The End of Non-Widescreen Laptops? 668
Santi Onta writes "Today Lenovo retired the last NON-widescreen laptop they offered (the T61 14.1) from the market, and Lenovo is just an example (Apple, Sony, HP, etc. are the same). I understand the motivation behind all the laptop manufacturers to move to widescreen: they can still advertise that they offer 14.1 or 15.4 screens, but the screen area is smaller, and thus they save more money. Some people might like widescreens (they are useful for some tasks), but any developer knows that vertical space matters! Less vertical space = less lines of code in the screen = more scrolling = less productivity. How can laptop manufacturers still claim that they look after their customers when the move to widescreens is clearly a selfish one? I just wish they offered non-widescreen laptops, even if it were for a plus (that I'd be more than happy to pay)." I've always preferred the widescreen aspect ratio -- vertical matters, but having two nice wide columns always mattered more to me. Until this reader's submission, I hadn't realized that it was such a contested issue. Does this matter?
Well I'm starting to like widescreen now (Score:1, Interesting)
Non-issue (Score:2, Interesting)
Better for Development? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find widescreen is actually much better for development. I'm mainly programming in Netbeans or Eclipse and having the navigator on one side and the 'outline' on the right is great. On a standard aspect monitor, this leaves the central portion for working on code really small. On widescreen (I use a 20" widescreen) this central code portion is much bigger. It's much the same in Visual Studio.
Perhaps if you were only working in a text editor, maybe doing HTML or something, I could agree. Even then though, do I really need 100 lines on the screen at once?
I'd much rather have half the lines on the screen and be able to use the extra features of my IDE to aid in navigation and keep my concentration focused on the area that I'm working in.
Yes, it's an issue (Score:3, Interesting)
It matters! (Score:2, Interesting)
Think about the keyboard (Score:4, Interesting)
using a 16:10 as my bedroom tv (Score:5, Interesting)
media player, VLC, winamp, the dvd software I use... the bars fit perfectly, I can leave them live and watch 16:9 content
Re:A Few More Points to Weigh (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought here, but have you ever considered... oh, I dunno... changing the resolution of your laptops video out to, perhaps, a "standard" ratio such as 1024x768?
I know, I know, this is just as "extreme" as actually connecting the laptop to the projector in the first place, but really, despite the monumentous stretch of technical wizardry it requires to to actually find and then change the resolution settings to something more appropriate for a projector, it does work wonders for solving that whole distortion problem. Cheers!
Re:13" MacBook Pro (Score:2, Interesting)
Despite the droves of 12" PowerBook owners telling Apple how nice it is to have so much power and flexibility in a small package, and pleading for a 12" MacBook Pro, Apple gave us the underwhelming MacBook Air instead.
Despite the huge buzz of speculation that Apple would come out with an eMate-size sub-notebook to compete with the little Vaios and Zauruses etc., Apple gave us the oversized MacBook Air instead.
It's the same old story - the Reality Distortion Field(TM) only works inside Apple's walls. When it tries to spread outward it gets smacked down by Real Reality(TM).
Uhhh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A Few More Points to Weigh (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno what dvd's you are buying, but most of mine are widescreen. Thankfully, most movies are coming out at their true aspect ratio...and even some old dvd's are being reissued in true aspect instead of the pan and scan they came out on originally. I hate missing out on so much of the picture.
A lot of tv shows, older ones are in a square aspect...but, most new shows I'm seeing are being prepped for HD...and are in a widescreen aspect ratio.
So, there are some that are not widescreen, but, I'd say they are the minority, not the majority.
Golden Rectangle (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know if this is a factor in the move to wide screens or not, but supposedly the golden rectangle [wikipedia.org] is the most visually pleasing rectangle. It has an aspect ratio of 1.618.
Re:13" MacBook Pro (Score:3, Interesting)
We're not talking about iPods and iPhones. Read: MacBook Air demand trails that of original Intel-based MacBook [appleinsider.com], with winners like:
Re:I just wish... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Few More Points to Weigh (Score:3, Interesting)
(This is a genuine question; I was under the impression that Dell bought most of the components from China then assembled them close to the customer in order to maintain their "build-to-order" business model).
Re:Not only that (Score:2, Interesting)
... Also, you have more freedom to customize your machine ...
Is that a joke? Laptops are some of the least-customizable devices aside from (most) cell phones out there. Unless you want to crack the entire case open, you can usually only change the hard drive and RAM. On mine, it's possible to change the wireless card (thanks to the MiniPCI-like slot), but the video chip can't be upgraded, even though it's discrete. Like it, the CPU is also soldered to the motherboard.
Unless you want to be tied to a desk and an outlet, you also can't use a different monitor unless you crack your case open and put one of close enough size in. It may not even work, depending on the video chipset and what the laptop manufacturer has done to it. On my laptop, I haven't even found an option to replace the glossy LCD with a matte equivalent [slashdot.org].
The most freedom for customization is still limited to the non-portable set, at least for now. Sometimes I wish laptop manufacturer would agree on a standard, extensible hardware setup like the desktops have (ATX, standard PCIe, ZIF sockets, etc.).
why not laptop KEYBOARDS for coders (Score:2, Interesting)
He who does it first will have my laptop kilobucks.
Re:Pixels Are Your Friend (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus I am coding in C at work. Sequential code tends to have longer functions and thus you need more vertical space to see the whole thing.
A widescreen laptop is a joke. Laptop screens are too small to begin with. Sure, I like diff on a wide screen. But the majority of my work is not diff. Since a laptop screen does not rotate, I prefer the standard setup. It simply does not fit with the proportions I am used to looking at all day, which is a sheet of paper.
And watching a HD movie on my 15" laptop!?! Haha, what's the point? I'd rather watch it on something designed and comfortable for movie/TV watching.
widescreen is ok (Score:2, Interesting)
get yourself a secondary widescreen monitor (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.hardware.info/images/news/flexscan_s2031w_550.jpg
Re:macurmudgeon (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard this theory before but it's definately not true in my case, and I suspect a lot of other people (that's assuming the theory isn't complete BS). It seems to have been invented when they came out with widescreen TVs originally, a few years ago... salesmen used to use it as part of their patter.
I really notice the missing top/bottom on widescreen displays - sure they're cheaper but you've lost data.. instead of creating a 1280x1024 display they create a 1280x800 one, and get to call it the same size measured in inches.
Look at books and newspapers, or A4 printed material - all taller than it is wide. It's naturally easy to read and you don't call it 'thin'. If they printed a book sideways would it be as easy to read? Interesting test, if anyone's got a printing press handy...
If you care about vertical space then... (Score:5, Interesting)
then they put the widow dock along the bottom along with all sorts of crap. this chews up vertical real estate.
Most of the most poliched linux window managers make the same mistake. It's almost like you have to have virtual windows simply because they mismanage the screen realestate.
DSL linux's default window manager is a notable exception, and is very parsimonious about its use of screen area, presumably because it expected to be used on small screens of older machines.
Apple is better about saving screen real estate, since all windows share a single thin menu bar and the doc can be moved to vertical. Traditionally they use smaller icons and fewer of them so their toolbars usually are single width and thin (some notable exceptions however, like preview.app) Apple even puts the equivalent of tabs on the side of widows rather than the bottom (i.e. the window managers offer sidebars typically).
So perhaps it is not a surprise that apple was an early adopter of widescreen.
In my personal habits, I prefer widescreen because I feel like I can juggle more windows than with a vertical screen. But I get enraged when windows have all sorts of menu crap and tool bars that gobble my vertical screen realestate.
Re:X Series (Score:4, Interesting)
Viewing an entire 8.5" by 11" document on a widescreen monitor doesn't work, unless its a 20"+ screen and you view the document in portrait orientation on 1/2 of the screen. I don't think 4:3 screens are going to disappear.
Developer who LIKES wide-screen (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Usability Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
What would be nice is if I could make my window as wide as I want but have the text within each comment turned into columns of a fixed width and height. This would greatly enhance the readability of each comment. Alas, I'm sure that sort of layout would be much more complicated to handle and probably won't happen anytime soon, if ever.
Consider Scrolling (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pixels Are Your Friend (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I run diff -y once a week or so. But I scroll around in source code hourly. Vertical space does matter a whole lot more.
When I code, I always keep emacs on the left half of my screen, and a terminal window (for running make, unit test etc) son the right half. In the terminal, I run screen(1) so I can have easy access to man pages and so on.
I'm not sure what I'd do with widescreen. I suspect I would end up with an unused vertical area, slightly too narrow for a third 80xX terminal ...
Re:Parent Contains Malicious Links! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:macurmudgeon (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:1680 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:1680 (Score:4, Interesting)
If I open another window (say a PDF reader or OO.org) it goes to the left of the browser, just wider than a page, so that it overlaps the browser somewhat.
This idea that browsers should be maximized is a disease. Do your part to eradicate it.
Re:1680 (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I was not clear enough. I meant height as in physical height.
What I meant is that your argument about real estate is not the only way of seeing it. You are complaining that the same laptop has less height.
Maybe itÂs that the same laptop now is wider.
A 4:3 14" laptop has 9.16 inches of height. A 16:9 15.4" laptop has 9.24 inches of height. The only difference is that you get 4 extra inches on the X axis. The same happens with 15" - 17"wide laptops.
You could complain that it's heavier, of course.
Even that is not true with current HP computers.
You can't complain it's more expensive, because 15.4 laptops are the cheapest ones available for most manufacturers, cheaper than the equivalent 14.1 . It's not as they are charging you for the extra 4 inches.
It's not a conspiracy to rob you of your pixels. It's a new standard that new tech makes available (now there are no CRTs we need to be similar to) and works for more people. And we like it.
Best way to manage the space? (Score:2, Interesting)
I gave up on that. Is there an easy way in Windows to manage the space? Maximizing takes up the whole screen (go figure). Dragging and re-sizing every app I want to use is a pain.
It's be really nice to be able to 'maximize' a window and it automatically take up half of the horizontal space. MS Word + Firefox would be great on the same screen.
I dual boot, so multiple desktops in linux solves this problem nicely. The 'PowerTool' app for XP's multiple desktops is not good.
Any suggestions?
Re:Move to Widescreen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pixels Are Your Friend (Score:3, Interesting)
As for your sideways widescreen monitor, niiice. I want one. It would be perfect for writing papers on. Write LaTeX on one monitor, compile and have the full page pdf displayed on the next monitor.