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Hardware

16:9 Notebook Screens? 20

Posted by Cliff from the wider-is-better dept.
Transition Cat asks: "Is there any demand for longer notebook computers? With laptops as light and thin as they are, it seems that a laptop with the screen stretched out to 16:9 would still be portable. The longer dimensions would also permit room for a numeric keypad. Good as a portable DVD player (with better stereo effect since the speakers could be farther apart), good for spreadsheets, good for displaying a second browser window, etc. Good idea? Nightmare for Windows drivers? Does anyone want anything like this?"
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16:9 Notebook Screens? More

16:9 Notebook Screens?

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  • i think there is some demand since sharp put one on the market a few years ago - but it was a pentium 75 class. sony's c1x is also 16:9 it is a pentium 2 - 266mhz.

    the major drawback of these notebooks is that they adopted the wide form factor to make it more compact. they are 1024x480 screens. unfortunatly they are really just the sony n505 series screens cut in half.

    in terms of usability, i found it hard to use it for long periods - but it could just be that i am used to the larger spreadsheets and writing documents. btw, i found surfing somewhat difficult since most pages are "optimized" for 800x600.

    that all being said, i heard linus uses a c1x.

    just my $0.02
  • I am all for it. Throughout Europe they have adopted the larger screen size and it is about time the US caught up with the trend. The only reason US monitor makers are not conforming is because of the minor profit they would lose in the conversion. No one wants to be first because they would lose the most money. Unfortunately most people do not know what they are missing. Having telnet, web browser, and IRC windows open all at once with full visibility truly kick ass.

    Someday we will all get along, right?

  • The Toshiba Libretto 100 and 110CT's have wide screens 800*480. You can't install RedHat with the Anaconda graphics installer because buttons are placed below the screen where you can't click. Anaconda probably thinks that all 800 horizontal screens have 600 vertical resoloution.

    Other than that, it works fine. You just have do a text install and then download (or write) a custom X configuration.

  • I have one of those nifty SGI 1600SW [sgi.com] flatpanel monitors, that comes with a special version of the Number 9 Revolution IV that runs the monitor in 1600x1024, which is 16:10. I also have another monitor attached to an ATI Rage Pro in the same system. Win2k handles the weird ratio and dual monitors without any problems. I have yet to try it under linux or solaris (and don't really want to since I'm spoiled by dual heads, and rather use the unix's via command line, X, or vnc).
  • I just know you weenies out there would run a 2400x1350 browser window, full screen, making everything look like total crap. It's bad enough some of you are reading this at 1024x768 full screen, forcing yourselves to endure 12 inches of eye travel per line. (The only books this size have pop-up cardboard cutouts in the middle of each page.)
    --
  • My Toshiba Portege 300CT has this type of screen. I run XFree on it with its full 1024x600 resolution, it works great for me.

  • I have yet to try it under linux or solaris (and don't really want to since I'm spoiled by dual heads...)

    Dual head support in X has been around for a while. Read about Xinerama [xfree.org].

    -bp

  • Look man, what you and people like you are rebelling against is not even modern standards for readability, but standards that have developed over HUNDREDS of years.

    I agree with your ranting against bad javascript, frames, shockwave et al. However, if you take a completely unformatted HTML document with default fonts, and display it on 1600x1200 full screen, you suffer a serious readability problem.

    When your eyes reach the end of a line, you have to scan back to the left to find where the next line begins. At that point, if the line is too long, you are temporarily lost while you try to figure out what line to read next.

    If you're young and sharp your brain doesn't get too mungled in the process. Otherwise, you get a headache quickly and find it hard to read anything longer than a few paragraphs.

    Compare this to the experience of reading the printed word. These are the conventions that history has brought us. Books, with their white pages and highly-readable serifed fonts, have lines that average probably 5 inches across. Newspapers, with a less contrast and poor type quality, have columns so small that often each line is about 2 inches wide. (Modern newspapers with higher-quality type, such as USA Today, can have wider columns.)

    So now the highly-qualified web designer steps up to try to do you a favor by preventing your eyes from traveling too far. And tries to offer good typography, layout that improves your understanding of the material, images that accompany the text at certain places, graphics that guide you to what you're looking for... and is rewarded by people such as yourself, and the weenie who moderated me down, saying they'll run at any resolution they like. The only answer then is to design fixed-width pages, and screw YOU man, it's for your own good and you don't even know why.

    Ideally, in the long run, HTTP returns a screen size and other such information about the client, and web publishers offer wide-style pages so you can check your favorite team's standing on the same screen as you check the scores, stats and stories. And with Dynamic HTML, related stories are displayed at the same time the current /. story is shown, in a separate pane, according to your preferences.

    In the meantime, do YOURSELF a favor and size your browser window for healthy readability.
    --

  • Of course, nobody in their right mind depends on a graphical installer for linux - they restrict the hardware too much. Linux is supposed to have broad hardware compatibility, and these graphical installers a la Caldera's piece of shit break that concept.
    Type the word "text" at the first prompt of the Red Hat install and get the good ol' curses version, which runs on anything including ttl monitors. Set up X later if you've got the hardware to support it (many of my systems do not, and don't need X to run DNS for example).
    --Charlie
  • You can't call me a weenie for running as high a resolution as possible.

    The problem is not bigger monitors, it is the idiot web designers that want everything to "look just like it does on my browser". Crap. Things should have simple formating.

    If I want to run at 1600x1200 full screen I should be able to. I hate damn sites that have so much screwed up formatting (bad css, screwy javascript, frames, shockwave intros, etc all suck). I also occasionally browse from my palm pilot.

    The internet once was about information, not font size or user experience. We never should have let artists near a computer.

    I personally want more screen real estate. I am not going to be happy until I have 3 21 inch monitors beaming info at me.

    To return to my main point, screw you and your stupid "Designed for 800x600" web pages. HTML should not be designed for anything or anyone.

    Love,
    ed

  • I had a Toshiba Portegé 300 with a widescreen about a year ago. The resolution was 1024x600, but I could hook up an external monitor and crank it all the way up to 1280x1024x256. It was a nice little machine, but ultimately wasn't powerful enough so I changed it.

    Toshiba dropped the widescreen for the new 3010 and 3110 series because there aren't any widescreens of that size available.
  • ...are there any wide-screen desktop monitors?

    Looking directly ahead of me, my coherent visual field can encompass an area twice the width of my current monitor with no problem (and maybe 20% more height). Humans are designed for peripheral vision, a 100-degree field of view, but we insist on using squarish monitors which waste a lot of visual area. Multiple monitors are nice, but there's all that blank space between them: we need a visual system like MIT's Cave that utilises as much visual area as your eyes can handle. The productivity boost would be more than worth the expense.

    Research needs to be done into the size and shape of the maximum monitor size a human being can use without straining their neck all the time, and then somebody can get rich manufacturing.

  • I thought that was the point of HTML, to make a page viewable on a wide variety to systems and configurations. My biggest pet peeve is when I go to a site and there are those stupid arrows that tell to you adjust your browser to that width. Learn how to use the formatting that HTML has to offer.
  • There is always the option of the user changing his browser setting on a larger screen to have a larger font. That way he doesn't have difficulty reading thing!

  • Yes (Score:1)

    by barzok ( 26681 )
    I recall reading in John Carmack's .plan a long time ago that he was running a Hitachi 24" monitor that was a 16:9 aspect ratio. Even saw pictures with it in the background in a few magazine articles from the id office.

    Sorry, that's all I remember.
  • I suppose, but I just went full-screen 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor with /. and reading was *extremely* uncomfortable with huge-ass fonts.
    --

  • Yep, certainly are..

    Sony W900 [sony.com]

    24" widescreen, costs a fortune but it's lovely :)

    -- qube

  • ... has obviously been to HTML Hell [tuxedo.org] and back.
    --
    This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
  • In the meantime, do YOURSELF a favor and size your browser window for healthy readability.

    Yes, Mother. I'll go clean my room, make my bed and do my homework now.

    You have no business to determine what is "healthy" (or right or correct or..) for me. I am the only one that can determine that. Kent
  • http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/products/archive/pc/no tebook/pcgc1x.html and it's known to run linux: http://www.cadic.com/VAIO-HOWTWO/




    --

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