Time to ditch awful HD 1080p widescreens

so yer unhappy scrolling all the time trying to read documents and web pages with a monitor that works great for watching hidef movies. whatever are you to do? mount the monitor on its side and change desktop orientation. why be unhappy with your 16:9 movie player when you can turn it (literally) into a 9:16 document viewer. seriously people, more common sense, more doing, less complaining please

Ever notice how holiday music is always the songs that boomers grew up with?

Notice how things seem to be directed towards them as far as marketing goes?

It's not a coincidence at all. They are an easy demographic to target and if you make them happy, you'll see high profits. Welp, they gettin hold and their eyes are not what they used to be, so down comes that resolution and the marketers are out in force to con everyone else into thinking it's good for them as well.

You won't be seeing high resolutions again until the boomers are all dead.

I HATE "FULL HD", HATE IT, HATE IT!!!
THERE SHOULD BE A LAW AGAINST IT!!!
THEY SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO SAY "SHORT D" OR "CRAP D" OR "ROB-YOU-OF-SCREEN-SPACE D" OR "YOU-ARE-STUPID D" FOR MORONS WHO USE LAPTOPS TO WATCH MOVIES!!!
LOOK AT DIGITAL CAMERAS - LARGER SCREENS, MORE PIXELS.
LOOK AT COMPUTERS - SHORTER SCREENS, LESS PIXELS - F******** PROGRESS!!!

I've heard this many times before. What is never even entertained is a portrait setup of the monitors. Doing this gives a knowledge worker a distinct advantage with a widescreen over a classic monitor in that most web pages and text still fit across the screen in most commonly used formats and there are more lines since in portrait the monitor is even taller than a classic.

16:10 is very aesthetically pleasing as it is very close to the golden ratio ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio ) which exists everywhere in nature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio#Nature

I bought my 23inch wide monitor 4 years ago, before the 16:9 craze begain and it is 1920x1200.

I didn't really pay attention to the monitor market for the past four years and I was so surprised when I decided it was time to buy a new monitor and I could not find one that was 16:10 ratio.

Its not an upgrade losing 11% of my screen display space. so I will stick with my old 16:10 monitor as long as possible. I either hope that more 16:10 monitors come out, or at least more monitors that have a higher horizontal size of 1920.

Absolutely agree 100% - 1080p will dominate TV for the next 10-15 years, but monitor resolution will increase much faster. 1920x1200 is much nicer than 1080p, and 2560x1600 is the current gold standard and getting more affordable all the time. I made a site, fullhdinfo.com, that has more details and comparison.

I use a 21" Sony F-520 CRT as my main display with a 16:10 LCD screen as my secondary. What gets me is that the color gamut on the LCD can't touch the CRT, especially when you get to the greens. Unfortunately I can't very well take screenshots for comparison to show people what I mean when I tell them that I would never consider replacing my CRT with another display unless I knew the color gamut was comparable - all I can say is that it's a world of difference.

Rotate your monitors 90°. Problem solved. Your video card driver *SHOULD* support this.

concurs, of my 7 monitors only 2 are LCD, and I only have those because two of my CRTs died. They look awful next to the CRTs and are low resolution(I run the CRTs in 2048x1536 -which is just fine on 21" screens). LCD s*cks.

Most balanced lcd monitor eva.
(16:10, 2ms, 1920x1200, high contrast~800:1, deep black~0,25, no lag vs CRT)
Enough said...

A little while ago IMB released a 22" WQUXGA (3842x2400) 16/10 monitor. it was $17000 and needed 2-dual link DVI connections (for normal DVI) to display that res at 66Hz. And I want one.

think... that monitor is 4 times the size of a WUXGA 1920x1200 monitor, and one DVI dual link can run it at 120H. Quadruple the res and 1/4 the refresh rate (30Hz.) that's why you needed 2 dual links to run it at 66Hz.

Importantly though is that with increasing resolutions beyond 2560 x 1600 current connection standards cannot supply enough information bandwidth to keep refresh rate in the +85Hz (120Hz ideal) range. ATi's eyefinitiy goes a long way to solving this, allowing up to 6 display port ports off a single chip. But to be honest can you imagine average consumers having to plug in multiple monitor cables for 1 monitor in this day and age. Hell People are asking for wireless monitors.

HDMI is old news and is limited to 1080p; DIV is all out of ideas beyond WUXGA 120Hz. Display port (in particular mini-display port) shows promise, but a new standard is needed and it may be something as obscure at light-peak.

Cheers
Jordan

I Do NOT Want a Widescreen Monitor !
den
*****

First of all, I can't believe that some people find 1920x1080 'unusable', but an extra 120 vertical pixels somehow makes it OK. It's a bit better, but not worth the extra $$$, IMO.

Secondly, in all my 23+ years of working with computers, I only recall a couple of CRT monitors that had acceptable focus, convergence AND geometry.

I'm still waiting for the ultimate display device.... but when it finally comes, my eyesight will be too poor to enjoy it. :-(

"These displays should also have screen refresh rates of 85Hz to 120Hz or higher, pixel response times of less than 3ms, high contrast ratios and fine colour and brightness controls equal to or better than CRTs but without the CRT adjustment issues.

The leading display vendors should be able to do all of this with current LCD technology, and make it affordable."

Seriously, stop taking whatever substance it is. Now.

I am sticking with my CRT (IBM E94) running at 1600x1200 (although, sometimes when Windows does an update I can access 1920x1440x60hz - which is just awful - if disappears after a reboot).

LCD monitors are 1920x1080 because TVs are - drives the cost down. Butit is an awful aspect rtation - too wide and too short. They should offer a swivel option on more monitors (without charging a significant premium for it).

As well, I just don't like the look of an LCD. Two years ago, we were upgraded to LCDs at work. After a day of burning out my eyeballs (I did everythign I could to adjust the brightness down), I asked (and got) my old monitor back.

I have a Dell Precision Laptop M70 with a 15.4" screen with 1920x1200 resolution. This was five years ago. The pixels are so small so I have to use the magnifying glass to see the small fonts, but is great for solid modeling - the main task.
The latest 24" Dell monitor with 16x10 ratio (1920x1200) is on sale for $500 or around. So the technology exists - but I couldn't make my boss buy one for me - they bought instead half-a-dozen 16x9 monitors.

Because guys are realizing wide screen is not good for porn!

The Hitachi CM751 with 93KHz maximum horizontal refresh won't do anything near 85Hz at 1600x1200. You could push it to a flickery 75Hz, but most people would run that CRT at 1280x1024 @ 85Hz, which would provide a grainy appearance with two documents or web pages scaled down to fit side-by-side. Also, the CM751's Invar shadow mask wouldn't likely provide colors as vibrant as a good IPS LCD.

But yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with 16:10 (and esp. 4:3) being much better for anything besides movie watching.

Slight correction:
"more than three times better than the 101ppi, give or take, provided by current LCD screens used in many netbooks, ultra-light laptops and notebooks," please add: "and of course the 'revolutionary' ipad".

Oh and if you want 16:10 you could just put a piece of cardboard over one of the edges to shorten the width.

Here's what really happened, the computer screens were 16:10 but then people were bitching left and right that HD left bars visible, now they made the screens as people wanted them and they complain they are too wide.

And may I add that complaining that a diagonal of 20" is different for a widescreen vs a 4:3 screen seems a bit silly, it's only annoying if consumers don't realize that it's apples vs pears, but a tech journalist makes himself come off as a bit silly if he makes such a complaint don't you think?

I wonder and wonder why there are no Quad HD computer monitors with improved pixel density. Such monitor would have size in the range between 35-40". I am using exclusively HD monitors for years and they are still too small for serious work. Digital photography has lots of pixels and document work is nowdays so complicated one needs huge real estate.

Movies are morphing into giant bumper stickers. The aspect ratios get wider and shorter with every movie.

At this rate, you'll soon see monitors that are 6 feet wide. And 6 inches high.

As the first commenter noticed; I couldn't agree more. I posted this on a display discussion forum just a few days ago:

What is holding monitors back? I remember from years ago IBM announcing T221, a 22" screen with a resolution of 3840x2400. with other words there seems to be no progress, on the contrary. The one I use right now is a 19" 1600x1200 CRT with a dot pitch of 0.21 mm. a refresh rate of 85mhz. and a manufacturing date of September 1999 (Hitachi CM769ET). It costs +/- $1000 ten years ago.

With the advent of blue-rays etc. it's becoming a bit too small to be enjoyable (in fact Win7 with its large icons doesn't seem to fit comfortable anymore). I would happily pay the amount (and double it even) for a 24/27" screen with a 2560x1600 resolution, but they simply don't seem to exist.

My best guess from reading a lot of reviews and announcements is that people just aren't comfortable with high resolution monitors.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/...resolution.aspx

The best one I've come across is the Dell U2711, assuming that the high enough (vertical) resolution negates the lower aspect ratio (I have no idea if this is the case).

The catch 22 situation I seem to find myself in is buying a high quality monitor 10 years ago, that I can't seem to better now for a larger one with a better resolution.

Aspect ratio, resolution, color depth and PPI are personal preferences, depending on requirements. But it's the demands of *gaming* on LCDs that are not being addressed.

1) There's the problem of refresh rate (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate"). I can easily tell the difference between a frame rate of 60 and 100 per second, on an old CRT, but there are no LCD monitors that can display a frame rate above 75.

2) There's the problem of input lag (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_lag"). There's huge room for improvement, but the manufacturers intentionally don't quote it, and so I don't see much progress being made.

My widescreen laptop monitor made me scroll so much that I gave up three paragraphs early.

But this is so true! Who remembers when 1600x1200 was the shit? Still got my 21.3" Samsung 4x3 from 8 years ago and I wouldn't give it up for some greased-up fancy pants widescreen EVER.

"But this isn't why the [16:9] displays are deficient."

Sure is.

I have a fullscreen 4:3 21" LCD monitor I bought several years ago -- pricey, and the largest I could buy. I doubt they even make them anymore. It's beautiful, and I love it. I can't stand widescreen.

Fucking A

Having previously been through the transition from 4:3 to 16:10 and converting all of my screens to 16:10 widescreen goodness, I am now of the opinion that we should have been on 16:10 a long time ago. Now, having gotten a 16:9 laptop, I feel we have gone too far with the condensing of the verticle. 16:9 is just a little too little - I find myself having to work with Firefox in fullscreen mode simply because I miss having that extra on the verticle.

16:10 is perfect. 16:9 went too far the wrong way, and I hope manufacturers begin to recognize it. 1920x1200 is perfect.

My biggest bitch is not screen size but how it gets used. While I love MS-Office, but the Toolbars AKA "Tool Ribbons" are getting fatter and are still fixed along the top & bottom of the screen. These can’t be moved to the side like the Window's system bar can. I.E.: In Word 2007, the Ribbon uses up nearly 20% of the screen that I need to see portrait docs. On occasion I have rotated my 24" Dell Desktop screen during high volumes of technical writing for full page viewing or CAD work, but that’s not practical on my laptop. So a better screen usage plan is in order.
As a related side note: remember 10 years ago when Nokia’s cell phone Signal strength & Battery level meters ran up the sides of the LCD screen and a giant clock was in the middle? You could easily read those, but now these critical functions have shrunk to hardly legible icons to make room for other crap.

Maybe someone hippie enough should come up with WebHD with good resolution and aspect ratio of 0.70707070, that is 210/297 (A4 paper).

I have tried turning my 16:10 sideways, so it is 10:16 but the width resolution should be at least 1200 to be usable in internet.

I agree with the "inadequate monitors" assessment. Additionally, LED back lighting should become more widespread, since it eliminates the toxic mercury used in most current LCD monitors. For those with limited desktop space, an LED backlit 20" 16x10 ratio monitor would be ideal. Apple used to offer an excellent (but expensive) 20" 1680x1050 (16x10 ratio) monitor, which ought to be updated with LED back lighting and re-offered. [Note to Steve Jobs: please include a DVI connector port.]

i had to wait for nearly 3 months to replace a pair of 21" 4:3 crt's for my home set up with a pair of Iiyama 26" 16:10's to come back in stock in the UK as no online stores had them, (a couple had 16:9 alternatives - FAIL). I would have got a pair of the new 27" ones but they only come in 16:9 - how stupid is that?

I build machines for recording studios and video suites. 16:9 is just unusable. Last year a client had a system off me with a pair of 24" 16:10's and decided to add one more. Not realising that manu's were making 16:9 versions he bought what he assumed was a 'normal size' and got 3rd monitor which was 16:9 (d'oh!!)

16:9 is fine for the kids gaming computer and watching movies, but not for work. Given that it's normally business's that are the first to buy new monitors it's astonishing that manu's could miss this obvious fact.

I absolutely agree that we computer users are being ripped off. The latest widescreen up to 24ins or more is offering a lower vertical resolutino than my 4:3 17ins monitor I purchased about 5 years ago. Is this progress?

Looks like I'll have to for out a lot of £££ for a 30inch to get 2560x1600 resolution, but for engineering CAD, vertical resolution is really desirable, and the widescreen horizontal just comes along for the ride.

I do "only" own a 19'' 4:3 Monitor with 1280x1024 pixels and therefore do not understand the problem with less than 1024 lines. In my point of view, an application (even a website) that needs more pixels is scrap and not worth to view.

But anyway - there's a thing called "pivot mode" on some 19''ers. So if 1920*1080 Pixel does not fit, I would try 1080*1920 Pixels. Just my quarter...

I couldn't agree more with this article. 16x10 is as wide screen as I would ever want on a computer. And I will pay the premium to stay away from the gawd awful 16x9 screens.

The computer industry better wake up!!!

it's true that newer monitors are getting worse when it comes to to screen proportions (plus the glare "feature"), additionally poor viewing angles of TN panels make the situation worse.
now, when it comes to screen resolution/dpi it's quite obvious that most people can't handle extreme dpi. in my opinion there's nothing worse than lcd screen set to non-native resolution to accommodate for poor eyesight. I would not mind hi res monitor with low dpi (= large monitor) as long as panel is of decent quality. in the long term it's better to keep the distance than to stare at "near retina resolution" from <18 s good at resizing text without distorting images embedded on page (no other browser gives that option/flexibility).

Panel suppliers are controlling most everything when it comes to size and aspect ratio. The more a particular size sells, the cheaper it becomes and vice versa. IF people actually would have spent the money and bought more 16:10 monitors, instead of just talking about them...then we wouldn't be stuck with so many 16:9 monitors right now. Once the panel guys realized the efficiencies of the 16:9 aspect ratio in relation to glass, then the race was on amongst them to try and outmfr each other. Producing non-16:9 panels has become non-efficient and costly to actually produce because producing so few LOSES them money as they're not using that production line for the more profitable 16:9 panels.
Despite common belief here, panel makers don't make very much money at all because they dump so much back into upgrading their Fabs, which is extremely expensive. Because consumers are demanding cheaper prices, production quality is suffering across all MFRs. Higher quality, higher priced monitors don't sell. Everyone wants to just make CHEAP crap now because that's what people are buying. Thank you Acer. We're not willing to spend for quality, or not enough anyway. For 90% of displays...you get what you Pay for...whether it is front of screen performance or reliability. As mentioned above, the focus is actually more on TVs as they make much higher profit margins. Glass gets funneled to the TVs as they have priority. Their best engineers and latest tech goes into the TVs. Monitors are stuck as the step-child, get the Engineers in training, cheaper quality parts, etc.. Wait until you see all of these WLED #$%@ thin monitors coming out...goodbye CCFL...and you thought those panels had problems...two steps backwards there. Don't fall for the thin-is-in low power crap. 2x more issues going on there. Thank you panel mfrs...

you mentioned computer programmers have difficulty with this resolution, i do not agree.

years ago in school, i was always taught to comment and code in a matter which would be "printer-friendly" so that the length of my lines of code wouldn't wrap and the nesting would look good.

i still nest, but i don't break my code up. with the wider-screen i like spanning my lines of code as far as i want ... i'm no longer limited in my creativity. i also no longer print my code as hard-copies in this manner seem silly these days.

the more code i'm able to see at once, the better. if the ratio stays the same and the resolution increases, all the better ... i'm certain it will within the next year or 2. also, i'm happy if the resolution stays the same for awhile while they increase the contrast ratio and response times. there's lots of marketing appeal towards "1080p" so you can't blame the vendors ... TVs will soon have their higher resolutions being marketed to allow destop monitors to follow suite.

i don't agree with this rant.

Dual IBM P275's. 3.84 million pixels of Trinitron goodness, updated 100 times a second. No problems with ghosting, or color reproduction, or viewing angles.

It's sad that current LCD technology still can't beat a 9 year old CRT.

If you want more pixels pay. If it becomes a high volume product the prices will drop.

So speak with your wallet, buy a 2560x1440 LCD for $1100 ($USA) if you want from dell (U2711).

I have a NOKIA 445XiPlus 21" I bought used a few years ago (when you could still get one). It is best computer purchase I ever made.

Now and then I think about perhaps getting an LCD but when I go looking for one that will even come close to what the NOKIA will do I find it either impossible to find or incredibly expensive.

Same goes for HD TV. I have a SAMSUNG HD tube set and I wish I had 10 of them.

It's a crying shame!

"Any technology that appears sufficiently advanced to wow consumers
will inevitably kill all the good stuff." Incredibly wise person circa early 21st century.

I have two LCD displays, one horizontal, the other vertical.

The vertical one is preferred for most web pages, Windows Explorer, and editing source code.

The horizontal one is preferred for anything with wide tables, multiple small windows (like an Integrated Development Environment), and only a few web pages.

i guess you need to move on.

Although I would certainly like 2400x1600 screens or larger. In the mean time just regard the extra pixels on the side as 1920x1060 as extra pixels with respect to 1680x1050.

Keep telling the world this! Excellent article. The Shape of Computers is important.

Fonts can get quite dull at small point sizes as there are not enough pixels to provide enough variety between different fonts.

This effect is especially pronounced in Asian languages, where Chinese characters (which uses more strokes than roman characters) are used, but even for roman fonts typically you either get a 1-pixel serif or none.

Every serif font looks the same at the typical resolution used for, say, web browsing, and ditto for every san-serif font.

Higher dpi would allow for more variety while keeping the same physical size for each character. Imagine getting real, rounded serifs for your fonts.

With the emphasis towards electronic publishing a higher dpi is needed for a more pleasurable reading experience.

I have two 16x9 monitors on my system and they are perfectly fine for viewing documents and web pages - I just use both in "Portrait" mode. :-)

Having tried up to 19" 4:3 LCD. There's that eye resolution limit, the bitmapped font / object problem, and that I don't care to literally turn my head when reading. For a long time I used 800x600 on a 9" monochrome SVGA, and it was great. Then a 15" color SVGA wasn't great, quite smeary from the inherent RGB pixels, where this same size LCD is tack sharp. Didn't think I'd like it, but got it at a bargain, and it's excellent, though just a cheap one and doesn't get to deep blacks. I like that its color rendition is *quite* a bit more "vivid" than most CRTs and many LCDs. That may not be advantage for work where absolute accuracy is required, but for textish work, it's good.

Anyway, to get in a dig at Windows: it has just ghastly fonts compared to OS/2. Never found in XP either a GUI font or a command line font that I cared for, latter are particularly horrible, and I still use DOS text programs, of course. But those one-pixel wide lowercase "i" and "l" and "j" in the GUI fonts are nearly indistinguishable and highly annoying. But you're stuck with them when developing, because it's what "everyone" uses. Linux is a bit iffy in this area too, but usually has a good Helvetica. So part of your problem may just be lousy system fonts.

The whole idea of adopting the 16:9 screens over the 16:10 was to save that small amount of screen glass on each one, but charging the same, meaning every 10th screen was pure profit.

But hey, just like the current price fixing of 4GB memory, by the time they prosecute anyone for it, we'll have moved on to another screen standard.

THe 16:10 is the best all around format for monitors.

but you have to have had a better CRT monitor way back when to even acknowledge some of these issues. Particularly I miss my old CRT for 2048x1536 resolution too. I think I got it for $100. And not that I don't have it anymore mind, I just don't use it in favor of two 16:9 and 16:10 LCDs. I do with Samsung etc would make more 1440p and 2160p panels for PC, but that would require cheap graphics cards to fill all those pixels. And that the dpi and refresh can follow HDTVs to 240hz at 1440p. Again though, games would have to run at those specs or it would be pointless for consumers.

In respect to 16X9 vs 16X10 complaint it seems most of the world is running 16X9 screens.. there for is it not more logical for your productivity software to adapt to the current standard?
And in respect to resolution sounds like what you seek is out there but you don't want to pay the premium. I mean you realize anything that's not in high demand is going to cost a bit of a premium since its not logical to mass produce them just to shelf them.
Almost any company and most of the world will option for the cheaper HD standard already being mass produced.
I read the next HD standard is 7680X4320. Its been showcased couple years ago but ultimately its the consumer wallet whom will decide when this makes it to your living room, computer table, or laptop. So we wait for the technology to hit a sweet spot in pricing.

aspect ratio is due to constraints of Yoke to produce FOCUSED rectangular image & cost of Mfg of Tube. LCD first came about in 1927, promptly set aside.

CRT Can Fall 6' over & over & show NO Harm. LCD breaks upon slightest impact. However, How did crt TV go Under.

LCD are cheap to manufacture. Once was company in Washington,Dc named Capitol Radio Supply. Basicly termed Artemus, from Arteus Gratis. Due to Rabid nature of information gathering thru telco listening, ,that company has been thrown out of Washington since WW. There Traitors.Still in business.

Basicly Artemus killed off crt tuner to sell cable, with Not much intrest in Free Over air Broadcast bt FCC. People are Mixed up on deal, as present FREE signal with todays equpment is lcd, so people buy that ,instead of continuing to use home crt with cable or converter box.

LCD are very cheap to manufacture, yet priced comparablely to crt at Retail. More profit for supply channel. DONT THROW AWAY YOUR CRT. in fact hook it to your computer. HDMI Isn't Perfected, barely handles 1080P signal & with dvi,vga,(basicly serial port)all pluged in at same time, goofy stuff can happen on start up, sound from hdi is poor.

Print uses standard 185 dots per inch. Newspaper uses 85 DPI & Is Course in detail. over 200 dpi, hard to tell difference, after 400 dpi, there is NO Difference, yet cost is 4X bandwidth. Also image can clump or show mottled appearences, as just too Fine. Aberatons of signal start creepy skin like distortion, like fast reaction chamelion, just NOT Right. Water stain marks move about as image changesor like window with rain & dirt, mottled.

152" lcd is as BIG as Sliding Glass Door. Probably Worth about same amount, too.

Now Isn't time to flick about Image Ratio. dpi up be good. say 40" monitor with 4096 x 2160 ,still is little more than 100 dpi,if that. yet far better (4x) than 1080P in larger area, However mfg of both display & signal source have right to make monies on Best Today Can Offer.

Aspect Ratio Change Is Stupid. More dpi Is Good, up to 150, even 200 dpi. Lower RETAIL PRICE OF lcd, well, rediculasly priced right now. Artemus Has Once Again Screwed World, with thompson by side. Russian ho job, with certain black taint. aetemus does USarmy.com, strange contracts of non sense abound from artemus. & basicly is group of killers, with NO concern for correctness, murder & mayhem more important.Basicly, Opposite of Black Orifice.
Money shouldn't be issue, yet mountain of broken equipment= bit of 'emballmer, gates, carla,artemus & rath of others, whom simply kill or liquidate competition, Even Equipment.1lesscharlie.BooHoo,Be Warned,Be Afraid.

UP DPI throughout system BY 2020, EVEN SOONER FOR LARGE SCREEN KEEP HDTV ratio.

Signed: drashek

In my dual-screen setup at home, I have one monitor horizontal - which is great for media - and another one vertical - which is great for documents.

And I've generally got more than one thing going at a time anyway. Best of both worlds.

I just wrote about the disparity between document and HD display ratios myself
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/document_display/

In that most desktop OSs don't support them. This is due to large parts of the systems being based on bitmaps rather than vector graphics, which don't scale, or scale badly. You either get tiny, hard to read windows or a mix of scaled and unscaled/badly scaled content.

"I don't understand why widescreen is a problem for anyone."

16:10 is still a widescreen resolution and both my home (27") and work (24") monitors are widescreen. However by having a 16:10 aspect ratio, it provides a good inch or two of additional vertical space. 16:9 is simply too wide and not tall enough for computer use IMO. Like the author, I'm becoming increasingly irritated by the rarity of 16:10 monitors these days.

totally agree. 2560*1600 is probably the optimal size for me, but I certainly don't want a screen that takes up a 27 or 30 inch diagonal in order to obtain this.

I've got a 1920*1080 on a 15 inch laptop and switching to 1920*1200 on a 24 inch desktop LCD is painful.

2560*1600 at 24 inch or less diagonal is where we need to be, I'd probably even pay quite a premium for a decent screen at this res+size...

I generally agree that display technology should be improved to reflect the actual state of the art, rather than merely reflecting how far poor saps can be squeezed for their cash without getting much in return. The TN-panel is an abomination, and if people hadn't forgotten what CRT image quality looked like, they wouldn't be selling them in such numbers. When the most popular display technology can't compete with that of two decades ago, there's a problem.

It's good to know that IPS-type screens are becoming cheaper and more available now. Hopefully Apple will someday return to using IPS panels in their laptop range - perhaps the inclusion of such a panel in their latest phone is a step in that direction.

In terms of increasing the pixel-density, that's only favourable up to a point. The so-called "retina display" term is inaccurate, as it is believed by experts that the human retina can discern even finer details than the PPI quoted by Jobs. Still, going far beyond that level would be pointless, since you'd gain no extra image clarity when your eyes couldn't appreciate it. That, and rendering of images at such resolutions would be very taxing especially for battery-powered machines.

For the last few years i've been using an NEC pro-display and am very happy with it, but it wasn't cheap. For the same price I could've purchased two or even three new Trinitron/Diamondtron CRT displays.

I like the 16:10 aspect ratio. Works nicely for games and movies, but still gives you enough vertical space for real work unlike most of the 16:9 monitors. The 16:10 LCD screens take a bit of work to find though sadly.

I too have an old 19" CRT that I just can't stand to let go. Sure it's analog, the colors might not be quite spot on, but it has a crispness and clarity to it that my LCD monitors just can't match.

I don't understand why widescreen is a problem for anyone.

My monitor at home is big enough at 24" to view 2 A4 pages side by side. If I feel the need I can rotate the monitor through 90 degrees and view 1 A4 page in all it's glory.

I agree entirely. Thankfully, I have a 16:10 monitor both at work and at home running at 1920x1200. And it's a comfortable resolution for productivity, gaming and watching films on. 16:9 just doesn't contain enough vertical space and you're always having to scroll up and down as a result.

Agreed.
I just got a 32" 1080p Bravia to double up as TV/Monitor. Twice the price of and a slightly lower resolution than a 3yr old Acer 1920x1200 LCD. Then the res on my 15" thinkpad was 1920x1200.
Certainly was using 1600x1200 well over a decade ago on CRTs.

Lazy on the part of panel makers, pure and simple.

Well, if this "wider is better" trend (just google Philips 2.4:1 screen) continues much longer we will soon have 50" screens with resolution of 3840 x 540. Not that useful, but the diagonal is sure good, aint it?

As far as I am concerned, 1920 pixels _horizontally_ is plenty for monitors up to 24" in size, and for ALL laptop screens. Vertical rersolution is another kettle of tasty aquatic animals altogether.

What I would like to see are different aspects made available for standalone PC monitors (again, upto 24"):

1. 1920 x 1080 (16:9) for movie freaks
2. 1920 x 1200 (16:10) movies, games, general use
3. 1920 x 1440 (4:3) and 1920 x 1536 (5:4) for office work, graphic design, DTP (I am old geezer, sorry ;-) etc.

For bigger diagonals, just scale the frickin' resolution upwards. It is not THAT complicated.

I couldn't agree with you more.