New Laptops - 16:10 to 16:9

Well, since the 16 part didn't change, I'd say that we're losing height.

Okay, according to calculations, you're going to gain height and lose width at the same time. However...

If we maintain the standard method of specifying screen size by measuring the diagonal of the screen, two laptops with 14" screens would be both higher and thinner for a 16:9 than a 16:10. We lose about a half-inch in width but gain less than a 1/8" in height. The 1/8" height loss doesn't mean much, so I guess you can say we're losing width.

I gave you a GA for your first sentence. You lost me with that last paragraph though. I think I am going to have to lay it out on CAD now to check this out.

Um, ah.... I didn't wanna say it, but I think Vulcan's got it backwards. A 16:9 screen would be wider than a 16:10, not taller.

you are right,

16:10 is a less wide rate than 16:9.

Gadzooks! I got my figures reversed!

Sorry about that. The opposite is true. A 16:9 screen will be shorter and wider than a 16:10 screen of the same diagonal.

This is no longer to scale (I had to drag the corner to enlarge it. It ruined the scale, however). The rectangle in front is 16:9 while the one in back is 16:10. They have the same diagonal length.

I've been working with laptops for a while now and the only way I can tell for sure is to check the screen resolution and then do the math. Though it does occur to me that a 16:9 laptop might be a bit more compact than a 16:10. Other than that, it seems to be six oh' one, half-dozen oh' the other.

16:9 is HDTV and movies standard. so it has to comply with it to win market

Precisely. It's about accommodating the aspect ratio for the most prevalent use, and the increasing mobile use, of computers: entertainment. As to what might be gained and/or lost, that would depend largely on screen size selected for purchase...and how well that selection will accommodate (other-then-movie-display) user preferences and tastes, given the wider aspect ratio. For example, with separate, connected monitor one has the option (on desktops or laptops) to rotate screen to accommodate viewing of portrait formatted content; with integrated displays on laptops, however, one will be limited to purchasing a wider (larger) more expensive display-size model. Also, keyboard size and layout is likely to be affected by the wider display aspect ratio...since shortening of the screen is likely to necessitate vertical "pinching" of the laptop base. Whether this results in diminished or enhanced keyboard ease of use...is something to keep in mind at time of screen-size selection at purchase...that and one's preference between standard and enhanced (separate numeric pad) keyboards. If history is any indicator, the same purchase outlay is likely to buy a somewhat less capable keyboard...in part because manufacturers are likely to assume (probably correctly) that typical buyers make little use of the keyboard anyway...especially when being entertained by television and moving pictures.

Thanks for your excellent answers! What I forgot to mention was that my comparison is to a 15" LCD monitor that I have for an external display which is 4:3 ratio. The resolution that I normally use on this monitor is 1024 x 768. I currently use 1280 x 768 on my laptop. I am not sure what the ratio is but if I use a picture that has a 4:3 ratio for my desktop I either have to crop it down or live with a distorted image that is not as tall as the original. I'm getting a little confused by all these sizes but won't I have to crop my photos down even farther to use a 16:9 laptop. If everything was 16:9 I would understand going to this ratio but all these different ratios are a pain in the you know where. When I physically measure the laptop I have now I get about 7 1/4 inches by 12 inches. This would be a 48:29 ratio. I don't think they really have their standards down too well.

What I do is to check the ratio of the screen resolution, remembering that a pixel isn't necessarily perfectly round or square. If you work out the numbers on your external LCD, you will see that the ratio is indeed 4:3, which was the preferred aspect ratio for computer monitors from the beginning. It was also the standard aspect ratio for broadcast television until very recently. Theatrical aspect ratios on the other hand could run as high as 2.39:1, though 1.85:1 is also fairly common. HDTV on the other hand uses a 1.78:1 format. The whole point of the 16:9 format is that all of the other formats can be quite neatly cropped to fit.

When you speak of cropping photos to fit, I am guessing that you are speaking of using your own photos for desktop backgrounds, and if so, then you may indeed have to crop to fit. Most digital cameras use the classic 4:3 ratio, though some are now available in 16:9. On the other hand, 35mm film cameras, and most digital SLRs, use a 3:2 ratio (equivalent to a 15:10). So yes, to get your photos to fit, you will have to crop. Though for however much it may be worth, most wallpaper websites now feature widescreen formatted images. Indeed even NASA is beginning to do this in it's image libraries.

Incidentally, the measured ratio of your laptop is only very slightly off of 16:10, which up until now has been the standard for widescreen laptop LCDs. Much of the variation is due simply to how the bezel covers the edge of the screen.

Thanks for your reply. What I have figured out is that my wide screen laptop has to be 5:3 because of the 1280 x 768 res. This would equal 15:9 whereas 16:9 would be wider still but because my desktop background photos (which I take myself by the way on a 4:3 ratio digital camera [brand new]) which cycle automatically every 15 minutes because of Webshots and how I have it set up would not have a black band on either side as you might think. The screen would be filled up by the photo causing it to look squashed slightly. I was at Chili's today and was watching the football games on their wide screen LCD TV's. Boy! Those football player's *sses were wide!! This dumb idea that wide screen is better is a bunch of hog wash. It is just a way to get everyone to go out and buy a new wide screen TV. I like my TV wide AND tall. That way you can see 4:3 ratio programs at the correct aspect ratio. If you want to see big wide movies use a projector and show it on a white wall. You won't even notice the silly black band at the top and bottom. No wasted screen space. I think the movie theatres invented wide screen because they wanted to draw more audiences to their theatres but didn't want to raise the roof of their buildings to provide both wide and tall.

Fairly soon now all analog broadcasting by high-power stations in the US will cease, and be replaced by digital, which by the way will mean that it will be harder to get in an extreme-fringe signal. But the main issue in this context is that digital TV is virtually always broadcast in wide-screen. (No biggy I suppose, it's been coming for a long time and widescreen TVs have been coming down in price right along. Mrs. Moose and I just purchased a new 26" for less than $500.) And, once this happens, there will be no more of the "wide *ss" effect you mentioned.

Of course, the downside of this is that if you want to continue to use your perfectly good analog TV, you'll need a digital to analog converter, something that's been used for years now to feed a DVD signal to the old boob-tube along a 75ohm coax cable, and a digital TV tuner, which I think most DVRs already have. Hmmm, I may have to check on that.

Be that as it may, that is the future of television, and the future is almost here. Der tag is 19 Feb 09.

On the other hand, computer use is a little different. Many people prefer CRT displays over LCDs. CRTs tend to be brighter, have better contrast, and are more responsive, though as the technology continues to mature, LCDs will eventually erase this advantage and surpass the old fashioned tube. And let's face it, a flat screen takes up a lot less room on the desktop. But, for the foreseeable future, video cards will continue to support 4:3 monitors.

Obviously, laptops are a bit different. Almost all laptops today are widescreen. Even the venerable ThinkPad has now gone wide.

And yes, the whole reason for all of this is money. But then, what isn't?

Anyway, give it a little time and everything else will catch up to the new, wider formatting. Economics makes it pretty much inevitable.

"But the main issue in this context is that digital TV is virtually always broadcast in wide-screen."

Actually, the majority of DTV broadcast is not Widescreen formatted...is "normal" TV aspect format; and that is likely to remain the case for quite some time after the changeover...even longer or permanently with some, minor broadcasters (for whom more revenue is possible by broadcasting multiple subchannel programs. Wide format pictures are the result of TV set processing most of the time and selection of Wide format introduces a certain amount of picture stretch distortion--things and persons appear wider relative to height than they should...whether this introduces any bias in favor of slimmer on-screen performers remains to be seen. In the US, because people have had a couple generations now to get used to seeing wider people of all ages, the distortion of Wide format selection on TV probably goes largely unnoticed most of the time. This would not have been the case during and preceding the baby boom...when obese people, especially children, were comparatively rare and quickly noticed as abnormal.

A former boss told me that 2:1 used to be the film standard. When TV came along, it was changed to 4:3. Some old films (mostly chinese kung fu movies from my experience), were shown on TV where the characters were impossibly thin and tall. Most of the films I watch today are in 4:3.

Some films, however, continue to be shown in 2:1. Careful placement of characters and important backgrounds made sure that if the film was shown on TV, everything the viewers needed to see would be visible.

Now, for some reason, there seems to be a trend to return to the wide-screen format. One reason, I believe, is that human vision is wider than it is tall so it is easier to take in more information from a horizontal perspective than a vertical perspective.

In our factory, we taken to putting two LCD monitors next to each other and making a screen that spans both. It provides the operator a wide view of the process and also enables him to watch everything in one glance rather than having to swivel his head to check the other monitor. If we added more monitors above, he'd have to look up and down which will result in neck pain.

I'm for wider screen TV but I'd also like to be able to watch an old movie or old photos without a distorted picture.

Exactly! I would like to watch live TV without distortion also. At church we have a monitor out in the lobby that broadcasts the service live. When we were using a 32" crt type tv all looked good. Now that we have a wide screen LCD display everything looks distorted. How could we fix that? Our projector projects 4:3 normally. We could switch to 16:9 on the projector then all our clips would be distorted. There is no easy answer as I see it. When we show clips on the monitor in the lobby now, the clips that are 16:9 end up being streched even further with a black band at the top and bottom. Nothing looks right anymore.

Seems like a a simple matter to me. Get every broadcaster to insert a bit of code into his signal that specifies his aspect ratio, then include a circuit in the TV which recognizes that code and adjusts the aspect ratio accordingly. Or, and even simpler, broadcast in a fixed aspect ratio with filler bars for other aspect ratios. I think some stations are already doing this.

For closed circuit? Build the first feature into camera, or even better include a circuit in the TV which senses the aspect ratio and automaticly adjusts for it. Seems like such a simple fix...

What we would need is a black band on the right and left sides of the screen if we are using a wide screen monitor. How do you do that?

As I explained below, the wide asses (albeit that football players are in fact often wide ass-ed) are not an artifact of wide screen broadcasting; but, rather, an effect introduced by the local television which has been set to stretch images to make them wider...to display a seemingly bigger picture. You could suggest switching to normal format mode to your friends at Chili's, but such fine points probably wouldn't interest them...and probably not that many patrons are watching the set anyway. Rest assured, that when wide screen formatted content is broadcast it will appear normal in all respects...not puffing out of the performers. It will also have the advantage of larger, more natural peripheral background imagery. A major drawback, however, is that digital cannot yet match analog (SDTV) for the display of motion. Fortunately for me, my HDTV has dual tuner, PIP/POP capability: when a digital football play breaks up on the screen, the analog play is right there as well, leading the way.

By the way, the term Wide screen is not quite apropos when describing an HDTV set. All HDTV sets have the capability to display wide screen programming when it is received. Saying wide-screen in reference to a high-def set is merely a redundancy.

Depends ......

Some of the previous answers are very nice, but they all seem to miss the point.

HDTV has a 16:9 pixel ratio. Having a 16:10 ratio on a computer (laptop or desktop) with a 1920 x 1200 pixel screen allows your software to show you every pixel of the 1080P image and still have room on the bottom for a row of editing buttons. If you are only watching movies, this may not be important to you. But, if you want to do high quality editing, this is a very nice capability.

16:9 = 1920 x 1080

16:10 = 1920 x 1200

Just a quick aside, the resolution levels you specified are what is called WUXGA. WSXGA would be around 1680x1050, and WXGA is around 1280x800, which is the most common. Of course, these numbers do tend to vary a bit. For example, WXGA can be also be 1280x768 or 1280x720, depending on the LCD's aspect ratio and native resolution.