Comments | jyasu: Laptop shopping -or- why can't I find a decent 4:3 system anymore?

jyasu

Laptop shopping -or- why can't I find a decent 4:3 system anymore?

Feb 20, 2009 13:10

Why the hell are laptop manufacturers all migrating to widescreen
displays? Am I the only one left on the planet who values vertical
screen real estate when doing actual work, and who values using a laptop for
work-related activities rather than an overglorified DVD player? It seems
all the higher end models, particularly business models, ( Read more... )

technology

Comments 10

seika February 20 2009, 21:21:19 UTC

If more of your work took place at the office, I'd suggest acquiring a second monitor that you could plug in to your laptop and using vertical orientation... but you're too floating for that.

ETA: If you used Imagix, you'd want more horizontal space. You can't, though, unless you're actually programming in C/C++/C#/Java. (Which is a shame, because Imagix is made of awesome. Though it is also probably ridiculously spendy.) But that is one reason people might want horizontal space-- if they have programs tailored for it.

jyasu February 20 2009, 22:48:28 UTC

I find programs that utilize wide windows are relatively difficult for me to use (unless the windows are split horizontally into unrelated views, such that I never have a reason to scan from one side to the other). Many people may find it easy to scan horizontally across a wide screen; however, I am not one of those people :(

seika February 20 2009, 23:06:48 UTC

The one I'm referring to does have unconnected views side-by-side.

jyasu February 20 2009, 23:08:07 UTC

At which point I am very likely to simply delete one of the views and go for a narrower window.

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jyasu February 20 2009, 22:46:32 UTC

I am unable to work comfortably with side-by-side editor views at 1400 wide, so that trick won't work for me (and obviously, having a single window span the available width won't work out very well). I simply need a font size and number of columns that makes things a bit too crowded there.

luinied February 20 2009, 22:52:16 UTC

Oddly enough, viewing a PDF (next to a gvim window) is the only time I really lack for horizontal space.

ctrl_a February 21 2009, 00:36:52 UTC

I hear ya. I got a laptop (Dell Inspiron e1405) for law school, trying to minimize price and weight (since I didn't need it for much more than running Word and a web browser and occasionally PowerPoint), but it is widescreen which has been kind of annoying. I can't maximize either Word (for note-taking) or Firefox (for surfing during class) because I just can't handle that much wideness. So I leave three icon-widths of desktop always exposed, and keep my shortcuts there, but it's still kind of dumb. I also use a non-auto-hide taskbar on my laptop, which reduces my vertical space even more. It's always weird when I start reading a PDF on my laptop at school, then come home and continue on my desktop. It's like, "Woah, I need to Page Down so much less!"

jyasu February 21 2009, 09:44:12 UTC

Yes, this is my problem in a nutshell. I lose my place very quickly when I scan horizontally that far; my eyes just don't do a very good job tracking across that wide of an angle. Even on 4:3 many of my apps are not normally maximized horizontally.

With this new widescreen era, I find myself wishing for the first time that more programs would let me orient all their toolbars vertically -- it'd be a more effective use of the space for my purposes.