This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 23:47 and is filed under Analysis & Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Friday, November 24, 2006
Ever since I purchased my PowerBook (TiBook) back in 2002, I’ve really come to dislike widescreen displays on computers. I don’t get it. What world are most of you working in? Sure, for movies they’re great but for work? I’m not an accountant so I have no need to go right but rather down. Web pages, e-mail, documents, ftp, and the list goes on where there are items that go top to bottom more than left to right. Thus, with these widescreen LCDs, I’m losing screen real estate. So why the big hoopla for them?
I understand how they just fit right on laptops, but for desktops, unless you’re getting an 30 inch LCD that can handle high resolution, it just doesn’t make sense to get one. I find on many web pages I scroll much more on my MacBook Pro (MBP) than I do on my PC with its 21 inch 4:3 LCD screen. Sure, I don’t have as much room on the right, but who cares, the MBP isn’t giving me much more that I can use it for something anyway. No, I’m happy with the 4:3 setup and some times dread my MBP for it’s lack of depth. Maybe a higher resolution would help.
Now I wouldn’t mind having a widescreen LCD much like what co-Mac developer Andy Hertzfield and Burrell Smith came up with when they left Apple in 1986 to create Radius. The Pivot monitor was a work of art. I remember the first time I used it I thought the rest of the world would follow. To my disappointment, it didn’t. But today you can pick up something in the same, excuse the pun, frame of thought such as the Philips 170W4P LCD Display. It’s a bit dated, but reviews show it to be a pretty good display and since you can turn it on its axis and get more depth when needed, it hits my mark just fine. But, sadly these type of monitors are not too easy to find and thus I’m back to my beginning rant of why widescreen monitors suck. Lack of depth.
November 25th, 2006 at 14:55
You right on about this. That word “hoopla” is nice short term describing the phenomenon. I also like watching sports like avp womens volleyball and golf on my big deep square tv, of course like most I enjoy movies too.
November 25th, 2006 at 16:04
Designers love them because you can view 2-page spreads easily. Good for photos and movies too.
November 25th, 2006 at 16:53
I like them because I tend to use multiple applications at once. Even while I’m doing vertical work, such as word processing I often find I need to have something else showing next to the document to refer to. The widescreen makes this possible.
It also allows for some different development options. For example, I’ve been building a database that makes full use of the widescreen and won’t fit on 1024×768 without losing some functionality. I’m not fussed by the loss of backward compatibility in this database considering the benefits going to widescreen have given me.
November 25th, 2006 at 20:31
Well, what would be easier to find than a Dell pivoting widescreen monitor? They are everywhere
The trick for choosing to go widescreen is to pick a panoramic monitor with as much height as the non-widescreen one you would use instead. As simple as that. You don’t lose screen state at all. At my job I use two 20″ screens (my boss does three ones for Excel work!!!), and I bought a 24″ one for home use, quite cheap too: I won’t go back ever: too much of an advantage in absolutely every situation.
November 25th, 2006 at 23:14
I have the pivoting HP 2335 widescreen/portrait LCD Monitor. It IS what you are looking for.
November 25th, 2006 at 23:47
For multitaskers (which I used to think included pretty much everybody, but apparently not), a widescreen display is absolutely the best solution. Example of combination two-document work scenarios that are much more hassle to achieve good conditions for visual comparison on a 4:3 monitor… These combinations all increase productivity (by reducing Command-TAB ops, by letting the user notice a change in state the minute it happens, or by allowing the user to compare two versions of the same information without page flipping), and I have chosen examples from business-style use instead of the arts…
* Browser on left, Wordpro/text editor on the right.
* Spreadsheet on the left, PDF document on the right.
* Mail on the left, anything else on the right.
* Fileshare file list on the left, programs to update the files on the right.
* Publishing layout on the left, and edit embedded text and graphics on the right.
* Powerpoint presentation on the left, wordpro source files on the right.
* and many many more scenarios
Widescreen LCDs are superior in a multi-function work environment. If you need more scroll space, the solution is to get a bigger LCD, not to trade your multitasking advantage for a scrolling advantage. Why would you want to do that. Why not have both?
And Pivot monitors never sold well because nobody ever cares enough to bother to pivot them. A good-sized widescreen LCD is the best of all worlds with no moving parts required.
November 26th, 2006 at 6:17
I have my dock positioned on the right edge of the screen to give me access to all the depth I can use. also, in the Mac universe, the right edge is where stuff you throw on the desktop accumulates. Widscreen format allows easy access to this stuff without having to hit expose´F11. As said before anyone using spreadsheets can never have too much horizontal real estate.
Steve
November 26th, 2006 at 16:19
Sven – I am afraid that you are mis-informed… All recent Apple computers running 10.4 with an ATI graphics card can be made to drive their monitor with a veritcal orientation. And many monitors (Dell wide screens, for example) have built-in stands that will tilt the monitor 90 degrees.
So there is nothing stopping you from enjoying the Radius experience once more.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:33
Hi Scott. Thanks for the info on the Tiger and ATI combo for pivot monitor support, but as I stated in the post, I’m stuck with a fixed LCD ala MackBook Pro.
I’m sure external would work, however. Though, my gripe still stand with the MBP screen.
December 26th, 2006 at 9:25
Is there any current use for an old Radius monitor? I loved having one for my old IIcx which died some years ago, which I didn’t bother repairing because I’d moved on to newer Macs. It’s been gathering dust but I haven’t had the heart to chuck it.
June 5th, 2008 at 16:20
DOWN WITH THE WIDESCREENS,
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
DEATH TO THE WIDESCREENS!!!!!
November 28th, 2009 at 11:38
The panasonic viera is one of the hottest gifts this Christmas, they’re selling out fast. I found mine at http://astore.amazon.com/50-inch-lg-hdtv-for-sale-20
June 11th, 2010 at 15:48
Widescreen seriously sucks. Or, I should say, shortscreen sucks because tyhat’s what it really is, they didn’t give you more width, they took away height. I’m typing this on a 1600×1200 20″ LCD but I can’t find another. The 4:3 format displays a 2 page spread perfectly. Yes, I can rotate it, but again vertically 4:3 would still be better than a long skinny 16:9. You can’t find a monitor that matches the 1200 pixels vertically any more, yes a 1920×1080 gives me slightly more width but with a loss in height. The true failure though is in how the human eye works – we don’t see thru a gunslit! Out vision focuses on a central point and we see in a circular fashion so a shape closest to a circle or square is optimal for how the human eye and brain work. The fact that Hollywood went to an idiotic shortscreen format years ago (done to preserve film footage rolling thru the camera) should not limit my work on a computer.