RIP Non-Widescreens

[judicata]

This part rant, part cry for help.

Widescreens are a complete waste to me-an abomination. I do not play many games on my laptop (and those I do play are usually older and do not benefit from a widescreen--if they even support it), and I do not often watch movies. I do not need more space off to the side--I need more space for toolbars, etc. What's more, is that widescreens make laptops more cumbersome to carry around. Yet, from what I can tell, the industry has moved to the widescreen because they have become cheaper, and they sound bigger than they really are. I cannot overstate how much this annoys me.

I'm a longtime Thinkpad fan, as I've had great luck with them. But when I purchased my current laptop (last year, I think), I was horrified to discover that Lenovo had effectively abandoned any non-widescreen display.
So, I purchased a refurbished T61 with a 14.1 4:3 display. The Lenovo T61 doesn't seem to have the durability my IBM T41 had (the screen finally died on me after several years), so I'm worried I'll need to buy a new one.

Anyone know a good laptop manufacturer that still sells a computer with a non-widescreen display?

Btw, external monitors in 4:3 or 5:4 are getting hard and harder to find too.

[DrStraw]

Interesting, because I am typing this on a one-year-old Lenovo X61. It is supplied by my employer so I had no choice. It is way too small and I wish I did have a widescreen.

[Li Kao]

On notebooks I understand the use of widescreens somewhat(But I'm still annoyed that old 15" notebooks had 800px vertical resolution, and new ones have less. Not what I call progress. And even for movies, which are the reason for wider screens 1280x800 is better, since 720p movies don't need to be scaled.
But for desktop monitors 4:3 is still the best resolution.
I even have put my task bar on the left so it doesn't cost me >50px on the bottom of the screen of my already scarce vertical resolution.

[kirkmc]

Wide screens are much better. You can have two or three windows open at the same time, and if you're working with multiple programs, it's a big improvement. I have a 27" desktop monitor, and I can have three windows laid out horizontally, and it's a big help.

The toolbar issue is a problem, especially the way Microsoft makes them. Just drag them off, though, and put them to the side. You'll end up not only with more vertical space, but it'll be easier to work with toolbars if they have more room on the side of the screen. (At least that's my experience.)

I find that people who want 4:3 screens are generally Windows users who are used to making every window fill the screen. Is that your case?

[kirkmc]

On notebooks I understand the use of widescreens somewhat(But I'm still annoyed that old 15" notebooks had 800px vertical resolution, and new ones have less.

My 13" MacBook Air has 1440x900. Current Macs all have more than 800 px vertical; maybe with PCs it's different?

[Li Kao]

The windows window-manager doesn't support tiling well, so there is no choice but maximizing windows. Guess I need to switch to linux sometime... And of course notebooks have such a small total resolution that non fullscreen windows don't work either.

[nagano]

This part rant, part cry for help.

Widescreens are a complete waste to me-an abomination. I do not play many games on my laptop (and those I do play are usually older and do not benefit from a widescreen--if they even support it), and I do not often watch movies. I do not need more space off to the side--I need more space for toolbars, etc. What's more, is that widescreens make laptops more cumbersome to carry around. Yet, from what I can tell, the industry has moved to the widescreen because they have become cheaper, and they sound bigger than they really are. I cannot overstate how much this annoys me.

I'm a longtime Thinkpad fan, as I've had great luck with them. But when I purchased my current laptop (last year, I think), I was horrified to discover that Lenovo had effectively abandoned any non-widescreen display.
So, I purchased a refurbished T61 with a 14.1 4:3 display. The Lenovo T61 doesn't seem to have the durability my IBM T41 had (the screen finally died on me after several years), so I'm worried I'll need to buy a new one.

Anyone know a good laptop manufacturer that still sells a computer with a non-widescreen display?

Btw, external monitors in 4:3 or 5:4 are getting hard and harder to find too.

Ugh, toolbars, talk about ancient technology.

What size screen do you generally use? Most widescreens now have a high enough resolution for such issues to be irrelevant. By the way, did it ever occur to you that they may have switched to widescreen because that's what the majority of people actually want?

My 13" MacBook Air has 1440x900. Current Macs all have more than 800 px vertical; maybe with PCs it's different?

I want a 60" screen with a retina display like the iPhone 4.

[judicata]

I find that people who want 4:3 screens are generally Windows users who are used to making every window fill the screen. Is that your case?

Of course, our resident Mac superfan would come to the defense of widescreens .

I run Ubuntu (except at work, but I have no choice on what laptop to use). And I have programs take up the whole screen when it makes sense to do so--for example, the more space you have to work on the layout of documents, etc., the better; likewise for viewing photos, and even playing go (I like a big go board). At home, I use both my external monitor and laptop screen.

By the way, did it ever occur to you that they may have switched to widescreen because that's what the majority of people actually want?

Yes. And? The majority of people apparently prefer Miley Cyrus over Arcade Fire...doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. (On a related note, I'm generally pro free markets, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy with where the market is going.)

I also prefer my laptops to be narrower so they don't take up as much room. Of course, smaller computers are available, but by their nature, widescreens will be smaller compared to a similar-width 4:3.

Apparently, I'm not alone. A Google search for "no widescreen laptops" turns up several related hits.

[daal]

The screen on my T41 recently died too. I've also been thinking about getting a refurbished T60, but first, I'm going to replace the screen on my T41 and see how much more life it has left in it. Too bad people can't leave good enough alone.

[fwiffo]

I'm a big fan of wide-screens. I use a 30" at work (2560x1600), and make my desktop even wider with a second screen - an older 20" rotated to portrait mode, for a total desktop area of 3760x1600. It's awesome. I can have multiple terminal windows and a browser window on the main screen, and my e-mail client on the second monitor, and everything I need right in my field of view.

Wide-screens make more efficient use of the field of view of human vision, which is significantly wider than it is tall. It's also much better at scanning horizontally than vertically, so it makes sense to add desktop area horizontally first. They also make laptops more portable - the minimum dimensions of a laptop are constrained by the size of the keyboard, which is much wider than it is tall.

[kirkmc]

I want a 60" screen with a retina display like the iPhone 4.

Yes, but to be fair, I think you'd only need like 160 dpi for the same impression, given the distance. The new 27" display I have is 108 dpi, and the difference between that and the previous 24" Apple monitor I had is noticeable.

[kirkmc]

I'm a big fan of wide-screens. I use a 30" at work (2560x1600), and make my desktop even wider with a second screen - an older 20" rotated to portrait mode, for a total desktop area of 3760x1600. It's awesome. I can have multiple terminal windows and a browser window on the main screen, and my e-mail client on the second monitor, and everything I need right in my field of view.

Wide-screens make more efficient use of the field of view of human vision, which is significantly wider than it is tall. It's also much better at scanning horizontally than vertically, so it makes sense to add desktop area horizontally first.

Seconded.

If you want height, with a desktop, either get a monitor that rotates, or get two and use them as Fwiffo does.

[topazg]

My biggest frustration with widescreens is the apparent desire to replace vertical space with horizontal space. Like the OP, much of my work is with code, or documents, which are all basically more height than width (kinda like books and, you know, letters written and paper, that kind of thing!).

Sure, I could have two windows with 4:3, or, more desirably, 3:4 aspect ratios, but then all the text gets too itsy bitsy for my comfort. I would like more vertical space, and I do know that thisn't a particularly rare position to hold

[kirkmc]

My biggest frustration with widescreens is the apparent desire to replace vertical space with horizontal space. Like the OP, much of my work is with code, or documents, which are all basically more height than width (kinda like books and, you know, letters written and paper, that kind of thing!).

Sure, I could have two windows with 4:3, or, more desirably, 3:4 aspect ratios, but then all the text gets too itsy bitsy for my comfort. I would like more vertical space, and I do know that thisn't a particularly rare position to hold

I work with text, and the biggest advantage for me is having multiple windows horizontally. For example, I have a browser and email window taking up the width of my screen. When I work on text, I have my text editor at 80 character width, which leaves me plenty of room for a preview window (a lot of my writing is in HTML), and a third window, such as for a dictionary or other tool. I have poor eyesight, and use large fonts, and this works fine for me, at least with a 27" monitor. On my laptop it's obviously different, but I don't do much serious work there.

[judicata]

My biggest frustration with widescreens is the apparent desire to replace vertical space with horizontal space. Like the OP, much of my work is with code, or documents, which are all basically more height than width (kinda like books and, you know, letters written and paper, that kind of thing!).

Sure, I could have two windows with 4:3, or, more desirably, 3:4 aspect ratios, but then all the text gets too itsy bitsy for my comfort. I would like more vertical space, and I do know that thisn't a particularly rare position to hold

Of course, to each his own.

While our vision is wider than it is tall, as Fwiffo says, that does not mean wider is always better. For code and for documents, the wider lines get, the hard they are to follow. For watching movies and gaming (and I'm sure other applications), I won't deny that widescreen is better. But for the work I do (e.g, drafting/editing documents), widescreens add useless bulk to my laptop.

As for opening multiple windows... I want my laptop to be small. Using multiple windows makes no sense when drafting documents for which attention to detail is important (is that comma italicized? are those straight quotes or curly quotes? is that an en-dash, or em-dash?).

Do you turn e-book readers sideways? If so, you're the first person I've ever heard of doing so.