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Comment by acqw | Hacker News Reader

I agree! The 4:3 screens are much more useful for programming and reading the web, the "chopped off" are good only to watch wide videos. Are notebook users really mostly buying the notebook only to watch videos?

"There's simply no choice" -- I'd say of course, since consumers didn't care when they started to buy the worse ones, the manufacturers rightly concluded that they can kill the more expensive variants completely.

I've read more critiques of iPads that stated: "it doesn't have a wide screen." Were they written by competitors? Or are consumers really already trained to actually desire the worse?

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I prefer wide over tall, assuming the same area. I like to view two documents side by side, and it's nice to have two 80-column terminals open on the screen without overlap or tiny fonts.

I'll also always pick two monitors over one large monitor for the ability to separate workspaces.

I hate "wide screens" with a passion - I call them short screens instead. My pet theory is that the LCD manufacturers like short screens better because they can sell fewer pixels while still advertising the same diagonal length.

This seems counterintuitive from a math perspective.

Having a bad math day? A square gives the best number of pixels per diagonal inch. The farther you get from a square (aka the wider the screen), the less pixels you get, even if the diagonal length stays the same. You can advertise a 22 inch monitor but if it's only 1 inch tall then it's worthless.

A 40 inch monitor that's 1 inch tall would also be useless.

Besides, 4:3 screens aren't square either. Why not demand 1:1 screens? Wide screens are more aesthetically pleasing (for most, not all).

most non-wide screen 17 and 19inch monitors were 1280x1024 which was 5:4 which is even more square. I'd happily buy two 1:1 monitors (no one makes an affordable monitor with more than 2048 pixels wide).

It seems impractical to me. I'd rather just have one screen that's wide but not too tall. It's a lot easier to look across wider things than up and down tall things.

1920 widescreens are not really wide enough for a webpage and a code window. A 2560 widescreen is the obvious answer but they cost 3 to 4 times as much.

You're right. I guess your other suggestion was really still making a "wide screen" but a super high res one out of two squarer ones :-) That seems a reasonable solution.

I have 2560 pixels wide but I have a 27" iMac and sorta consider the screen almost a "freebie" with the computer (considering how little extra the 27" costs). A similar stand alone screen is crazy money though..

Simple solution: buy two monitors. Only costs twice as much.

That's not a pet theory, it's simply true.

Heh, well, I can't think of a good way to prove that one, so I thought I'd be careful not to overstate my case. :)

Widescreens are great as long as you get one that can run at a high enough resolution that you can run things side by side (that point comes much sooner on a widescreen).

I've heard it has to do with the fact that the majority of demand for LCDs comes from televisions, so laptop manufacturers can't buy decent shapes anymore since they don't account for enough demand.

Are notebook users really mostly buying the notebook only to watch videos

Yes, that and do a little email and Facebook.

Most people who buy laptops (or any PC) are not programmers.

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