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Why 4:3 screens are better than widescreen for most laptop users
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That's exactly why I bought the MBP. I mistakenly chose the Japanese keyboard though - so I am having to remember where the punctuation marks are - I use British layout because my other 3 macs are...
maybe I should either a) get it changed or b) upgrade in a year
True. It's funny how people say our eyes are horizontal and we read horizontal thus widescreen is better. They just dont understand the concept of how people read text.
For example, if widescreen was so great for text, then apple would indeed have a "fill screen" button as opposed to the green + button. Are you sure you want to read text across a widescreen format? Really? Why dont we write on 11" x 8.5" as opposed to 8.5" x 11"? And also, two pages side by side is 22 x 17 = 1.29. 4:3 = 1.33. 16:10 = 1.6.
It's true manufacturers put less pixels in a given amount of vertical space for widescreen formats (4:3 will always have more surface area than 16:10 if they are both X" corner to corner). People prefer being forced to being confined to a widescreen format, even if the same or nearly the same horizontal pixels are being used in their 4:3 to 16:10 comparison (Read: Same width 'virtually,' more height in 4:3). The flexibility gained in the vertical pixels is just confusion and discomfort.
Ultimately, there's pros and cons to both, but I believe its largely as OP stated. Sexy sells. Multimedia sells. Trends sell. 4:3 is ugly and bulky, widescreen wins regardless of ultimate functionality, it wins due to interpreted functionality. Its slim and sleek, and It plays DVDs.
I find that it's more of what the eye thinks than practical usage. As mentioned earlier, the golden ratio plays a large factor in this (think Fibonacci series). I've used this in many practical applications in graphic design (1.6181 multiplied by text size of a smaller text yields an attractive ratio between the two texts). Widescreen looks good naturally, the golden ratio is hard coded into us and many other things (like number of seeds in a sunflower head). Think about it practically and one finds that with widescreen, there is more perceived space, and thus, more space on the sides for tool boxes and other applications. Empty space, regardless of if it's actually less total space, leads one to think that there is more space to be had, and thus, widescreen wins. However, with application of widescreen to a small display, the eye simply finds it to be too small, so on our smaller screens, there must be more vertical resolution, but the eye defaults to wide, which is why we have the 12" PowerBook in a 4:3 aspect ratio, as 3:4 would be awkward and too tall... vertical space doesn't sell as well to the eye.
Wow... I feel like I've beaten that to death
Wow... I feel like I've beaten that to death
However, the extra width of the widescreen takes into account the "extra" space needed for the scroll bar and in the case of Word and Acrobat, tracked change bubbles and document outlines/previews. This is always the problem with a 4:3 screen is that when you add in the extra space associated with the window it doesn't fit side-by-side well. This is mostly a problem with laptops that are smaller screens and slightly lower resolution. On large desktop panels (>24") with high res (>1900x1200) this really is a moot point and being pressed for width is less of an issue.
Now if you are on a PC where you have wide window borders you are even more pressed for width.
16:10 is my preferred ratio instead of 4:3, but there's no "right" answer for everyone in the same way that some people prefer glossy screens and some prefer matte. There is no right answer.
Objectively, here are a few points in widescreen's favor.
1) it can fit more palettes and other controls on screen without coving up the document you're working on since documents tend to be less wide than the screen.
2) text is written left to right, so a wider screen means less text wrapping over several lines, which makes reading more pleasant.
3) movies, as mentioned, are widescreen. So even if all else were equal, this would be a huge plus.
4) since windows and documents tend to be more squarish than the screen, it makes more distinct object visible on screen at the same time and thus makes it much easier to do drag and drop.
Objectively, here are a few points in widescreen's favor.
1) it can fit more palettes and other controls on screen without coving up the document you're working on since documents tend to be less wide than the screen.
2) text is written left to right, so a wider screen means less text wrapping over several lines, which makes reading more pleasant.
3) movies, as mentioned, are widescreen. So even if all else were equal, this would be a huge plus.
4) since windows and documents tend to be more squarish than the screen, it makes more distinct object visible on screen at the same time and thus makes it much easier to do drag and drop.
I agree with this, except for the claim that 4:3 is bulky. It's the widescreen laptops that ushered in the era of truly enormously laptops that are not portable in and reasonable sense.
People here talk about liking their 17" MBP. Yeah, maybe that screen is nice. It's also an enormous bowling ball of a computer. The idea that such a thing is more practical on a nominally "portable" computer is silly.
I think people here are losing track of the fact that this discussion is about laptops, not widescreen in general. A laptop hooked up to a second external monitor is irrelevant, because it's not being used as a laptop. A laptop that weighs ten pounds and has a huge screen on it is also irrelevant, because people who carry their computer around all the time aren't going to use something like that. Big 20" or 30" widescreen desktop monitors are great. I have no beef there. They probably are much more practical, than an equivalent dimension 4:3 screen. But this is about what makes sense on the relatively small screens of laptops.
Reasonable weight laptops are all 15" screens or smaller. So the comparison should be between a 15" widescreen or 4:3, 14" widescreen or 4:3 etc. A 15" widescreen offers no more vertical space than a 14" 4:3 (which is usally a pound lighter). The now very popular 13.3" widescreens offer no more vertical space than a 12" 4:3. At that size of laptop I don't think it's worth sacrificing vertical height and overall surface area for an extra inch on the side, unless all you do is watch movies. What you get with widescreen mainly is more weight and less usable space.
Of course, in the end it's all personal preferance. But now there are literally no (zero) 4:3 laptops made anymore (except for the Thinkpad X61, which will likely be phased out soon). If it's about personal preference, then shouldn't there be a choice? The widescreen fad has ruined it for everyone. It's also a good example of how marketing driven consumer capitalism does not give people more choices, but rather just follows trends mindlessly.
And for all the people who say they love widescreen and find it more functional, I don't buy it. I think for maybe 10 or 20% of people widescreen may be more functional for what they do on their laptop. For everyone else, and how they actually use their laptop, they've just fooled themselves into liking it better because it's perceived as "cool." They've internalized the marketing hype and confused it with their personal preference.
I just had a Lenovo X61 here earlier this year which is 4:3 and I didn't like it at all compared to widescreen. After using widescreen it makes you feel like everything is bunched up on the screen, even if you have more screen real estate due to the height pixels. The human eye and brain read from left to right (or right to left if you're from that part of the world), NOT up and down. I would much rather browse web pages in widescreen than I would on a standard 4:3 of the same size. And like someone else stated, 4:3 is more bulky to have to carry around vs 16:10. Just think of the difference between a 17" 4:3 and a 17" 16:10 laptop under your arm.
My personal opinion is that Macs are more efficient to use with widescreen monitors, and PCs are more efficient with 4:3 monitors.
Just because a screen is widescreen, doesn't mean you have to use the whole screen for every application. If you're reading text, for example, you can resize the window so it's more vertically oriented, for faster reading. If you're watching a movie, you can enjoy the benefits of the widescreen format. A widescreen gives you flexibility to do both, where a 4:3 screen can only help with one.
Well, I know it doesn't apply to computers, but there have been a number of languages now and throughout history that have written top to bottom (e.g. Japanese, although that is a funny example because I guess historically they wrote in all four directions).
Makes a lot of sense, especially for Apple who is so focused on design. Golden ratio widescreens make for sexier laptops
I am in now way an expert on this subject and don't remember if it came up in the one neuroscience class I took but this idea that humans read text better in a vertical format doesn't ring a bell. Does anyone have any scientific info on this other than the "well, look which direction books go" argument? That books thing is rather silly and you are all overlooking the main reason why books are in that format: they are easier to hold if vertically formatted. Have you noticed how most people fold news papers in half so they are as narrow as possible while they hold them? Not only is it more awkward to hold horizontally formated books, but it also increase the chance of tearing pages while turning.
About the peripheral vision thing, I don't think this is even close to correct. Whether your are reading a book, watching a movie on your computer, or sitting in a movie theater, you are not using your periphery for viewing. Read up on resolution and lack of color in peripheral vision--or just turn 90º and try to read your the rest of this post.
Also, I am pretty sure the reason movies are shot in widescreen has nothing to do with our field of vision, but with money. When people started watching films on television more often the film industry needed a way to motivate people to see films in theaters vs. on television. Stretching the image with a cinemascope lens was the answer. Although, unlike Godard, I love composing shots in widescreen and think it is great for much more than just filming snakes and people having sex
YES! For multimedia widescreen is king. Right now I use two widescreens (20" and 19") with my tower and have a 15" MacBook Pro and I just don't know what to do with myself anymore when I am stuck on a 4:3 screen (not quite as bad as when I need to teach on Windows, but still a hassle--it really sucks when I am stuck doing both at once
). Even when I used a 12" PowerBook G4 I found the 4:3 a pain when working at my desk. That is why at first I used a 4:3 as often as possible to extend my work area and then switched to a widescreen LCD for my main display and found myself hardly touching the 4:3 on the laptop. Now I will admit, when I design my own computer music interfaces, they work much better on widescreen, but so do most commercially available audio, video, and graphics programs. Do you code? I am a musican/composer, but text based coding is a (small) part of my workflow for some projects. Maybe it is personal preference, but I see widescreen as a must for coding: forced word-wrapping due to screen width SUCK while coding IMO.
While I see very little benefits to 4:3 in my workflow, I do think it would be nice if those who liked it would have the choice. I guess this makes sense why they do not.
Man, after writing this BEAST of a post I wish the macrumors edit box was widescreen.
I'm gonna take a guess and say that blowing a widescreen CRT tube was cost prohibitive for most applications. It's not a challenge posed to flat screen tech.
As well with the advent of multitasking in consumer OSs, coupled with much higher pixel density displays, coupled with advancements in user interface (scroll wheel mice/trackpads) the vertical text thing is a dead argument. Several manufacturers came out with vertically oriented displays in the 90s that failed even in their niche markets. Nowadays you can rotate a display but the majority of the time that is done when a smaller secondary display needs to closely approximate the pixel height of the main display.
My Macbook Pro spends more muscle on .NET application development under Fusion than anything else. The somewhat low resolution of its 15" screen is barely usable for more than a few hours. In a 4:3 factor it just wouldn't work.
Okay, fine. I accept that everyone has been brainwashed by Apple into thinking that widescreen is more functional on a small laptop screen. So be it.
By why should it be the exclusive choice in the marketplace? Why should your preferences be imposed on everybody? I thought capitalism was supposed to give us choices? I'm not complaining that widescreens exist. I'm complaining that there is no longer a single laptop manufactured in 4:3. That's because of computer makers following fads. Not because it's what works the best for everyone or what everyone prefers.
People are wrong though about reading. It's much more effective to read text that is laid out in relatively narrow columns. That's why newspapers are laid out the way they are. The eye can take in a line of text in a newspaper column without having to scan back and forth. You can then scan down the page and read much faster than if your eyes were moving back and forth all over the place on a wide layout. Even on newspaper web pages and blogs this convention is adhered to. Once a line of text gets to wide, it is much lest efficient to read and it fatigues the eyes. This has been true for hundreds of years and widescreen computers haven't changed it.
By why should it be the exclusive choice in the marketplace? Why should your preferences be imposed on everybody? I thought capitalism was supposed to give us choices? I'm not complaining that widescreens exist. I'm complaining that there is no longer a single laptop manufactured in 4:3. That's because of computer makers following fads. Not because it's what works the best for everyone or what everyone prefers.
People are wrong though about reading. It's much more effective to read text that is laid out in relatively narrow columns. That's why newspapers are laid out the way they are. The eye can take in a line of text in a newspaper column without having to scan back and forth. You can then scan down the page and read much faster than if your eyes were moving back and forth all over the place on a wide layout. Even on newspaper web pages and blogs this convention is adhered to. Once a line of text gets to wide, it is much lest efficient to read and it fatigues the eyes. This has been true for hundreds of years and widescreen computers haven't changed it.
I don't know where you get the idea that anyone is "brainwashed" by Apple. I've been buying notebooks exclusively for about 8 years and as soon as widescreen was available, I wanted it. No brainwashing required, and that was long before I moved to Apple and the MacBook Pro. The fact is that manufacturers are intelligent enough to build products that appeal to the greatest number of people. If there was an ongoing, significant demand for notebooks with the 4:3 ratio, they would still be building them. The fact that so many have dropped the 4:3 in favor of widescreen is evidence of supply and demand, not some mystical, evil plot to brainwash the computer-buying public.
There will always be someone who has specific needs that aren't being satisfied by "off-the-shelf" products. That's the way the world works. The good news is there are probably a LOT of used 4:3 ratio notebooks on the market that you can pick up at a great price!
Well, I was just being a little facetious. I didn't mean it so literally. I do think Apple popularized the widescreen notebook. (Weren't they the first to introduce it? The widescreen Titanium PowerBook came out in January 2001.) Apple made it seem super cool. And I think it's that coolness that draws so many people in, rather than thinking about whether it's really the most functional for how they will use a laptop. I don't think people really think that much when they make these purchases about what they really need. It's all marketing driven. So, although that is not literally brainwashing, I wouldn't say that people are really very aware a lot of the time why they're making the choices they make.
Yeah, I agree. And what you say is a pretty good definitiion of a fad. And that's what I said, the manufacturers are just following a fad. I didn't say there's no business logic to it.
On the other hand, it's not like people just suddenly decided they wanted widescreen and so manufactures just responded to "demand," as if it came from nowhere. Very few people probably ever thought about a widescreen notebook until they saw one. And then manufacturers built on this desire, by hyping the widescreen as much as possible. So manufacturers create and augment demand, they don't just respond to it. The relationship between supply and demand is a self-reinforcing circular relationship. And that, I think, can get out of control, until you only have one choice left, whether it's really what would make most people happy or not, if they really thought about how they're using the product. (It's like buying cell phones with a millions features. All kinds of marketing studies show that people always want the phone with the most features, when they're in the store. But very very very few people use more than the most basic features.)
Anyway, so there is a business logic to how we ended up with nothing but widescreens. I just think it's ironic 1) because business people talk so much about how competition gives us more choices, when it really limits choices by making everyone want to follow the same fads 2) because people insist up and down that they "prefer" widescreen or find it more functional, but I don't think it really makes much sense for most uses and I don't think most people have thought it through that carefully or compared notebooks of identical weight and diagonal dimension carefully. I think people just don't want to admit that there preferences aren't very rational.
I mean, I do personally think the widescreens are cool. I get that. I just realized at a certain point that for everthing I do normally on a laptop except watching movies, 4:3 lets me see more on a page (of text or web page or graphical layout) and in a larger less scrunched up size. (That is unless I wanted to buy a huge eight pound 17" widescreen, which for me pretty much defeats the purpose of a portable computer.)
I know what you mean. For my programming class we used Visual Studio. The toolbars and properties boxes take up a lot of room on the sides of the screen. The school computers have 19" 4:3 monitors, and I always felt more comfortable using my laptop instead. The MBP screen worked out pretty well, but if I were to do any serious programming in VS, I think I would need at least 1920x1200 to maintain my sanity.
Movies, which used to be 4:3, went to widescreen formats as a gimmick to get people back into the theaters as TV gained popularity in the '50s.
HD went widescreen to follow in the footsteps of movies.
Lethal
Some excerpts from Wikipedia on widescreen:
Widescreen was first widely used in the late 1920s in some shorts and newsreels, including Fox Grandeur News and Fox Movietone Follies of 1929, both released on May 26, 1929 in New York City in the Fox Grandeur process.
By 1932, the Depression had forced studios to cut back on needless expense and it wasn't until the 1950s that wider aspect ratios were again used in an attempt to stop the fall in attendance due, partially, to the emergence of television in the U.S.
The original standard aspect ratio for films was 4:3 (1.33:1), and the introduction of the Academy format in 1932 brought a slight change to a 1.37 aspect ratio. This is why U.S. television sets were originally built to that specification, and the switch to a wider format was met with some resistance within the film industry. Today, however, it is solidly the norm.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to wide screen computer displays[4]:
Pros
Since many modern DVDs and some TV shows are in a widescreen format, these types of displays are optimal for their playback on a computer.
A widescreen display is closer to the aspect ratio of a typical keyboard than a 4:3 display (important for a laptop, where overall surface area for the device is limited)
Cons
A 16:10 monitor with the same diagonal size as a 4:3 monitor has 6.8% less area, meaning that you buy less screen space in total. A 16:9 monitor with the same diagonal size has 12.3% less area than standard aspect ratio display.
The fact that there was some experimentation with wider aspect ratios and larger film formats (like more expensive 65mm and 70mm) doesn't change the fact that widescreen didn't become the de-facto standard for films because it more closely matched the field of human vision. Widescreen became the de-facto standard as a marketing ploy to get people away from their 4:3 TVs and into theaters. "Widescreen" (which is a catch all term for a variety of aspect ratios), 35mm film, and a frame rate of 24 frames a second didn't become the standards for filmmaking because those were the best ways by which to record and project motion pictures. They became the standards because decades ago it made the most business sense at the time.
Lethal
Very interesting. This is consistent with my argument that widescreens have totally taken over laptops because they're a fad, not because they're more functional (for a small minority of people). So it's interesting that it was also a marketing phenomenon that drove movies to widescreen, to differentiate them from television and make it "better."
It makes sense that the same thing happened with laptops. Apple introduced the widescreen on laptops. Apple is the leader of cool in computers. So now Apple was different in a very visible obvious way. Then everyone had to follow suit or seem to be in the past. It has nothing to do with functionality, just with having to keep up with the fad or be left behind.
It makes sense that the same thing happened with laptops. Apple introduced the widescreen on laptops. Apple is the leader of cool in computers. So now Apple was different in a very visible obvious way. Then everyone had to follow suit or seem to be in the past. It has nothing to do with functionality, just with having to keep up with the fad or be left behind.