Get Ready For The 20-inch Laptop

linumax writes "With so many DVDs featuring letterboxed or wide-screen versions of films, consumers' fascination with larger screen sizes is changing the size and shape of the laptop industry, stated an IDC report issued on Monday. The wide-screen format, found in only 39.2 percent of laptops expected to ship this year, will become dominant in mid- to late 2006. It will nearly eclipse standard screen dimensions by the end of 2009, the market research firm estimates. Samsung has already unleashed its upcoming 19-inch laptop. The product is expected to ship later this year. Dell, a major partner of Samsung, could easily adopt the large screen format for its high-end XPS laptops. And, LG Philips is also touting its 20-inch LCD displays for laptops."

Don't confuse these with a laptop

[JanneM]

Don't see these as laptops; they aren't. If you click the link on the Samsung 19" machine, it's obvious that these are rather the heir to the all-in-one portable desktops that were available some years ago (they tended to look like a sewing machine, with a detachable keyboard and a screen behind a side panel).

You don't lug these around every day, and you're not expected to. Instead, they are space-saving uncluttered desktops without the hassle of cables and multiple beige boxes to move around. You can take it out into the dining or living room to work or play for a few hours with the rest of your household instead of being relegated to some study or den. When it's time to clear the table you can just unplug it and move it away.

The format just looks rather like a laptop since it's the all-in-one form people are used to by now, and lots of components are made to accomodate it. I would prefer the sewing machine model myself (and Sony has some VAIO's for the Japanse market that are pretty close).

Not laptops

[unoengborg]

I have a 13" screen on my current laptop. When I'm buying a new one I would probably want it to be smaller rather than bigger. Perhaps 12" with 1024x768 resolution, with a weght that hopfully will be below 1 kg.

What the article really is saying, is that the end is near for the standard desktop computer. These new large screen semi portable "laptops" will replace them. The price of standard desktops are allready falling rapidly.

Re:obligatory whine..

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A lot of laptops now have a layout that uses the same size keys as a standard desktop keyboard, save maybe a few of the function keys. The only difference is that they are short throw keys.

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[nine-times]

The worst part is, all the good new laptops are being made with widescreen because little Jane going off to college wants to watch DVDs.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but that's not the only reason why screens have been moving to widescreen. First of all, vertical scrolling is generally considered easier than horizontal. But also, ask yourself, why are movies widescreen?

Think about the position of your eyes. Your field of vision is wider than tall. Really, screens should have always been wide. I assume that the main reason they haven't been is that it's harder to engineer CRTs that don't have roughly a square screen, but even "normal" screens are a little wide (when you're talking about 4:3, 4 is the width).

Now that we have LCDs and are free to make our screens whatever shape we want, it makes sense to me that we'd be looking for screens that more closely represent our natural field of vision.

Careful Linux users ....

[phoxix]

Many of these laptops with odd ball screens have a real problem: The native resolution of the screen isn't supported by the video-bios.

Why is this a problem for Linux users ?

Last time I checked, Xorg/Xfree86 didn't support resolutions your video card didn't advertise. Which becomes a real PITA because now you are either forced to use the screen with chopped off ends, or full screen with the image being badly stretched out.

You could use the closed source XiG [xig.com] X server and you wouldn't have these issues. But a) it cost a pretty penny and b) they software itself is kinda dumb. (You'll install their X server, but you won't get any psuedo-rpm/dpkg's to trick the distro into thinking you have a regular X installed. It becomes a nightmare with dependencies.)

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[jacksonj04]

With me it's not the screen size, it's the resolution. I have a 19" monitor set to 1600x1200, and find it comfortable to work at (As long as I set the DPI properly). If I drop that to 1042x768, I immediately find it cramped. At school I'm forced to work with 800x600 on a 15" monitor, which drives me insane when you can't even view an entire webpage horizontally without scrolling.

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[It doesn't come easy]

I have a widescreen laptop, and while the screen is great, I've decided the weight is just too much. My next laptop (whenever that might be) will weight less, so the only way I'm going to get a 19 inch or better laptop is if they get the weight down at the same time.

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[badasscat]

I don't think widescreen is worth the expense. As it is, for example, a 20" widescreen costs just as much or more than a 21" standard aspect ratio, but gives the user less vertical resolution, despite having the same horizontal resolution. Why pay more for fewer pixels?

This is not really true. For example, currently on Dell's web site, there are a 20" 4:3 and a 20" 16:10 monitor that are exactly the same but for the aspect ratio and the inherent resolution difference that that implies. The 4:3 version is $749 and the 16:10 is currently on sale for $545, though it normally sells for $699.

The resolution on the 4:3 model is 1600x1200, while it's 1680x1050 on the 16:10 version. That's a negligible difference in total pixels, and the price reflects that negligible difference (i.e. the widescreen version is actually slightly less expensive).

Now, are those extra 80 horizontal pixels useful for anything? Well yes, because it's not just about pixels. It's also about actual horizontal size. When you're watching a DVD or HDTV, you're not going to be looking at actual pixels anyway. The same is true of today's high-resolution digital photos. In those cases, it's better to have an aspect ratio that more closely matches the source aspect ratio to give you the most actual screen area (in inches, or however you want to measure it... but not pixels). Viewing a 3:2 photo (standard 35mm/APS ratio) on a 4:3 20" monitor will appear much smaller than it would on a 16:10 20" monitor when opened in an app that puts various tools on the side (as almost all image browsers/editors do).

It really depends on what you use your computer for whether a widescreen monitor is worth it or not. For most "home" users, who watch DVD's, play games, maybe edit their digital photos, I would think a widescreen monitor would be best. I really enjoy having one myself. Obviously for any video or photo pros, widescreen is also better. For someone who's writing code, though, maybe not so much.

That said, a widescreen display is only 12% wider in aspect ratio (1.5 vs. 1.333)

No, 16:10 is obviously 1.6:1, not 1.5:1. You can also get 16:9 screens which are 1.77:1, matching HDTV exactly. Most people go for 16:10, though, because it's a compromise that allows you greater width for movies and photos while still being reasonable for web browsing and word processing apps that can better use the extra height.

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[moro_666]

1) Not all my coworkers keep the lines short, and i dont like dynamic wrapping nor do i want to wrap the code for them. If some long lines would be wrapped for 80x25(just as an example) all the time, i would again see less lines of the code :(. I often read/recode code that isn't mine (all sorts of coworker creations and also a lot of open source software stuff) and i dont want to indent it all the time to read it humanly.

2) Sometimes you have to read overbloated specification pdf files with annoying but useful graphs left-right from the text.

3) Sometimes i like to have some applications overlapping, like editore on the right, chat window on the left, so i see right away when my chat mate types anything. Or just a debugger/output window running there to see right away when smth goes wrong.

4) it's also relaxing to watch a movie from time to time :)

---

in a perfect world ofcourse, nobody would require a wide screen for programming. but as most coders probably know, the word perfect is just an illusion.

Re:Careful Linux users ....

[veediot]

Actually, you would be surprised. I bought a gateway laptop with a 15.4 inch widescreen (native resolution: 1280x800) and Intel Extreme Graphics 2 integrated video adapter. Now, you would think that the video BIOS would advertise its 1280x800 resolution, but it does not, because that particular adapter isn't mean for that resolution. So I had to download a tool called 855resolution that lets you trick the video BIOS into advertising one of its existing modes as 1280x800 in order to get it to work with Xorg.