Let's Get Rid Of 16:9 Laptops Forever

I think having a 16:9 aspect ratio on my phone makes sense because then it reaches between my ear and mouth. I don't think a square would work that well.

This article is a subjective slap in my face ^^

1."When was the last time you watched a movie on your phone?"
Yesterday and the day before, F u. If you re not doing it doesnt mean other arent doing it neither...

2."a relatively minor feature(videos)"
F u here too. Videos AND Video games, and the least isnt that of a minor economical ecosystem.

3.Even though i do agree that 16:10 are a great set of screen that i used for a long time (for programming and such), 16:9 are less restrictive in the pereferal views and photoshop work... a BIG 16:9 screen wont bother you at all if you are just browsing POPSCI or viewing photos
(parallel black stripes are more unconftable for longer periods as you wished to have the full aspect ratio for your movie, than vertical black stripes for a few sec vertical photo...)

4. EFFF U KINDLY for making decisions for us ^^

PS: but yeah well noted that now you can just beam stuff to your TV and stuff, but i as many am a cable-cutter so i dont own one ^^

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No facts, No response...

The reason I prefer a 16:9 ratio is because laptops don't come with two display screens yet so the wider the screen the better i'm able to work with two simultaneous windows open. With a "square" display I am left with two windows that are horribly impracticle. And I hate constantly switching between screens so no, that is not an option. I half-heartedly endorse the EFFF U's from above. I also watch content on my phone regularly and most of my games would be horrible on a "square screen."

I actually think that you have a point- I DO watch videos on my laptop, sometimes quite a lot if I'm in the right mood, but I do a lot more web surfing than video-watching. But what about gaming? I think that gaming is more fun/immersive/visually appealing when played in widescreen- 16:9 or 16:10, for me. Also, a laptop that is the usual 12-14 inches, but is also rather taller than the usual, is not going to fit into a bookbag or even most laptop bags. But for many uses, yeah, I would prefer a 3:2 display. I guess I'll just have to wait for Sony's extensible OLED laptop screens...

I fully disagree. YouTube videos, which people watch all the time would look awkward on a square display, with ugly side bars. I want my video to fill the entire screen. That goes for my laptop and phone, as well as my TV. I don't watch movies on my phone, but I watch videos all the time, and I don't want obnoxious black bars ruining the experience. I take pictures in 16:9, I take videos in 16:9.

Web pages look bad on 16:9 resolutions, because they're not designed for it. Phones and laptops don't need to be redesigned; websites need to be redesigned to accommodate 16:9 resolutions.

I frequently have two programs running on my laptop. Two webpages, a web page and a text document, a webpage and [insert any software I'm trying to figure out how to do something in], a full screen MS Office documents, which are designed with 16:9 resolutions in mind (ie: MS Word displays two full pages, side-by-side on a 16:9 resolution, etc.

There are plenty of everyday reasons that necessitate a 16:9 resolution on phones and laptops for the average consumer.

I disagree for 2 reasons.

1. Your examples of the popsci page on various ratios ignores the fact that many people (like those on a mac) do not use "full screen" browser windows. On a wider display I can easily have a fully-wide-enough browser window AND another window in the background for reference.

2. Again, I'm on a mac, and I use Safari. I don't know how much has changed, but I used to comment about how dumb IE and other Windows based browsers were, since they had SO MUCH stuff at the top of the window. Not just a URL bar and book mark bar, but a google bar, a yahoo bar a this bar and a that bar -- it used to eat up over 50% of the vertical space. So really, that argument should be aimed at making browsers more simple, rather than display taller.

(ANd I guess, 3, I just prefer a wider aspect ratio. It looks nicer, aesthetically.)

You're always going to get more viewable area out of a 16:9 or 16:10 display unless you make the 4:3 device so enormous that it's cumbersome and awkward. Think about it. A keyboard is a wide thing, and laptops have keyboards. Put a 4:3 display on it, and it has to be a pretty small laptop, like those of days past. If you want similar viewable areas to today's laptops, you'd have to make the thing gi-huge-ically normous.

On phones, as Fear The Wabbit pointed out, you can't really hold a stupid, square thing to your face comfortably.

This article is baffling. Why on EARTH would not want something that routinely displays video to be optimized for video?

I completely disagree.

raalic made half of my point for me.. wider screens allow for full-sized keyboards... If you want a baby keyboard, get a phone.

Also, a larger screen means more room in the PC part of the laptop for batteries and heat dissipation.

4:3 laptops are more cumbersome to carry, even if the screen isn't huge. If you carry the computer with the hinge-side in your palm and the latch facing up, the wider 16:9 screened laptops are more stable laterally because they have more leveraged weight (and/or lower center of gravity or some such nonsense... but they are more stable)

16:9 and other horizontally-biased aspect ratios are preferred for a pretty simple physiological reason:

The human eye.

We're terrestrial creatures. We evolved vision that scans a landscape well, but is not as good at looking up or down. Our visual field is wider horizontally than vertically. Our peripheral vision is primarily horizontal.

We see in widescreen. That's why widescreen aspect ratios are dominant.

There are other bonuses, like the distance between mouth and ear favoring a widescreen phone, but those are incidental.

I agree with the author. I have a 4:3 laptop. Looking at web pages at full screen with a 16:9 ratio creates a serious case of tunnel-vision that drives me nuts. As for video, which I watch all the time, I'm fine with a bit of letter-boxing. Laptop width is generally set by the keyboard width, and is similar on most laptops. So he video will be about the same physical size on the screen no matter the aspect ratio. 3:2 isn't a bad compromise, but 4:3 rocks.

I agree with Iz0 completely, square ratios are impractical to us. This article was highly informal in the use of subjective analysis, rather than SCIENTIFIC fact.

16:9 is much better suited for working and having multiples windows open at a time. I've had both dimensions at my disposal at the office and NEVER used the square screen unless it was a must.

Not to mention I enjoy having a full-sized keyboard on my widescreen laptop.

The only pain? Finding the appropriate bag for the laptop. Otherwise, no complaints.

Even though a lot of people disagree with what Dan has to say in this article it is still a lot better than before. I'm so happy that you've changed your writing style.

As for the content, I have never watched a movie on my phone. I don't see the point of wasting my time staring at this pointless little screen when I can watch it on my 46 inch LCD screen in HD.
The letter box issue is annoying though it is essentially the same issue when browsing in 16:9 you just get the letter box on the left and right not the top and bottom. I always browse in full screen, again, why would I bother looking at something half its size when I can look at the full thing.

I wholeheartedly disagree with 4:3 being a superior aspect ratio for doing anything other than viewing photos, which are natively 4:3. And the reason for this is very, very simple:

If I divide 16:9 in half, I get two 8:9 boxes, or almost perfect squares. This is perfect for using two applications that are not video next to each other, because many applications are laid out to fit into roughly a square window (because most have some type of editor, which will likely have an aspect ratio close to a piece of paper, which if you then add a little bit to the sides/top for UI elements gets you pretty much to a square).

If I divide 4:3 in half I get two 2:3 boxes, which are nothing like squares and are in fact an iPhone in portate mode in terms of aspect ratio. 3:2 is absolutely terrible for doing just about anything other than reading a list. Which hey! thanks to the iPhone a lot of web-pages are now formatted for! But pretty much nothing else is. Trying to have two applications open on a 4:3 screen and use up all of the screen space is an exercise in futility. I can do 4 things at once really well, because then we get back to the magic box ratio, but unless I have a massive screen at that point everything is WAAAY too small.

Finally, you're completely ignoring the fact that the human eye, as others have pointed out, is biologically designed to have a wider Field of View in the horizontal than the vertical. We can actually see MUCH more data when it's presented in a wide aspect ratio than when it's in a tall one.

So.. basically... none of your points are valid. Except the part about optimizing a display around something we don't do very much. Because most people aren't looking at photos the majority of the time. And that's the only thing a 4:3 aspect ratio is optimized for.

I'd rather have my screen even wider. I'm sure quite a few people who actually use their laptops for something productive would too. I often do things side by side and often times 16:9 is just a smidge too small in terms of width. Get it juuuussst a bit wider and I would be happy.

Rather than have all laptop screens the same aspect ratio we need a choice!

Manufacturers have moved over to 16:9 and have totally ignored the wishes and requirements of the many people that love 4:3.

It's still possible to have two windows open side by side on a 4:3 screen - all you need are enough pixels. A popular resolution on 15.6" 16:9 screens is 1366 x 768. So if your 4:3 screen is the same width and the same resolution, your two windows will be just as easy to look at.

I suspect that the people who are complaining about their window sizes on 4:3 screens are probably using older tech which didn't have the pixel densities that we enjoy now.

Of course the laptop will be bigger which might not be to everyone's taste, but that's why we should have a choice.

And think of the massive battery you could get in a 4:3 laptop!

Umm, actually I hate 4:3 screens. 16:9 or 16:10 make way more sense. It's easier to glance side to side than it is up and down. And as others have pointed out, have you ever tried to view two windows at once on a 4:3 screen? Let's just say it doesn't work so well. Not to mention that 4:3 laptops are really bulky...

Ouch, how depressing! Practically all commenters seem to prefer 16:9. To me 4:3 or 3:2 make so much more sense for text/coding and photo editing. 16:9 is a trick to advertise a bigger screen with smaller surface area (cheaper to produce). Most art (paintings, drawings) is also closer to 3:2 or 2:3 in aspect ratio.

I think what people need to remember here is that a 4:3 screen would not be any thinner (width-wise) than a normal 16:9 one. The article mentioned that. That means that everything will still fit that ALREADY fits on your laptop screen, you'll just have EVEN MORE room.

He knows that it's March, not April, 1st right? Why the hell do you think movies are widescreen? Hint: they weren't made that way to fit modern laptop screens.

Every time I read a terrible, thinly veiled opinion passing as an article here it's by this guy.

I like dinosaurs too!!! (But I would not ride them to work everyday....)

I get the impression that Mr. Nosowitz has not been overly concerned with the writing of this article. To give him the credit - the article seems to be written from a journalists point of view - in my opinion a non-computer-user-perspective(if you don´t consider word for a minute).

I think for the regular computer-user the 16:9 ratio has the advantage of storing open palettes at the sides of the screen without obstructing the document view.

Mr. Nosowitz seems to be less skilled in visual communication. SInce we tend to read from left to write and this is widely culturally accepted in the western world, we tend to scan pictures from left to right as well (old habbits die hard). The 16:9 aspect ratio gives the visual narrator the possibility to tell longer stories due to more information.

What do you think?

How good this article is.
friv1.co | friv3.co

Yeah, why would I want a 16:9 (well I have a MacBook, so 16:10) screen? Its not like I have 40GB of widescreen movies, or happen to be a video editor, or happen to play games where 16:9 works and looks better.

Seriously. Im so happy that pretty much all content is based around 16:9 displays. I remember when they started making movies 16:9 only and I still only had a 4:3 TV. Now that its standardized, just leave it.

I agree completely. The 16:9 aspect of most LED monitors makes no sense and a lot of scrolling is required which is why portrait rotating makes sense a lot of the time but even that isn't perfect. A perfect monitor should be square then there is no need to rotate it!!

As i can see, public likes different things, AND IM FINE WITH THAT!
What i dont like is forced points of views... and systematic hate and extermination of other screens...

Its like linux distros, for each person his own shit!

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No facts, No response...

Interesting laptop, I wish it wasn't so expensive and I like to load windows 7 on it.

Yes, not load windows 8.

Otherwise I have no desire to buy it as a Google laptop or windows 8 OS.

I just signed up only to comment on this article.

First of all: I COMPLETELY AGREE 16:9 IS DUMB!

We live in a vertical society. When was the last time you guys wrote a paper horizontally? How many web scrolling is done horizontally? Since ancient times, scrolls have been vertical not horizontal. Play games? magic scrolls are also vertical.. start to see a pattern here?

Dont you guys realize that the actual physical width of the 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 16:10 or anyothers is basically the same? You are only getting robbed of vertical space!

You can watch a movie or play a game on a 4:3 just the same, having those black stripes on top/bottom of the screen makes much more sense than losing 30% of screen height.

I assume that since you guys "only" play video games and watch movies on your laptops you're merely kids. People that actually "work" on/with their devices will easily do with the black stripes for gaming & watching movies. Plus, people that work have the means, resources & right mind to not watch a movie or play a game on a laptop unless completely bored. Have you heard of "large screen tv's?". A real player or cinephile would laugh at doing that kind of stuff on a <15" laptop (if you have a larger laptop then it really misses the point of beeing a laptop).

In short: laptops/computers are meant for a multitude of tasks that require more vertical space than horizontal. 16:9 screens are meant for 2 things: gaming and movies : kids. So in the name of all non-laptop-4-entertainment people & decent people in the world. Stop cursing & start thinking.

I agree, because 4:3 fits my needs better. But I know others need the widescreen more. Better yet, why don't we just let manufacturers offer both, and give people a choice. :-)

last time I bought a laptop (4 years ago), widescreen was pretty much the only option. Glad to see that's not the case now.

How sad that so many outcry against an opinion. It seems like many here prefer 16:9 displays.

Guys, it's an opinion. If you like 16:9, GOOD FOR YOU! But why is it that *every single screen* out there is 16:9? You hate the prospect of getting rid of 16:9 screens completely, and I understand. But for people who need to write, code, do photo editing or anything that involves text or bitmaps, 4:3, 3:2, and 16:10 are superior.

Since you 16:9 fans hate the idea that 16:9 screens should be abolished compeletely, how do you think us "tall-screen" fans feel? For people that do real work and not watch por-- er, I mean movies -- all day long, 4:3 and 3:2 are superior. But there is only ONE laptop that has a 3:2 screen, and it's an insulting $1299 and only runs a browser.

Let there be some choice. If you don't like tall aspect ratios, then don't buy them, but do not needlessly and unfairly squander those who prefer taller displays and encourage OEMs to offer more choices.

One size doesn't fit all.

I really can't understand why Pop Sci continues to allow this whiny, opinionated jackass to write "articles" for them. This time he didn't even bother to copy-paste anything from an actual scientific article to whine about and just offered up some thoughtless opinion alone. This "writer" is almost single-handedly lowering Pop Sci to rag status.

I really can't understand why Pop Sci continues to allow this whiny, opinionated jackass to write "comments" for them. This time he didn't even bother to copy-paste anything from an actual scientific article to whine about and just offered up some thoughtless opinion alone. This "poster" is almost single-handedly lowering Pop Sci to rag status.

Storm in a tea cup ? The difference is not all that much. 3:2
equates to 16 : 10.6. What is the big deal?

The problem is not the hardware or screen size. The real problem is the programmers of the WebPages and making most of the space.

Now for the programmer has to know in advance what screen space is given to him and create WebPages for all the various sizes.

I do not know as I turn on my computer and open my browser, the webpage server is notified of my personal computer screen size. I prefer not giving out my hardware information. Indirectly, I just imagine this helps those who make viruses or prone to hacking.

My work around for this is to just have a really big screen and even my laptop is 17 inch in size. I do appreciate that Internet Explorer gives me the option of reducing or enlarge the size in the lower left corner.

I suppose a standard should be made for those who make WebPages, still I use my computer and laptop for multi media and some things just view better wider, too.

@gamoses
@kunai

love you both man! couldnt said it better myself ^^

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No facts, No response...

LONG LIVE 16:9

Hey Dan I understand your point about scrolling, but square screens are stupid. That's why they are a thing of the past.
If you really need vertical space there are monitors made especially for that. Go buy one now.
There, you learned something.
So don't screw things up for the rest of us OK?!

Uh, I agree with everyone else. 16:9 is great. It is the native video size for high def video, and I use it on my work laptop and desktop too. Webpages, including PopSci, display just fine. Why? Because the web designers were smart enough to center their page for all size screens. Many other programs too have adapted to the added real estate. Sorry, just because you don't use modern tech doesn't mean everyone should stay in the dark ages with you...

Obviously a lot of this argument is very subjective. There is one irrefutable fact, though. A 16:9 screen (in the common 1920x1080 pixel form) gives you less pixels and thus less usable screen compared to a 16:10 screen (in its common 1920x1200 pixel form).

When you demand 16:9 you are demanding that you get LESS. When's the last time you fought to get LESS?

16:9, in the common 1920x1080 form, is just a convenience for panel manufacturers because they can then make just one kind of panel for the living room and the laptop.

They are trying to trick us into thinking 16:9 is better.

I, for one, infinitely prefer 16:10 (1920x1200 pixels) for laptop and desktop. These screens have NOTHING to do with my living room TV, so why on earth should they have the same format?

This article is written by just 1 person...an opinion of just 1 person. Each of us can write our own opinion and we'll get as much comments.
It's unfortunate that this website (as with few others) doesn't adjust correctly to a 16:9 aspect ratio... :-(

Funny how the writer uses the PopSci website to make a case for a poor browsing experience when it is painfully obvious that the web site design/layout is terribly outdated.

Ever heard of responsive web design??? It's time to catch-up with the rest of the web PopSci!

16:9 is far better on any device than 4:3/3:2 in every respect.

QUESTIONS:
1) Who is this guy and why is he writing for PopSci??
2) Why is this even a discussion on PopSci?? A post like this is better suited for the trolls on Gizmodo No??

16:10 all the way.

Uh, I agree with everyone else. 16:9 is great. It is the native video size for high def video, and I use it on my work laptop and desktop too.
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