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> 13.0 | 16:10 | 2K | 450nits | 100% sRGB | Optional Touch

> Ultra-narrow bezel | 85% STB

It is very nice move from the Dell [0], and also now Lenovo to bring 16:10 display in laptops. It was always for me strange decision, when laptop manufactures decided to use 16:9 displays for all, even for pricey, high-end models. I am highly enthusiastic to see 16:10 displays back after ten years, when numerous notebooks had 15.4" display.

[0]: For example Dell Precision 5550 - https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...

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I was doing some work on an old 4:3 IBM X41 last weekend. Reminded me what we've lost.

iPad Pro 12.9" provides 4:3 in HiDPI with good battery life, which challenges the claim that laptops couldn't source 4:3 screens.

Also, I would venture a guess - a lot of us are not laptop-gamers and as such, do not look forward to those '>=120Hz' display-panel technologies companies are dedicating so much resources into. A significant part of the reason I'm about to buy an external monitor is the 16:9 ratio vertically challenged little screen on my laptop. This new trend ought to catch on.

>= 120Hz is great for everything, not just games. Moving your mouse (or scrolling) on a 60Hz monitor after you've used something higher is like looking at a slide show.

For example, on a 60Hz monitoring, try panning around a Google Map and reading the labels. They just become a mushy blur. On a higher refresh-rate display, you can read the labels as they move. (I always found this to be an interesting demo: https://testufo.com/persistence)

> >= 120Hz is great for everything

It's not great for battery life.

iPad Pro adjusts dynamically.

In the same way, Flagship SoC is great perf but not great for battery so we can choose to buy middle spec SoC.

Nice website, thanks for linking it. But, it looks like I'm in the minority here - having always worked on 60Hz screen computers and never finding myself wishing for higher refresh rate than a better screen ratio. Perhaps, personally speaking, my priorities are different.

What have we lost?

I have _always_ preferred a wider screen to a taller one because it means I can fit more xterms side-by-side.

Yea, seriously. When did the whole taller windows are for productivity vs wider for media folks, decide this as obvious and undeniable?

It's just a preference!

The most workflow obessesed tiling window manager people tend to expect a two column, (one with a tall window, with a 2 or 3 rows in the other) approach by default. Often 3 columns.

I can see where taller might be better for documents- so maybe better for LaTex, Word, etc. productivity. But not for programming IMHO.

ThinkPad T61 models changed from 1400x1050 (SXGA+) to 1440x900 (WXGA+) when they went widescreen.

They literally just lopped off 150 vertical pixels. There wasn’t some corresponding gain in horizontal space. You could fit the same number of xterms side-by-side on either laptop.

I had one of the lovely T61s models that did 1600x1200. That machine had a long, long lifespan for a 3+g memory it could support. Miss the 4:3

Probably still worth something to the right person!

But it's not one or the other. The screen is just as wide, but taller. So your xterms can be just as wide but you can fit more rows into them.

Stop romanticising the past. :) You are certainly having more characters vertically on screen on current environments plus having more horizontally.

Stop romanticising the present.

Wider (and, crucially: shorter) displays were foisted on us by the majority of computer users being heavy media consumers the desire to consolidate supply chains.

The efficacy of a 16:10 (or 5:2) screen is undeniable.

I’ve been looking for a good 16:10 screen to replace my aging Dell U2412M’s for over 5 years at this point.

The 3840x2400 16:10 on the new XPS 17" is very nice. It was a substantial increase from the older 15" i9 mac I use for work. Well worth the extra $400 for it over the 1900x1200 version for me.

My lamentation at the end was about dedicated displays (off topic in a thread about laptops I know...)

I have a new MacBook coming soon, so 16:10 dreams come true there.

IMO avoiding 16:9 aspect ratio is no longer important on dedicated monitors but still important on laptop monitors.

I just updated my personal laptop with the dell xps 17 largely because it has a glorious 16:10 screen. My only complaints with the machine is the tiny torx screws on back are very fragile - got an M.2 drive waiting to go in it so I can do my linux install. Lovely screen, decent keyboard and trackpad. All in all, pretty happy with it.

I stripped a couple of screws on my XPS 13 and was about to break the bottom panel out of anger & frustration. Instead I bought a new, quality set of screwdrivers and managed to open it, then replaced torx screws with phillips head M2x3 screws. Highly recommend.

Torx is much more stable than philips head.

To add to this, Phillips screws are designed to cause the screwdriver to cam out. This is done so you can’t over torque the screw hole. This also makes them really annoying sometimes.

No, it was found that they have a tendency to cam out and it was later claimed that cam-out was a feature not a bug.

Regardless, using Pozidrive, JIS, Torx or similar is better for your soul.

Torx, Philips, whatever, we can all agree that they're both 10x better than Allen-head screws.

Weird. I bought a torx screwdriver to open my new XPS 13, and the screwdriver stripped. I bought a better screwdriver, and didn't have any problems with the screws or screwdriver after that.

(Stripped screwdriver was Husky brand from Home Depot, better screwdriver was a less-expensive, higher-quality one from Harbor Freight.)

Can confirm Home Depot/Husky did not have a happy ending on one screw. Which Harbor Freight set you pick up?

(was getting ready to mix the epoxy for the one screw/bit)

Pittsburgh Pro, 34 pc. precision screwdriver

The label is on the back. The front is a clear lid which shows the flexible extension, a straight extension, the screwdriver (black and green), then four rows of bits.

It's a pretty decent set. It's kind of funny though, the warning label on the back says to wear "heavy duty work gloves during use."

Working on most laptops is relatively easy but you still need couple relatively inexpensive tools.

If you ever venture into disassembling a laptop I would highly suggest some protection against static electricity. Most damage from static discharge on induced current is not immediately apparent but may manifest itself in crashes, slowdowns and other ways.

(A bit off topic) Two months ago, on reddit there was interesting finding and discussion about low quality screws in Dell laptops [0]. Also, if you look for "screw" phrase in r/Dell you will might find that problem is more common than occasional and touches many models, especially noticeable in XPSes.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/gf520r/xps_9570_aliex...

The old Dell Latitude D models had 16:10 displays (albeit at 1280x800 pixels) so for Dell they are bringing it back.

16:9 is just too shallow to do any meaningful work on.

It was never meant for work..

Yeah... exactly. If I remember there were two drivers. One was entertainment (movies look good on 16:9 although I prefer to have the black bar for subtitles) and another was keyboard. Wider screen meant more space for keyboard with full sized keys which meant smaller laptops possible at the same diagonal.

Also worth mentioning that shallower screen at the same diagonal has less area.

Oh c'mon, many laptops in last decade had 1366x768 display and many people still downscale theirs 1920x1080 into 1600x900 or 1440x810, because they have problems to comfortable see and read text from screen :)

Dell D-series are at least twelve years old [0] (example model with 16:10 display [1]).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Latitude#Latitude_D8x0_se...

[1]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Latitude-D830-Note...

Edit: I would love to have same resolution (1680x 1050) available from linked D830 (2007) in mine HP Probook 4340s (2012), which I used at university and Unity3D course. It had scrumpy 1366x768.

It kills me when I see people downscale their displays to be able to read their text. But I blame the OS developers for this: the display settings should allow you to scale the graphical elements according to your preference.

Windows 10 is good at this, you can set 125% or 150% UI scale no problem.

The 16:9 is for videos

16:9 is popular because its cheaper for the same amount of inches (which people put in ads), because the area is smaller. Also, production numbers are higher because TV screens are also 16:9.

I've just bought a Lenovo laptop on a rush because my XPS 13 died (as usual, it works fine again now that I have a new laptop to replace it :)

It's nice and all, but it has a 3cm wide useless black bezel below the screen that screams "I should have a 16:10 display!!!". At least this one has 3 USB ports, a full size HDMI port and a camera cover...

I have a new Dell XPS15, and the "ultra narrow bezel" kind of drives me crazy. I tend to do a lot of terminal based work, in full screen mode, and my fingers block the lower several lines of the screen when I'm using the on-laptop keyboard. It's a great laptop otherwise, and most of the day I'm using it at a desk with external keyboard so it doesn't matter.

(full disclosure, It's my first non-thinkpad laptop in decades, and I didn't pay for it, my job did).

3:2 is the best. The Microsoft Surface line used 3:2 a lot (always?), and the Google Pixelbook. 16:10 is still better than 16:9, but I want more things to be 3:2.

Meta but why is it called 16:10 instead of 8:5? Ratios should be brought down to the lowest common denominator, just like every other standard aspect ratio, no?

Probably for an easier direct comparison with 16:9, which has been the de-facto standard for years. Without having to do any math, you immediately know that the screen is proportionally taller than a 16:9 screen would be, which makes for easier marketing.

16:9

16:10

16:10.66 (almost 3:2)

16:12 (4:3)

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