market for a new laptop, I only see widescreens these days, and the tendency is to move to 16:9 ratio. The only thing these are good for (not counting some professional software) is watching latest movies, but why would we want to do that on your laptop when everyone has a nice huge widescreen TV at home! 90% of the people 90% of the time use computer for the internet, and the internet is not going to be ready for widescreen for a very long time.

I can think of one more reason why manufacturers are happy with shortscreen (at the expense of consumers). LCD panels have poor vertical view angle, so making screens shorter takes care of the problem!

I was misled into buying a 16″ widescreen LCD monitor yesterday and realized the mistake only after opening the box back in home. It is stupid and I would have been better off buying a 17″ CRT monitor for half the price. It is plain cheating and also stupid at the same time. Unfortunately like in other things material and in life (like digital speedometers in expensive cars instead of the classical analog meter) this is one more example where we are going backwards with time instead of improving things. Hopefully this will be a passing fad like digital watches (in the 80’s) and good classical times will return. Till then we wait and pray.

Nearly all websites are formatted for 4:3 non-wide screen monitors. When you use a widescreen monitor, most webpages have blank bars on the left and right.

Also, widescreen monitors of the same size have less viewable square inches.

See this calculator:
http://www.cavecreations.com