Why are screen sizes still measured in inches?

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KAZANI

KAZANI

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Sep 10, 2006
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Why does the rest of the world have to catter to the silly measurement habits of the US consumer? Europe alone is a much larger market, yet manufacturers insist on an inch-based marketing scheme. It's not like updating to the metric system in this situation will be adding to any costs, either.
 
KAZANI

KAZANI

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Sep 10, 2006
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Anubis said:
its really not hard to just multiply by 2.5
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Exactly my point: Why is it the rest of the world obliged to multiply and not the US that has to divide? Is the US more important as a market than Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada and Australia COMBINED?
 
KAZANI

KAZANI

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Model names usually contain the inches of the screen and this makes retailers's job of conveying metric dimensions through their marketing complicated. But you still don't address the core issue here: why do manufacturers cater only to the US market's quaintness? What makes the US market so compelling so as put the onus of conversion on the rest of the world's shoulders? If anything, it's the US minority that needs to be punished for dawdling with metric adoption.
 
Chapbass

Chapbass

Diamond Member
May 31, 2004
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KAZANI said:
Why does the rest of the world have to catter to the silly measurement habits of the US consumer? Europe alone is a much larger market, yet manufacturers insist on an inch-based marketing scheme. It's not like updating to the metric system in this situation will be adding to any costs, either.
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Just so the manufacturers can laugh at posts like these :D
 
SonicIce

SonicIce

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Apr 12, 2004
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woo hoo
smiley_flag.gif
USA! USA! thread backfire
 
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brakteat

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Dec 16, 2011
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Ben90

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brakteat said:
Dell now present their screens for the Swedish market in cm, so my latest purchases of screens have been 76 cm and 61 cm respectively. However, the model numbers still represent inches, U3011 and U2412M. It would be reasonable to change this to U7611, U6112M and corresponding numbers in the future, because the majority of Dell's customers use the metric system.
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Maybe they should rename the i7-3770K as:
Intel 4 Core with HTT 3.5GHz Base 3.9GHz Turbo HD Graphics 4000 LGA 1155 77W
 
gorcorps

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
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KAZANI said:
Exactly my point: Why is it the rest of the world obliged to multiply and not the US that has to divide?
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You're not obligated... nothing is stopping the the companies from using other units in other countries.

In fact until this post I had no idea monitors were reported in inches world wide.

Suck it everybody!
 
bigsnyder

bigsnyder

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2004
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KAZANI said:
Why does the rest of the world have to catter to the silly measurement habits of the US consumer? Europe alone is a much larger market, yet manufacturers insist on an inch-based marketing scheme. It's not like updating to the metric system in this situation will be adding to any costs, either.
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Because Chuck Norris said so.
 
ultimatebob

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
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bigsnyder said:
Because Chuck Norris said so.
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And Jack Bauer is backing him up :)

Seriously, though... All the tech sites that I go to pander to US interests and display sizes in inches... Even the ones in Taiwan and China.

It's good to be a world superpower, I guess... Although it will probably be the US's turn to pander to India and China soon.
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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Because people are used to measurements. You know what a 19" monitor looks like, and you know what a 24" monitor looks like. Why switch to metric? Who would it benefit? The people who take out a measuring tape every time they hear a monitor size number? It has nothing to do with metric vs imperial.
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,830
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ultimatebob said:
And Jack Bauer is backing him up :)

Seriously, though... All the tech sites that I go to pander to US interests and display sizes in inches... Even the ones in Taiwan and China.

It's good to be a world superpower, I guess... Although it will probably be the US's turn to pander to India and China soon.
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Because those are the increments. Do you expect a company to stamp 50.8cm on their product package?

Are bra sizes in France in cm instead of inches?
 
G

greenhawk

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Feb 23, 2011
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might as well ask why keep using diagonal size when as screens get a higher ratio for wide screen, the same diagonal has less actual screen realestate.

but then might as well point out HDD makers still using a base 10 to report a drive size with windows using base 2
 
KAZANI

KAZANI

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Sep 10, 2006
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corkyg said:
For openers, Kazani's premise is wrong. I just visited the Samsung Germany site, and all of their monitors have metric measurements. Look here . . .

http://www.samsung.com/de/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/led-tv

This comes from the manufacturer, i.e., Samsung. Just click on a monitor and the specs are in German - and the first monitor is 138cm.
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LOL, double units is a relatively new thing and is of little consequence on a practical level. The naming scheme is still in inches and retailers can't effectively use it to push metric throughout the board. If you are being honest then you wouldn't mind if the US market would be the one that had to deal with metric naming and double reporting of units, for a change.

Throckmorton said:
Because people are used to measurements. You know what a 19" monitor looks like, and you know what a 24" monitor looks like. Why switch to metric? Who would it benefit? The people who take out a measuring tape every time they hear a monitor size number?
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It's not like that at all and if it was you wouldn't go out of your way to defend your right to stick to your imperial system. I can maybe have a vague idea of which monitor is larger but on a practical level it's a nuisance because I cannot fathom the unit you are using without some effort. You guys are hilarious in trying to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the current situation. You are avoiding the core issue here: Why should the rest of the world be the one that has to do the conversion instead of the US? There is no logic in it.


Throckmorton said:
Because those are the increments. Do you expect a company to stamp 50.8cm on their product package?
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No, but I think making a 51cm screen labeling it with 51 somewhere in the model name and then letting the US market do the sorting in friggin inches would be the fair approach.


Are bra sizes in France in cm instead of inches?
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Don't even start me on this, the amount of nonsensical measurements that still plague our markets because of the US is obscene.
 
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Ben90

Platinum Member
Jun 14, 2009
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Kazani，也不是一個偽君子和交流使用中文。是絕對沒有理由，大多數人應該有迎合少數。
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,830
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KAZANI said:
LOL, double units is a relatively new thing and is of little consequence on a practical level. The naming scheme is still in inches and retailers can't effectively use it to push metric throughout the board. If you are being honest then you wouldn't mind if the US market would be the one that had to deal with metric naming and double reporting of units, for a change.



It's not like that at all and if it was you wouldn't go out of your way to defend your right to stick to your imperial system. I can maybe have a vague idea of which monitor is larger but on a practical level it's a nuisance because I cannot fathom the unit you are using without some effort. You guys are hilarious in trying to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the current situation. You are avoiding the core issue here: Why should the rest of the world be the one that has to do the conversion instead of the US? There is no logic in it.




No, but I think making a 51cm screen labeling it with 51 somewhere in the model name and then letting the US market do the sorting in friggin inches would be the fair approach.




Don't even start me on this, the amount of nonsensical measurements that still plague our markets because of the US is obscene.
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The manufacturing is all set up for the standard sizes. They'd have to start making both 51cm and 20" monitors which would cost more!

BTW, it's not US vs the rest of the world. I'm from Trinidad and people use imperial units for everyday stuff. When you say 51cm, I have to think about how many inches that is.
 
KAZANI

KAZANI

Senior member
Sep 10, 2006
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Throckmorton said:
The manufacturing is all set up for the standard sizes. They'd have to start making both 51cm and 20" monitors which would cost more!
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I've already answered that argument above. We are going in circles here because you people are just unable to accept a world that doesn't revolve around the US market.

BTW, it's not US vs the rest of the world. I'm from Trinidad and people use imperial units for everyday stuff. When you say 51cm, I have to think about how many inches that is.
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LOL, if it makes you feel any better, it's the US and Trinidad vs the rest of the world.
 
Raswan

Raswan

Senior member
Jan 29, 2010
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KAZANI said:
I've already answered that argument above. We are going in circles here because you people are just unable to accept a world that doesn't revolve around the US market.



LOL, if it makes you feel any better, it's the US and Trinidad vs the rest of the world.
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We're going in circles because nobody cares what you have to say. Plus, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if your economy hadn't tanked after WWII and forced us to intervene just to save you from the commies. Weren't for us, you'd be speaking Russian right now. Argument=subverted.
 
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