Maybe I’m misunderstanding something… Most everybody I know now is getting a “widescreen” monitor. And, they don’t want a 15-inch or even a 17-inch, both of which are in danger of becoming extinct. No, the minimum most people I know will accept is a 19-inch widescreen “flat screen” (what they mean is TFT) monitor. The main reason given: “So I can see,” these folks complaining of hard-to-see text on small monitors.
It all strikes me as absurd and stupid. I guess most people have no clue that monitors can be adjusted, and the text made whatever size they are comfortable with. The other argument, less used, is that they want “more space”, presumably to open more windows or programs and see them at the same time. When they tell me that, I tell them what they want is not a WIDE screen but a second monitor. Because, inevitably, these folks plunk down their money for this widescreen display, and open their Explorer window the full width of the screen, blocking out all open windows. These folks don’t know how to use a widescreen monitor effectively, and therefore render the extra pixels moot the second they plug the thing in.
As for the size thing: native monitor resolutions seem to run higher as the screens get bigger, the goal seems to be to make everything look abut the same size regardless of what size your screen is. Since 99.9% of the people I’ve met never even *consider* adjusting their monitors (they just pull them out o the box and plug them in), buying a “bigger” monitor is an utterly useless gesture, as the text on-screen will appear the same size regardless of the size of monitor they select.
I don’t own a widescreen monitor, but I suspect my next monitor will almost certainly have to be, as manufacturers are riding this wave of stupidity and the market is driven, as it always has been, by the masses—most of whom really are kind of dumb.
As I grow older, I’m slowly learning to make peace with the fact that almost no one actually listens to me. When I got a lady a hot deal on a Sony TFT closeout, she sniffed haughtily and instead bought a no-name widescreen. I own the Sony model I was recommending. It has outstanding clarity and focus. The monitor she bought instead cost $100 more and looks terrible. But she got her “widescreen.”
I’m just drowning in idiots.
9 Comments
I can't stand widescreen for computer monitors, anyway. When using a computer, you really want a taller monitor, not a wider one -- there's precious little that a wider monitor will let you do, other than say "I have a widescreen monitor!"
scrawled by James Carman | October 4, 2007 7:32 PM
I kinda wish tallscreen monitors had caught on. As monitors continue to go farther away from normal page aspect, layouts end up being worse and worse for anything that's supposed to be printable. Heck, my iLamp monitor is wider, proportionally speaking, than two pages side by side.
Physically speaking, though, there's one advantage to going wider rather than taller with flatscreens. If you make most flatscreens taller, the top and bottom get progressively worse in terms of being too bright or too dim, but side to side increases don't affect that.
scrawled by David Van Domelen | October 4, 2007 10:23 PM
I hate dual monitor setups. Nothing ever opens in the right window and I hate always scanning two surfaces for the icon or window I want.
People need to learn the simple elegance and beauty of the Alt-Tab. When I discovered Alt+Tab, I felt as though a whole new world opened to me. Teach them the Alt+Tab Priest. Teach them...
scrawled by Jason | October 5, 2007 8:14 AM
Alt-tab is nice in Windows XP. A little less useful in MacOSX if you have multiple windows with the same application, as it only cycles through apps rather than windows. No idea if they screwed it up for Vista, though.
scrawled by Dave Van Domelen | October 5, 2007 12:39 PM
Just this week I received the latest issue of Abacus, "the accountant-centric magazine", and in the Geek article the first section was on Multiple monitors. While it states that "dual monitors are becoming a standard in the profession," the suggestion is to go to "dual monitors" such as DoubleSight Displays' DS19 which is a dual screen 19" monitor (around $700.) The primary advantage of "dual" monitors as compared to "two" are the look, the perfect balance, and the fine alignment and consistency of refresh and flicker rate.
Much better than wide...On my 19" I keep the taskbar to the left because I need the height, not the width.
Now that I think about it, my 5' 1" body could use that too!
Eileen
scrawled by Eileen | October 5, 2007 3:03 PM
If they say they need "more space" they may actually be talking about ACTUAL space. The monitors do take up less room on your desk.
scrawled by Anonymous | October 5, 2007 4:17 PM
To Dave Van Domelen:
In Mac OS X, you should be able to use Apple-~ (tilda) to cycle through windows in the current application.
scrawled by Darren | October 6, 2007 10:15 AM
To Dave Van Domelen:
In Mac OS X, you should be able to use Apple-~ (tilda) to cycle through windows in the current application.
scrawled by Darren | October 6, 2007 10:39 AM
I've had dual monitors at work for a long time, first dual 19" CRTs, now dual 19 or 20" LCDs. I love it, and have a hard time getting by with just a single 19" monitor at home when I do more than websurf or play games. Web/software development, Illustrator/Photoshop, and even preparing technical documents is SO much easier with a second monitor.
I've also used widescreen LCDs a little bit - we've got a number of 24" monitors for special purposes at work. They can all be used in either portrait or landscape orientation, so if you really want "tallscreen," you can do that. It's definitely more work to use a widescreen monitor effectively. With two monitors, it's easy to just throw windows around and maximize them, whereas with a widescreen monitor you actually have to manually manage your window sizes and positions.
One thing you didn't explicitly mention, Priest, is that unlike CRTs, LCDs have a "native resolution" at which they look good, and running them at any other resolution makes them look fairly lousy. I see a lot of people running 19" 1280x1024 LCDs at 1024x768, and it just makes me wince.
scrawled by Jerry Ray | October 18, 2007 6:34 PM