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."

Landscape vs. Portrait

[VoidEngineer]

It's a Good Thing this is going to happen. Why? Well, for one thing, it will also push the Tablet's into getting a little bigger. Oddly enough, Laptops and Tablets still don't screens that are big enough to fit an 8.5x11" full-size 1:1 ratio image of a piece of paper! People ask me if I find my Tablet too bulky (same problem with Laptop, essentially), and I tell them... actually, no, I want a bigger screen so I can write papers in real ratio format. Expect with this increase in size for some manufacturers to also start playing around with swivel screens to allow putting the screen in either landscape or portrait mode.

Of course, it's also great to have a portable movie playing machine. Nothing wrong with the entertainment side of the equation. I'm just saying that this is also going to push the adoption of swivel displays and increased tablet screens sizes.

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[TCaptain]

I have a 17inch laptop and while its certainly a bit more awkward than my old one
(9.2 lbs vs 7), I'm a big boy and I can carry the weight.

The upside is that its a much nicer screen and size-wise in a car, cafe, or bus its not MUCH larger than a regular laptop and once you're used to it its nice.

Laptop egronomics suck (sometimes)

[rice0067]

I like the form factor of a laptop, no messy wires and all that.. but having the screen so low is what sucks most for long term use. Not good for the neck.
The cool thing about this Samsung laptop is that the screen comes off and you can put a base on it. If its a quick change, and doesnt break after the 20th time you switch it, it should be a good concept. But I wonder what sort of wire goes btwn the screen and rest of the computer while the display is off. It would sort of suck to carry around a regular DVI cord. About as much as it would suck to cart around a 19 inch laptop.
Thats why i like my combo of a 15 powerbook and 20 inch cinema display. Leave the 20 at home and travel with the 15.
And wide aspect ratio is really the way to go. I just wish macs had a way to rotate the screeen output, like for reading big pdf files at 1080X 1650...

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[shic]

I've a 15" 1200x1600 display which is pretty damned great for my purposes - and until recently there's been nothing better I could find. If I were to buy again now I'd get the Sony 17" 1200x1920 as this would give me an extra strip down the left or right hand side... though I'd far rather have a 17" regular ratio display.

I accept the argument that big displays aren't very portable - but to me that doesn't matter. I only want to use my laptop on a desk - in fact I'm not even bothered if it is able to run on batteries.

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[DingerX]

Well, it's not quite as good as dual screens, but as a widescreen laptop user, yeah, I'm with you; also a 17" or even 20" screen carries with it an added bonus: the bigger the screen, the more keyboard space; the more keyboard space, the better the chances it'll be a keyboard you'd actually like to lose.

There are a couple problems with them, though.

A) First, I like my screen high resolution for exactly that purpose: it's supposed to replace a dual monitor setup. So I run a 15.4" widescreen in 1920x1200. It works great for all kinds of things, but the web can be problematic: it seems web designers like to make stuff in absolute pixel values, assuming a 72 dpi screen. Cheap streaming video players, like that crap that Microsoft pawns on me or Apple's crippleware player, also like to limit scalability to the medium. 320x200 at "200%" is still tiny. Apple's crippleware is useless (I know, I know, there are many fine Quicktime players out there that aren't made by Appple) for the same reason.

B) Second, everything still has to be on the same screen. With a dual-monitor setup, you can stick your comms and entertainment on one screen (the "distraction" screen), and focus on the task at hand on the other.

C) Most widescreens are not made for geeks who want to have 40 windows open. They are, in fact, made for the college kids who want to watch movies on them. So their resolutions are not near the "eyebleeding" level I demand.

(oh yeah, and this is what that 1920x1200 screen looks like in operation -- I stuck this up on Flickr [flickr.com] some time ago: Desktop shot [flickr.com]

Yes, I know, my life will be better when I get rid of that (X software in there) and run (Y software that's not) that's clearly superior, or use a free photographic host that allows more than 1024 pixels in their pictures.

keyboard

[CaptnMArk]

How about a full size (except numpad) keyboard with real keys that click.

Based on www.pckeyboard.com?

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for an audio production software which will visualize such things vertically, not horizontally... The feel would be much more natural, especially the piano strip. And the mouse scroll button would make much more sense that way too.
That's why I still use trackers, such as Renoise. :)

Re:So what should they be called?

[halltk1983]

Just a "desk" as in Ender's Game. Once muni wifi becomes availible, look for the buggers...

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[MaestroSartori]

I dunno, horizontal piano roll with vertical = pitch, horiz = time, makes decent sense to me. Mixers and other stuff horizontal is just fallback to the old hardware days. Even then though, eq's and stuff are normally laid out hi-mid-low top->bottom, which again makes a kind of logical sense.

I just love ableton, and want a huge laptop to run it on :D

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[Anonymous Coward]

The original laptop [oldcomputers.net]!

Re:Careful Linux users ....

[dfghjk]

If there's one thing that's certain, it's that the native resolution of a the screen WILL be supported by the BIOS. Perhaps nothing else will support it but the machine itself always will.

Of course, having BIOS support for a video mode doesn't mean X, or any other windowing system, will work. If it's new, you can be confident that X won't support it for a quite while. You could do it yourself as long as a driver exists for your video card.

The usual cycle for X is that new hardware comes out, untested support for the hardware is added, then after a few release cycles someone eventually tests it and fixes the bugs. Until then you can be sure that the hardware doesn't work with X.
 

Size matters

[KayakFun]

A large-screen laptop will be a status symbol like a SUV: the bigger the better. This is opposite to the miniturization in many other electronics, but with the emphasis on the UI and productivity they are the way to go (boss/partner: are you listening?):

• designing XSLT with 3 windows of XML, XSLT, and XHTML next to eachother,
• DTP work (A3 + some dialogue boxes)
• webdesign
• GIMP
• email, if your friends like long subject lines
• tabbed browsing

And the subject says it all: size matters (My desktop at home is 23.1", so my work laptop looks like a letterbox)

How about making it PROPER HD widescreen ratio?

[Quizo69]

I don't have a widescreen laptop yet, but when I do get one, I'd like to see it with a proper 16:9 display at HD resolution, i.e. 1920x1080, NOT the bastardised 16:10 ratio of 1920x1200.

Who were the idiots that decided that LCD panels should forego proper TV scale resolutions (4:3 and 16:9) and use the non-standard 5:4 and 16:10 ratios???

Is Microsoft responsible? Did they ask to have TV resolution plus taskbar addon resolution? I mean seriously - who watches a DVD at full screen width and keeps the taskbar visible? Anyone? Didn't think so, so why make the panels that way? /rant

Re:Careful Linux users ....

[Kupek]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 which has an optimal resolution of 1680x1050. I had to hack the XFree86.config file to get the screen working at that resolution in Linux (using something I found on the internet, not figured out myself), but once I did that it worked fine.

Re:Careful Linux users ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! X can use any video mode that your card is capable of. I hooked up an oldish graphics card to a TV with a home-brew VGA-to-TV adapter and I had no problems using a 712x534 interlaced screenmode (and other resolutions aswell), which I sincerely doubt that mode is in the video BIOS. Sure, I had to use custom modelines in my xorg.conf, but that is to be expected given the non-standard nature of what I was doing. So it might be a bit of hassle getting the correct resolution with X on these laptops, it is most definately possible.

Re:Don't confuse these with a laptop

[utexaspunk]

Are you talking about the Compaq Portable 386 [computercloset.org]? Those things rocked. Mine still does. Every once in a while I boot it up (with my EGA monitor attached) to play Space Quest 2 in all of its glory. For some reason computers just don't seem as fun anymore...