19" LCD OR 19" LCD Widescreen Monitor?

FreedomGUNDAM

Platinum Member
Jun 14, 2006
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Looking at two Samsung LCD for my rig, can't decide if I want the 19" LCD or 19" LCD Widescreen. Primary usage would be surfing, office work and gaming. Not much watching movies or tv on my computer

Ideas?
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
If you don't watch movies or anything that uses a widescreen format I'm not sure you would notice a difference for average usage. Is there a price difference? That could be a factor as well.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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If you're going gaming then get widescreen. You'll be ALOT happier. Also 19" square is 5:4 Ratio, aka a very freaky and odd ratio.
 

ottothecow

Senior member
Aug 30, 2005
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19" regular is a lot bigger than 19" widescreen.

to get closer to the same amount of screen real estate you will ahve to look up toward 20 or 21" widescreens.
 

mshan

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2004
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Non widescreen because you will be able to see more of a webpage at once (personally I find a 1280 x 1024 non-widescreen display for websurfing and general purpose computing).

Plus, letter boxed widescreen material (thin black bars on top and bottom) look much better than pillar boxes when you watch non-widescreen material on a widescreen display.

http://www.tvcalculator.com
 

vhx

Golden Member
Jul 19, 2006
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Widescreen, because you can see more of everything, including webpages. You get more space to work worth, and they are great for gaming, especially for FPS/MMO's where you can see more on both sides.
 

mshan

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2004
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19 inch widescreen displays typically have a 1440 x 900 resolution.

Like ottothecow said, you probably have to move up to 20.1 inch+ 1680 x 1050 resolution screen for comparable useable vertical space while webbrowsing and general purpose computing. Go to a local retailer and take a look at some widescreen displays with non-widescreen material; a lot of the time applications get stretched horizontally but you end up with lots of essentially empty space (unless you have multiple small windows open, in which case useable workspace is increased, though everything is smaller).
 

ottothecow

Senior member
Aug 30, 2005
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Originally posted by: vhx
Widescreen, because you can see more of everything, including webpages. You get more space to work worth, and they are great for gaming, especially for FPS/MMO's where you can see more on both sides.

crack pipe anyone? Webpages are almost always vertical (you scroll up and down and get mad when you ahve to scroll sideways) so you will see LESS with a widescreen. You actually get less space with a widescreen but sometimes you are better able to use it (2 windows fit better next to each other) and not all games let you see more, often you see less top to bottom instead of more side to side or even worse they just squish it.

Widescreen can be great when it works for you but dont kid yourself that it is better in all categories. A square is a mroe efficient use of space than a rectangle...so unless that rectangle fits your uses exactly, the square will have more space.

Of course when it comes to small laptops and the such, this changes. widescreen becomes your friend because it lets you still keep the laptop small but be wide enough to fit the full sized keyboard (like the 13 inch widescreen macbooks)
 

Jules

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,213
0
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Originally posted by: ottothecow
Originally posted by: vhx
Widescreen, because you can see more of everything, including webpages. You get more space to work worth, and they are great for gaming, especially for FPS/MMO's where you can see more on both sides.

crack pipe anyone? Webpages are almost always vertical (you scroll up and down and get mad when you ahve to scroll sideways) so you will see LESS with a widescreen. You actually get less space with a widescreen but sometimes you are better able to use it (2 windows fit better next to each other) and not all games let you see more, often you see less top to bottom instead of more side to side or even worse they just squish it.

Widescreen can be great when it works for you but dont kid yourself that it is better in all categories. A square is a mroe efficient use of space than a rectangle...so unless that rectangle fits your uses exactly, the square will have more space.

Of course when it comes to small laptops and the such, this changes. widescreen becomes your friend because it lets you still keep the laptop small but be wide enough to fit the full sized keyboard (like the 13 inch widescreen macbooks)

20.1inch Widescreen ftw.
 

Sniper82

Lifer
Feb 6, 2000
16,517
0
76
For what its worth I went from a 19" CRT to a 19" non widescreen then finally a Viewsonic 19" Wide and I will never go non widescreen again unless I have to. It won't be by choice thats for sure. Gaming on a widescreen is just better.

As for surfing the net I do prefer non widescreen but I think the pros out does the cons so I'm happy with it. Although if I had the horsepower(high end video card) I would have rather had a 20.1". But if you can't run games in the monitors native res it's almost pointless to me.