I recently found PC monitor shopping to be a pain in the rump. No, it’s not because of the prices; LCD monitors are cheap! (In fact, has anyone seen a CRT monitor in a store recently?) The quality of the monitors is okay. But what’s irking me are the monitors’ aspect ratio.
An aspect ratio is the monitor screen’s horizontal and vertical dimensions. Traditional computer monitors use a 4:3 aspect ratio; the screen is 4 units wide and 3 units tall.
The monitor itself is sold by the screen’s diagonal measurement. But more important are the screen’s horizontal and vertical dimensions.
For example, the 19-inch monitor I use on my main writing computer measures 14½ inches wide by 11½ inches tall (give or take). That’s a big, square screen which is perfect for my writing needs. I can see about a page of text in a window, plus have space on either side for toolbars and the desktop. Lovely.
For my new monitor, I wanted something similar. Sadly, nothing at the store was square. All I could find were widescreen monitors, those sporting the 16:9 or HDTV format.
The wide or cinema format is okay for watching movies, but not for the kind of document work (word processing, programming, web page design) that I do. Not only that, I’ve read recently that laptop computers are going to be sold primarily with widescreen monitors. The reason isn’t because more people enjoy the format or watch movies on their computers. Nope, it’s because those monitors, while sporting the same diagonal size, are cheaper to manufacture.
My 19-inch 4:3 monitor sports about 167 square inches of screen real estate. But a typical wide 19-inch monitor, measuring about 10 inches by 16 inches, has only 160 square inches. That’s 47 square inches less. Same “size” monitor, but cheaper to make.
The differences get more dramatic as the screen size increases:
I have an old, 20-inch CRT monitor. It measures 16-by-12 inches for 192 square inches. A typical, widescreen 20-inch LCD monitor has dimensions of 17-by-10 inches for 170 square inches. Far, far less. That is the real reason for the widescreen push.
By the way, I ended up finding a 4:3 monitor (an LG Flatron, 17″ model at just over $200). But I had to go to an on-line store to find one.
Interestingly, while almost all computer monitors sold today are widescreen, there are still hundreds and thousands of 4:3 televisions being sold, despite the fact that the digital switchover (DSO) is coming and that almost every TV programme made today is made in 16:9.
Considering that a 16:9 aspect ratio would be more useful for TV than for computers, this is incredibly odd. Even without HDTV programming, widescreen TV looks so much better than it does in 4:3.
Comment by Jonathan Rothwell — April 23, 2008 @ 7:52 am
I agree. And I do have one widescreen computer monitor. It’s nice and roomy, not the squat things that they’re pushing in the stores. But I can see the point that TVs will outsell monitors and they probably poop the same units out of the same factories.
They’ve been advertising for HDTV here in the States; government-run ads that for some reason feature a woman with a thick, Southern drawl. Despite these ads, I’m certain you’ll see chaos and anger here when the switch over to full digital is made in 2009. Remember, the US has been trying for over 30 years to go metric and I know people who are extremely stubborn and refuse to even study metric. If this were the UK, I’m certain we’d still be using shillings and farthings as money. 🙂
Comment by admin — April 23, 2008 @ 8:01 am
We have a 16:10 monitor for our computer (A Viewsonic VA1912w), and I like it! In Outlook, I have plenty of room for a healthy-sized preview pane, message listing and folder lists. Word processing, I think, works better on it.
(Also, you might want to check your maths. At last check, 167-160 didn’t equal four. Unless WambooliMath is being used, then in which case it probably does! 😉 )
Comment by Douglas — April 24, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
WambooliMath fixed. :\
Comment by admin — April 24, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Interesting point you make about digital TV confusion.
Our side of the pond, DSO began earlier this year when the analogue transmissions from the Whitehaven mast in Cumbria were shut down. There was a little minor confusion, but since then they appear to have learnt their lesson, and now digital switchover public information films appear during many junctions between programmes and advertisements. It’s due to complete in 2012 here, when analogue transmissions in the Carlton/LWT and Meridian areas go dark.
I saw a report on an American news bulletin around a year ago (I believe it was ABC World News with Charles Gibson) about how many people in America who were purchasing shiny new TVs were, essentially, still trying to find somewhere to plug the coaxial cable from their old aerial in. Of course, they weren’t aware they also needed a decoder box (and an HDTV digital TV service if they wanted HD programming).
Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks TV sets (and, to some extent, set top boxes) have the world’s worst user interfaces? They’re slow, and it’s a nightmare trying to make each component interoperate with the next, especially if they use coaxial cables instead of SCART, HDMI or DVI connectors.
Comment by Jonathan Rothwell — April 28, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Yes! Televisions have no interface. They need a remote now, which is silly. When I was young, TVs had dials. One for the channel and one on/off/volume knob. The Interface was brilliant and simple.
My nods for the worst user interface goes to digital clocks. Why sport only two or three buttons? Press-hold-click is a stupid interface. Why they don’t make digital clocks that you can set with a dial is beyond me. Cheap, I guess.
Also telephone answering machines, and cell phones. They have so many buttons and none of them are useful. Oh no! You’ve started me on a rant! 🙂
Comment by admin — April 28, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
167-160 =? 47
Comment by The Master Zhang — May 1, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
Yes, Master! Originally I had written 4, but it was corrected. So I crossed out the 4 (which is very difficult to see) and put in the 7. Please don’t punish me!
Comment by admin — May 2, 2008 @ 6:13 am