PDA

View Full Version : Is it even possible to get a laptop without a widescreen?



AmyRose
August 29th, 2009, 06:58 AM
Seriously, come on. I can't find ANY new laptop without a widescreen anymore. I don't like wide screens. They aren't very useful for the majority of computing tasks. It's suddenly as if all laptops are used for anymore is watching movies. When I watched movies on my old laptop (with a 4:3 screen), I didn't mind the black bars. My desktop system has a new 17" non-widescreen LCD and I love it. Why can't I buy a laptop with a 4:3 or 5:4 screen anymore? Just 4 years ago I could have gotten a 15" laptop with 1400×1050 or 1600×1200. Now I can't find one anywhere for a reasonable price (actually, not at all, really).

I understand it's to cut costs. But come on, do they not think anyone is willing to spend a little extra to get a more useful screen?

zipperback
August 29th, 2009, 07:08 AM
HUH? There are numerous laptops that are available without a widescreen.

I don't understand why a widescreen would bother you though, it just gives you more screen real estate to display information.

You can buy laptops with the older style of display still. I was just at walmart last week and they had 5 different laptop brands available for sale. 3 were wide screen and 2 were not wide screen. Apple also makes laptops which are available in the screen style you want. There are also numerous other manufacturers too.

Perhaps if you let us know what your required specifications are for your laptop we can help you find one that will work for your needs.

-zipperback
:popcorn:

RabbitWho
August 29th, 2009, 08:02 AM
You'll get used to it in like 2 days.

Anyway it's practical, look at the size and shape of the keyboard and the... finger.. area... What's that called.. The other shapes waste space.

hanzomon4
August 29th, 2009, 09:04 AM
Hard to avoid everything in media is moving to 16:9, it's the future. You can always get older laptops like a good powerbook.

inobe
August 29th, 2009, 09:26 AM
wide isn't worth it unless it's 1920x1080 P


no up scaling neither

AmyRose
August 29th, 2009, 09:58 AM
HUH? There are numerous laptops that are available without a widescreen.

I don't understand why a widescreen would bother you though, it just gives you more screen real estate to display information.

You can buy laptops with the older style of display still. I was just at walmart last week and they had 5 different laptop brands available for sale. 3 were wide screen and 2 were not wide screen. Apple also makes laptops which are available in the screen style you want. There are also numerous other manufacturers too.Show me any NEW laptop without a widescreen. I have looked for a couple of years and have not seen any since 2006.

Most of my computer use requires vertical space, like web pages, email, scripting, retrogaming, etc. A widescreen does not help with any of those things. They are also not usually wide enough to fit two windows side-by-side.


Hard to avoid everything in media is moving to 16:9, it's the future. You can always get older laptops like a good powerbook.My first post stated that I do not watch movies on my laptop very often. And the letterboxing never bothered me. I use my TV for watching movies. This does not justify a transition to widescreen. And I stated I was looking for a NEW laptop without a widescreen.


You'll get used to it in like 2 days.

Anyway it's practical, look at the size and shape of the keyboard and the... finger.. area... What's that called.. The other shapes waste space.I'll give you that, but I'll gladly waste some space to get some more vertical screen real estate.

hessiess
August 29th, 2009, 10:32 AM
If applications were developed with vertical interfaces wide screen would make a lot more scence. Personally I just use DWM with the stack master aprox 4:3 and the stack tacking up the rest.

darthmob
August 29th, 2009, 10:56 AM
I know where you are coming from. It's ridiculous with smaller screens (like 10"-13"). You don't really use that horizontal space and have to scroll a lot on the internet.
Personally I have firefox in permament fullscreen because of that on my 13" vostro and plugins to view the important bars.

I'm pretty sure that some lenovo thinkpads (http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/na/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:CompareByNeed?current-category-id=653343E0DE54435882FABC3CE1BC569A) have no widescreen. But they are quite expensive. :(

JillSwift
August 29th, 2009, 11:08 AM
I found a couple:

http://www.topmicrousa.com/ass5nsincela.html
http://salestores.com/lenovo13.html

Painfully low resolution for the price - both are XGA ( 1024x768 ). You'd likely be better off getting a wide-screen, even if the growth of the width outpaces the growth of the height.


You know what's really too bad about the 16:9 migration? No way to rotate the screen on a laptop for 9:16. Now, that would be fantastic for document and word processing.

HavocXphere
August 29th, 2009, 11:09 AM
The "problem" lies not with the laptop but rather the LCD manufacturers. And the name of the game with LCD manufacturing is economies of scale. Plus Widescreen is perceived to be a feature.

The other problem is that the manufacturer needs more pixels per inch of advertizable screensize. i.e. A 21 inch widescreen has less physical pixels than a 21 inch 4:3 screen.

I reckon you'll just have to make your peace with it 'cause wide is here to stay. I rebelled against it too at the beginning. Then I saw the light.:biggrin: Now 4:3 screens annoy me.


wide isn't worth it unless it's 1920x1080 P
eh, we are talking about laptops. Very few laptops support full hd.

starcannon
August 29th, 2009, 11:33 AM
Hmm, never really thought about it much till now. So far I personally prefer widescreen. But after reading these posts I can see certain advantages of 4:3, especially on smaller computers like netbooks.

I'm guessing that the LCD manufactures are really only going to put out what the OEM's order. Guess this is an ask the OEM why.

Phreaker
August 29th, 2009, 11:38 AM
I have never really used widescreen much.
I bought a laptop with 15,6 glossy display.
I don't like it

dragos240
August 29th, 2009, 12:54 PM
Me personally. I like a triangular shaped monitors.

JillSwift
August 29th, 2009, 01:39 PM
Me personally. I like a triangular shaped monitors.
One Interociter, coming up:

http://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/Interocitersm.jpg

dragos240
August 29th, 2009, 01:42 PM
One Interociter, coming up:

http://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/Interocitersm.jpg

Interesting. I was just kidding though.

bailout
August 29th, 2009, 02:32 PM
I worked somewhere that had Dell monitors (4/3) that could be rotated to portrait view. For mosts tasks it was much better having the extra height over width. Widescreen is even worse but as said it seems to becoming standard.

Post Monkeh
August 29th, 2009, 03:30 PM
I worked somewhere that had Dell monitors (4/3) that could be rotated to portrait view. For mosts tasks it was much better having the extra height over width. Widescreen is even worse but as said it seems to becoming standard.

you'll often see it in any professional design situations. DTP, word processing, image manipulation. i work in loads of buildings and anywhere that uses computers for professional design always has at least 1 or 2 monitors flipped on their side. while i've never used a monitor this way, it does look like it could be very useful. i often find (like right now) that the side of my screen is pretty much useless. there's no point in widening my firefox window, and there's really not much else that part of the screen can be used for.

JillSwift
August 29th, 2009, 03:37 PM
you'll often see it in any professional design situations. DTP, word processing, image manipulation. i work in loads of buildings and anywhere that uses computers for professional design always has at least 1 or 2 monitors flipped on their side. while i've never used a monitor this way, it does look like it could be very useful. i often find (like right now) that the side of my screen is pretty much useless. there's no point in widening my firefox window, and there's really not much else that part of the screen can be used for.
Conky! Bookmarks! And wow, your desktop makes me sing Christmas songs. ;)

tgalati4
August 29th, 2009, 03:38 PM
I bought a used thinkpad t43p for $250. It's 3 years old and 4:3. I agree, for vertical scrolling, 4:3 is helpful.

Dragonbite
August 29th, 2009, 07:15 PM
Seriously, come on. I can't find ANY new laptop without a widescreen anymore. I don't like wide screens. They aren't very useful for the majority of computing tasks. It's suddenly as if all laptops are used for anymore is watching movies. When I watched movies on my old laptop (with a 4:3 screen), I didn't mind the black bars. My desktop system has a new 17" non-widescreen LCD and I love it. Why can't I buy a laptop with a 4:3 or 5:4 screen anymore? Just 4 years ago I could have gotten a 15" laptop with 1400×1050 or 1600×1200. Now I can't find one anywhere for a reasonable price (actually, not at all, really).

I understand it's to cut costs. But come on, do they not think anyone is willing to spend a little extra to get a more useful screen?

I don't mind the widescreen, but I've noticed what you are talking about.

Might have to go with an older system.

lykwydchykyn
August 29th, 2009, 07:27 PM
Maybe part of the problem is that we need desktop environments to adapt to 16:9. eg. panels need to work as well on the sides as they do on top/bottom.

AmyRose
August 29th, 2009, 08:23 PM
Hmm, never really thought about it much till now. So far I personally prefer widescreen. But after reading these posts I can see certain advantages of 4:3, especially on smaller computers like netbooks.

I'm guessing that the LCD manufactures are really only going to put out what the OEM's order. Guess this is an ask the OEM why.
There are lots of people on Dell's IdeaStorm clamoring for 4:3 to return to laptops. They think there's no market for 4:3 laptops anymore, despite thousands of people requesting it. (At least I can tell they listen to it because it's the reason they sell Ubuntu laptops. But still.)


I have never really used widescreen much.
I bought a laptop with 15,6 glossy display.
I don't like itYeah, I like my Dell Inspiron 1525 a lot. It even came with Ubuntu. But the widescreen sucks compared to my new desktop monitor (1280×1024).

Warpnow
August 29th, 2009, 09:09 PM
Maybe part of the problem is that we need desktop environments to adapt to 16:9. eg. panels need to work as well on the sides as they do on top/bottom.

XFCE using icon box instead of window list works flawlessly with vertical panels.

Sadly I cannot say the same for gnome.

MaxIBoy
August 30th, 2009, 06:23 AM
Widescreen? More like short screen. Since laptops are mainly used for text-oriented things like web browsing and text editing, they have the least to gain from widescreens. Desktops, which can be used for gaming and watching higher-res movies, do benefit from widescreens.

AmyRose
August 30th, 2009, 09:12 AM
Widescreen? More like short screen. Since laptops are mainly used for text-oriented things like web browsing and text editing, they have the least to gain from widescreens. Desktops, which can be used for gaming and watching higher-res movies, do benefit from widescreens.This is true. The irony is that I was able to buy a normal 4:3 LCD for my desktop this month, but I can't find a laptop with a screen like that. (Though I'd continue to buy 4:3 screens for my desktop system(s), you do have a very good point.)

Post Monkeh
August 31st, 2009, 05:30 PM
Conky! Bookmarks! And wow, your desktop makes me sing Christmas songs. ;)

i keep meaning to set aside a few hours to get conky up and running, and i'll give you, that's a good use of the wasted space, but really, it's just something that people do BECAUSE they have the room. most of us would have no real use of it, which i think is what people are getting at here.
personally, it doesn't annoy me as such that i don't use the side of my screen ( i will set up conky one of these days) but i can see why people who like to have everything set up to perfection might be a bit miffed that their screen is just the wrong shape.


XFCE using icon box instead of window list works flawlessly with vertical panels.

Sadly I cannot say the same for gnome.

you don't need to be running the xfce desktop to use the xfce panel.

my bottom panel is the xfce panel because i didn't like how the gnome panel would scroll through my open windows if i was over it and happened to hit the scrolling area along the right edge of my touchpad. the xfce panel still scrolls if i run my finger along the bottom edge of the touchpad, but i find i do that a lot less often than the vertical edge (due to the fact that if my pointer is along the bottom of the screen, i'll always be moving it up)

dralokyn
January 27th, 2010, 11:49 AM
I haven't seen a 4:3 laptop since I sold my iBook, but I have seen quite a few laptops at Best Buy that had screens that could be rotated to 9:16, which seemed awesome except that I was looking for lots of other options that were more important to me. I think they may have been called swivel screens? Hope that's of some help.

Psumi
January 27th, 2010, 03:04 PM
I haven't seen a 4:3 laptop since I sold my iBook, but I have seen quite a few laptops at Best Buy that had screens that could be rotated to 9:16, which seemed awesome except that I was looking for lots of other options that were more important to me. I think they may have been called swivel screens? Hope that's of some help.

HD laptops are useless, who wants a 9:16 screen. :|

But yeah, if you want a non-widescreen monitor, I'd check lenovo for older models.

thatguruguy
January 27th, 2010, 03:08 PM
My laptop sits in a dock most of the time. The monitor connected to the dock is 4:3, while the laptop's regular screen is 16:9.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

.•*´
January 27th, 2010, 03:17 PM
Apple do a 17" book.

Simian Man
January 27th, 2010, 03:18 PM
The thing is that the widescreen laptops of today have the same physical height as the standard laptops of yesterday - and they have better resolutions too. If you want a standard display like laptops used to have, just put a strip of duct tape along one side.

Psumi
January 27th, 2010, 03:20 PM
The thing is that the widescreen laptops of today have the same physical height as the standard laptops of yesterday - and they have better resolutions too. If you want a standard display like laptops used to have, just put a strip of duct tape along one side.

Bad joke, bad joke, what'cha gonna do... what'cha gonna do when they come fo' you.

madnessjack
January 27th, 2010, 03:38 PM
Everything is better in wide-screen, it just takes a bit of adapting (but considering this is a Linux forum, I'm sure you'll be able to cope ;) )

http://jack.kingbrick.co.uk/blog/wide-desktop.png

Psumi
January 27th, 2010, 03:46 PM
Everything is better in wide-screen, it just takes a bit of adapting (but considering this is a Linux forum, I'm sure you'll be able to cope ;) )

http://jack.kingbrick.co.uk/blog/wide-desktop.png

I like 1440x900 better.

madnessjack
January 27th, 2010, 04:08 PM
I like 1440x900 better.
That screen-shot was re-sized down a little. I'm on two 2048x1152 monitors. It's ridiculous :D

macogw
January 27th, 2010, 04:24 PM
The thing is that the widescreen laptops of today have the same physical height as the standard laptops of yesterday - and they have better resolutions too. If you want a standard display like laptops used to have, just put a strip of duct tape along one side.

Where better resolution = smaller text --> increase font size = hey look, fewer vertical lines of text fit on the screen now, great!

I was very very resistant to moving away from 800x600 and again from 1024x768, because at those resolutions, everything was nice and big. That MS Paint only zoomed to 1600% didn't matter because at 800x600 I could still see what I was doing.

coolbrook
January 27th, 2010, 04:36 PM
Human eyes see in widescreen. I loved these displays from the start.

Add me to the list of those comfortable with 1440x900.

BrokenKingpin
January 27th, 2010, 06:14 PM
I find the 15.4" screens reasonable, but they are hard to find now. Most laptops are 16", and it is just too wide. 90% of the tasks I do on the computer do not need a wide screen.

Browsing the web is probably the most common thing people do with a computer, which you would be better off with a taller screen than a wider screen.

It seems like they design screens for video playback... to people really watch that many movies on their laptops? I stream all my video to an actual T.V.

Skripka
January 27th, 2010, 06:27 PM
Human eyes see in widescreen. I loved these displays from the start.

Add me to the list of those comfortable with 1440x900.

Um sure.

1440x900 can either look great or terrible depending on the pixel/cm count. In any case, virtually no OS or DE is optimized for widescreen formatting. OSX is horribly suited, wasting LOTS of vertical screen space, as is Windows, and so is the default of Gnome and KDE and Enlightenment....only *box defaults are at all optimized for widescreen format.

Fewer vertical scroll lines is better. 16:10 and 16:9 suck for anything other than movies...unfortunately it is all you can buy nowadays.

aaaantoine
January 27th, 2010, 06:33 PM
The screens were actually 16:10 for a while. My laptop, with a 1280x800 screen, is 16:10. I dropped to this from having a 1280x1024 screen on my old desktop and cringed at the loss of vertical space.

And now they've transitioned (again) from 16:10 to 16:9. The entry level screens at this size are 1366x768. Even less vertical resolution than before (though more horizontal resolution).

Even with my 1280x800 screen, I've started using a vertical panel to conserve vertical space. I've recently saw a screen shot of KDE 4.4 with vertical title bars as well. I want that.

Meanwhile, I hope application developers start to take further advantage of widescreen set ups.

whiskeylover
January 27th, 2010, 06:35 PM
I love my 1600x900.

Skripka
January 27th, 2010, 06:36 PM
Even with my 1280x800 screen, I've started using a vertical panel to conserve vertical space. I've recently saw a screen shot of KDE 4.4 with vertical title bars as well. I want that.

Meanwhile, I hope application developers start to take further advantage of widescreen set ups.

I've gone to using KDE with 1 panel on the right side (windows can cover) and no task manager, on my tower with a 1680x1050 LCD panel.