Widescreen LCDs going widescreen by 2010

The term "widescreen" is one of the most notoriously confusing monikers (this side of Full HD) used to describe a display's specifications. Widescreen generally translates to a 16:10 aspect ratio when discussing computer LCDs (monitors or laptop displays) or 16:9 if you're talking about the living room TV. Of course, it can also refer to the 2.35:1 ratio often used for films or something entirely different if you're Apple touting the wonders of your new widescreen iPhone. Fortunately, we're trending towards at least some convergence around the 16:9 aspect. DisplaySearch predicts that by 2010, 16:9 panels will make up 90% of new laptop displays and 67% of new monitors. Acer has been at the forefront of this transition with products like its Gemstone Blue laptops and the Acer P224W monitor pictured above. The move is being driven by panel manufacturers' desire to maximize production efficiency -- something they should have realized before the glass sizes diverged in the first place. Regardless, the end result should be more pennies saved by you, Joe Consumer, and that's a good thing.

[James @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:00AM]

Engadget got my hopes up.
I thought I read Widescreen LCDs going WIRELESS by 2010

[w00t @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:13AM]

Wasn't the decision behind 16:10 was that people would want to have playback controls on the screen when watching a 16:9 movie?

Fools... didn't they realise it's much nicer to have them fade into view when you need them, then fade back out giving you the movie fullscreen?

At least the software developers did :)

[McBUNT @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:24AM]

No, it was so we'd buy a 16:9 screen 5 years later.

[Hero @ Jul 2nd 2008 8:38AM]

In micro economics it's called price discrimination. Manufacturers know that people pay more for TV’s or are willing to pay more than they do for monitors. By making TV panels 16:10 and monitor panels 16:9, they get to price the 16:9 panels more when it essentially costs them the same to manufacture.

[teej @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:48PM]

at 16:9, we'll still have the controls...every movie coming out now seems to have the ridiculously wide 2.35:1 ratio :-\

[Joe @ Jul 3rd 2008 4:48PM]

@teej

You say that as if 2.35:1 is a new thing! Seen many old movies lately?

[Paul @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:19AM]

And while we're at it, can we just agree to refer to monitors by their resolution, rather than xxGA or the like? Resolution numbers are meaningful data, SXGA or whatever requires a google search.

[impulse777 @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:29AM]

yeah hopefully they'll change the labeling system while they're at it

[w00t @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:32AM]

What, give customers the hard facts instead of confusing them with WQUXGA?!?

Yes, that's real. It's 3840 x 2400 or Wide Quad Ultra Extended Graphics Array :)

[w00t @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:37AM]

Wait, it gets better... there's a WHUXGA or Wide Hexadecatuple Ultra Extended Graphics Array!

Try saying that after a few pints :)

[John @ Jul 3rd 2008 12:15AM]

You only really need to know two... VGA and WUXGA. VGA is your standard 640x480 and pops up on cell phones (if you're luck), and more commonly appears as QVGA (quarter-VGA). WUXGA is the ever popular 1080p.

[Thomas Frank @ Jul 2nd 2008 7:04PM]

It's not only saved pennies for the customer.
A 15" 4:3 panel has a bigger surface than a 15" widescreen :)
The marketing will always say here get the very big n-inch display but in fact widescreen only saves pixels.
Do you think the display or panel vendors knew that and therefore pushed widescreen to the notebooks as well?

[snoopyau @ Jul 3rd 2008 12:26AM]

Phasing out FS LCD and FS CRT's is nothing new
Its been happening slowly the last few years.

One point with this move to 'digital' and 'high def'
from a lot of people that have used CRTS
for TV and Monitors over the years is that we have
watched media on TV/Monitors using the ENTIRE
screen's space.

Widescreen seems like a good idea in theory but
its a hard sell for a lot of Die hard 4:3 CRT fans
(Myself inculded)

One thing that disapoints is that
High Def actually DOES support 4:3
but you never see a program transmitted
in High Def 4:3 , High Def to the general public
seems to be forced to be these WS resulutions
that leave HUGE amounts of black on the screen.

Myself and a lot of people have found WS and 16:9 to
be a joke , why get a 16:9 TV or Screen when your
still going to get the video with black on the screen .
A lot of media Ive seen almost takes up half the screen
in black or at least one third , you might aswell chop
off the screen to avoid the black .

Here is same resulutions that you may not be aware of:

1080p 16:9 = 1920 x 1080 , 1080p 4:3 = 1460 x 1080
1080i 16:9 = 1920 x 540 , 1080i 4:3 = 1460 x 540
720p 16:9 = 1280 x 720 , 720p 4:3 = 960 x 720
480p 16:9 = 860 x 480 , 480p 4:3 = 640 x 480
480i 16:9 = 860 x 240 , 480i 4:3 = 640 x 240

[LowTeckh @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:29AM]

How the hell is this good when the majority of us widescreen monitor users are using 16:10 panels? AFAIK there are more people staring at $200-300 20" - 24" monitors than there are $1k-3k ego screens. Most of us just transitioned to our 16:10 monitors in a past few years and now we're told we're obsolete? Way to make the display game into a computer hardware war (graphic cards obsolete in half a year anyone?)

[w00t @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:42AM]

Does it really matter if you're in 1920 x 1080 (16:9) or 1920 x 1200 (16:10)?

It's not that it's obsolete. They just want to standardise future widescreen displays so they don't have to make a 16:9 and 16:10 panel the same size.

It's all about reducing costs. It makes no real difference to the consumer.

[heyguy @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:59AM]

There are a couple reasons to go to 16:9 from 16:10 (from the manufacturer's perspective). 16:10 screens are ~5.2% bigger in terms of screen area at the same diagonal. You lose 8.86 sq in with 20" screens. Also, wider screens help hide the terrible vertical viewing angles of all those crappy TN panels the manufacturers love so much.

[giuliop @ Jul 2nd 2008 6:09AM]

"Does it really matter if you're in 1920 x 1080 (16:9) or 1920 x 1200 (16:10)?"

Of course it does. It's 120 pixels less of vertical resolution, or -10%.

"It's all about reducing costs. It makes no real difference to the consumer."

Yep, it means that while they reduce costs, we are going to pay [at least] the same amount of money for less resolution.

Are you happy with that?

[Brian! @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:34AM]

Whatever. Just as long as they add pixels to the horizontal and don't swipe them from the vertical. Some of these resolutions have such crappy horizontal lines you end up with the illusion of a big screen with less pixels.

Of course, this is coming from a motion graphic artist. I currently run three screens at 1920x1200 and still find myself filling the screens. I have my main work canvas (middle), communications on my left (VoIP, email, web, etc...) along with any documents for referencing.

Adobe Bridge on my right so that I can quickly view my assets and pull them into whatever app I am using. Or I might be coding so I keep reference material there too. The right screen also gets used as a movie display as some animation work can be painfully dull to execute so a show in the background can make the grind go faster.

Sign me up for more pixels! I want to start upgrading to 30 inchers but they are still so pricey, plus I would probably need to consider an even more powerful graphics card array. Sheesh.

[w00t @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:47AM]

What we really need is much higher DPI screens and resolution independence.

Not only will everything (especially text) look beautifully crisp similar to printed text, you'd be able to set the size of all the on screen controls without distorting it all, so how much screen space you get on a display is entirely up to you - within reasonable limits anyway :)

[John @ Jul 3rd 2008 12:19AM]

Uh... as a graphics artist man or whatnot, you should be well aware of WQXGA monitors that are 2560x1600 which are most commonly used for graphics design - monitors like the Apple Cinema Display. I would assume 'motion graphic' means something like 'video' to us laypeople, and from what I've heard Apple's got that market by the balls.

[Michael LaFramboise @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:05AM]

So... will a 17" laptop for example get slightly wider and a bit slimmer? Is that about right?

[feffrey @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:21AM]

widescreen lcd, ha I'll stick to my 4:3, crt thank you very much.
I do plan to go lcd eventually, to a nice 5:4 1280x1024

[z0phi3l @ Jul 2nd 2008 11:03AM]

Good luck finding any, I don't think they even make non wide screens anymore, but the again only someone stupid would want a square screen when wide is so much better.

[Craig @ Jul 3rd 2008 12:35AM]

If they're putting 16:9 screens in laptops because they think that most of the time laptops are being used to watch movies, they're sadly mistaken.

Since most web pages, Word documents, email clients, and spreadsheets are taller than they are wide, those of us who actually have to get work done (versus just watching pr0n and playing video games all day) need as much vertical resolution as we can get.

Heck, in my office, I turned both my 22" LCDs 90 degrees (portrait) so I could have enough vertical pixels to actually get something done without scrolling every 2 seconds.

[Joonas @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:38AM]

Just buy 1920x1080 TV and use that as your PC's monitor.

[maty @ Jul 2nd 2008 6:25AM]

And what about laptops?

And what about the people who don't have $3000 to buy one?

Muppet.

[ShadowKain @ Jul 2nd 2008 8:58AM]

TV's cost much more dingle berry. And having the correct dispay resoltion ensures those High quality Blu-Ray's will stay and BE displayed in the correct manner. Pfft 120 pixels? Yea in high def thats a good difference.

[MB_User @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:56AM]

Ok, I hate to be that guy, but it's "you're" (that stuff drives me up the wall, sorry)

[Kamokazi @ Jul 2nd 2008 7:15AM]

You're not the only one that gets driven nuts by that stuff.

[misieq @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:57AM]

Now that's just stupid, what they're planning to do. Vertical resolution is a very important factor when it comes to display - it translates not only to movie and it's controls, but also to number of lines of code you can see at once and having many of them is way better than having fewer.
The producers are basicly stealing from us - 4:3 and similar monitors provide user with biggest viewing space - they're the closest ones to the square. With the same diagonal, the more thing is similar to line (which is obviously the case with widescreens), the less viewing space you have.

Too bad that for regular luser the most important factor when buying is marketing and they stand no chance against sellers.

[mai9 @ Jul 2nd 2008 6:32AM]

dammit! I don't want a 1920x1080 (16:9), I want a 1920x1200 (16:10) because I do want vertical space! Give me the vertical pixels! I don't want to scroll all day long, specially on laptops.

[Destian @ Jul 2nd 2008 3:37PM]

Buy a 4:3?

[CmpingSmktrd @ Jul 2nd 2008 7:04AM]

I see no reason why this is a good thing. The switch from 16:10 to 16:9 means less rows of pixels. Sure there won't be black bars, but the viewing area of HD video will be the same for each screen size.

Also, why did we diverge in the first place? There must be a some sort of reasoning to why Personal Computer displays were put in 16:10 as opposed to TV's 16:9.

I also find it a little odd that this would be a cost saving measure considering the very small amount of convergence between TV panels and PC panels. (For example, its not like making 20" LCD panels 16:9 will be a cost saving measure when there are no 20" LCD TVs that would also use such a panel. Unless I'm missing something here?

Honestly, I have no idea how this is going to be a good thing for the consumer.

[pibax @ Jul 2nd 2008 9:11AM]

I think it´s because humans like the golden ratio ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio ) and 16:10 is nearly 1,618. so I think it just loods good to us. So that´s the main reason for 16:10

[bob @ Jul 2nd 2008 7:08AM]

I want my 4:3 ;_;

[EMoShunz @ Jul 2nd 2008 8:04AM]

so, if the whole point of all this was to make a 'home theatre' back when the specs were created, why didn't the theatre 'true widescreen' ratio become the standard? i've always wondered why a widescreen tv still has letterboxing on a lot of movies.
so you get black lines on movies and tv, was it to be fair? does anyone offer a 2.35:1 2538x1080p tv?

[giuliop @ Jul 2nd 2008 10:22AM]

Well, first of all, there is no real "theatre 'true widescreen' ratio". Movies are still shot in a variety of formats; yes, 2:35:1 is predominant in Hollywood movies but it's not the standard.
Second, with a 2:35 aspect ratio screen you would still get black lines with old TV material and with all the movies with a smaller ratio, so it would be no real solution to the problem.
This is why I still consider 4:3 to be best: yes, you get letterbox with widescreen movies (but that also happens now, as you noted), but you get full resolution with 4:3 material (and there's a lot).

[EMoShunz @ Jul 2nd 2008 12:06PM]

alright, after some more research with the info you fine commenters gave me, it looks like the 16:9 ratio was chosen as a compromise between 4:3 and 2.35 (2.4 panavision):1. apparently it will get you a decent size viewing area on both even though letterbox or pillarbox is applied.

[neofolklore @ Jul 2nd 2008 8:11AM]

dumbest nonApple article ever.

[bartoron @ Jul 2nd 2008 9:24AM]

The Hello Kitty telephone was worse.

[ryd @ Jul 2nd 2008 10:48AM]

2.35:1 is "CinemaScope", FYI.
1.85:1 is "Widescreen", in cinema terms.
1.66:1 is the European wide aspect ratio.
The TV "widescreen" format of 16:9 is actually 1.77:1 an awkward half way point between US and Euro ratios.

[z0phi3l @ Jul 2nd 2008 11:08AM]

And that could be why we have 16:9 so that they didn't have to make a certain ratio for American and another for Euro users.

[EMoShunz @ Jul 2nd 2008 11:37AM]

very insightful, thanks. answers my question above too.
so, i want a cinemascape t.v.

[TheLostSwede @ Jul 2nd 2008 10:12AM]

The cost saving has to do with how they cut the glass, nothing else. They get more panels per sheet if they do 16:9 instead of 16:10 and the same goes for 16:10 over 4:3. In other words, they're cheapscates. Hopefully this one backfires and no-one buys these stupid new screens. Why would you want less vertial pixels on a computer screen? It doesn't make a big difference on a TV, but when you're working on a computer display, you want to be able to squeeze in as much as possible on the space you have, not less.

[bill @ Jul 2nd 2008 10:55AM]

For TV's this is great...but for laptops it sucks.....When you need as much space VERTICALLY to see more stuff on the screen. And laptops are not a method to watch HD movies. They are to work on.

It terribly difficult to find a decent work machine that doesnt have either the horrendous SHINY screens or the Wide Screen format screen. The shiny screens are horrible to work on in the airport or anywhere with windows or lights. They turn into mirrors and reflect EVERY light source back in your face.

And the smaller vertically screen show less rows in excel and other programs where you need to see a large document.

Best ones are still the ThinkPads period.

[01 @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:22PM]

Shouldn't this be titles "Widescreen LCD's going Widescreenier..."?

Anyway, Bill, I'd much rather watch a movie on my widescreen MBP than on my XP Desktop...mainly for the monitor. Additionally, I can plug my MBP into my Plasma, which is MUCH nicer than either of the computers. As far as laptops being soley for work...well, you've obviously never taken a plane trip for more than 2 hours.

[Down @ Jul 2nd 2008 12:28PM]

I guess I'm one of the few that is happy about the move. I just wish it happened earlier.

[Gruff @ Jul 2nd 2008 4:11PM]

"or 16:9 if *your* talking about the living room TV"

how about, "you're" ???

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 3rd 2008 1:05AM]

Remind me to buy the very last 16:10 monitor.... I want all my screen real estate screw the manufacturers and hollywood.