Why I don't like widescreen monitors

[fbrdphreak]

As a computer monitor, widescreen is great most of the time for me. I was disappointed with the 2005's DPI when I first got it, but I've moved on. I'd love a 1920x1200 20"

Here is how widescreen benefited me for hours on end last night:
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/fbrdphreak/widescreen_ftw.jpg

 

[dullard]

Widescreen truely means shortscreen. It is like a normal squarish 5:4 monitor but cut short; so you are just losing the top and bottom. AND you are paying more for that priveledge.

 

[lozina]

I'm a software developer by profession, so I value wide screen alot. I can place files side by side and see their entire contents.. tons of room for large spreadsheets, source code from people who like to amass multiple statements on one line, html/xml files so I barely ever have to use horizontal scroll bar..

 

[daniel1113]

Originally posted by: dullard
Widescreen truely means shortscreen. It is a normal squarish monitor but cut short. So you are just losing the top and bottom. AND you are paying more for that priveledge.

That's true, I guess, if you compare two monitors (one widescreen, one fullscreen) with the same diagonal measurements. Of course, you shouldn't make that comparison.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: dullard
Widescreen truely means shortscreen. It is a normal squarish monitor but cut short. So you are just losing the top and bottom. AND you are paying more for that priveledge.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Ah, young'uns

 

[bigrash]

i love my Apple 20" widescreen lcd.

 

[blueshoe]

Originally posted by: logic1485
I'll have to agree about the letterboxing: it's very annoying that there are so many aspect ratios that are common, and then, not to forget, there are also the uncommon ones.

I also thought that when I would watch The Gladiator on my widescreen it would be nice, but instead it was letterboxed (run my monitor at 1280x800, which is the same as the Dell).

What definitely is helpful is when you have two excel spreadsheets open, or anything of any two combinations, this is where it shines.

Unfortunately though, on laptops you can not have portrait mode, but when I tried portrait mode, it was amazing, and sadly none of my home monitors can do portrait mode (not that any of my home monitors are widescreen either )

Yea, a lot of movies will still be letterboxed, but it will still be less letterboxed.

Laptops dont have a portrait mode you say? I can flip my 9300 on its side and rotate change the screen orientation by rotating 90 degrees. Hook up a keyboard via USB and bam! Of course this isn't as convinient as it could be for a regular Dell monitor. I've actually done this before.

 

[walkur]

documents side by side, taskbars on the side instead of the bottom, movies waisting less space...

A lot of pro's

I'm thinking about replacing my (huge, almost a square box) 19" EIZO CRT by a widescreen TFT/LCD

 

[SZLiao214]

I have slits for eyes so widescreen just seems more natural hehe.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I love widescreens for the PC.
Movies may not fill the entire screen, but they make much better use of it then on a non widescreen.
Games look better in widescreen.
There's never enough screen real estate.

I'm just using a 720P display as my widescreen display on my PC, but I have a 19inch CRT next to it for that extra bit of resolution.

 

[Kyteland]

For anyone saying that the screens are too short, try rotating them 90 degrees. This is the perfect setup when viewing documents. Of course you have to rotate back for gaming or watching movies, but that's the price you pay. Dual rotated LCDs make for a great development environment.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: dullard
Widescreen truely means shortscreen. It is like a normal squarish 5:4 monitor but cut short; so you are just losing the top and bottom. AND you are paying more for that priveledge.

"Holy complete load of bullsh!t, batman!"

"Quick Robin! Hand me my bat-anti-load-of-old-bollocks spray, and put some clothes on, goddammit!"

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Please leave this in OT as it's more a general discussion about aspect ratios and stuff, not really specific to technology.

My ex's dad recently bought a 2005FPW and I was excited to see and finally use one. I went over and tried it out at 1680x1050 res and wasn't impressed at all. My main gripe is, it's not *ultimate* widescreen. Ultimate widescreen would be either 1.78:1 (HDTV) or 1.85:1 (true movie widescreen). Instead, it's 1.6:1. This means, when watching a movie, for example, letterbox is still present. Same goes for if we watch some hi-def TV on it. And for the majority of my computer usage, internet, IM, etc., the extra real estate on the sides is just unnecessary and even a bit annoying.

So after using the thing for a few hours, I think I like my 5:4 19" more. Thoughts?

LOL you're a noob. There's no such thing as 'ultimate' widescreen. Even HDTVs you're going to get blackbars if the movies aren't the correct ratio... and that's because they shoot the movies in different aspect ratios, so there is no 'ultimate' widescreen that will perfectly fit all widescreen movies. But the beauty of widescreen is in the normal usage. So, you find it 'unnecessary' and annoying. I guess you would say that 1600x1200 is unnecessary compared to 1024x768 as well? I don't know what do you mean when you say it's annoying, it's much easier to work with extra space that is on the sides rather than a big square box.

On the one hand, you complain it's not 'ultimate' widescreen so it's not wide enough for the widest of widescreen content... then you complain that the widescreen is unnecessary and even annnoying? So which is it?

 

[AMDZen]

My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

 

[SlowSpyder]

I had a 22" CRT that I replaced with a 19" widescreen LCD. I went with a 19" because the price was right ($250 after MIR) and because it's native res (1440 x 900) is a good match for my video card (6800GS @ 490/1100). Having used the 22" CRT for a long time and now had the LCD for about a month I can honestly say both have their pros and cons. Overall I do like the LCD better if for nothing else then my desk seems to have so much more space now then it did before. 19" 16:10 is small by a lot of peoples standards on this forum, but I believe for most people it is plenty of display area. I think the 19" widescreen LCD has about 90% as much display area as my 22" CRT had. Some people honestly need more display, but for a lot of people I'm sure it's just an e-penis thing. Anyway, I'd have to say I like the LCD overall more then the CRT, the geometry is great, the space it saves is nice, the colors are nice and crisp, and I haven't noticed any ghosting issues. The 16:10 is nice, but I don't think it's to die for. I do have to say I like Oblivion better on the widescreen then a 4:3 display though.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: loic2003
"Holy complete load of bullsh!t, batman!"

"Quick Robin! Hand me my bat-anti-load-of-old-bollocks spray, and put some clothes on, goddammit!"

You show me a "widescreen" TV/monitor and I'll show you a way it could be made taller with more horizontal lines in 5:4 format. Thus, they are actually shortscreen TVs.

Looks like marketing got to you.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

oh geez :roll: CRTs are annoyingly huge. its like you are choosing to listen to tapes over CDS but without the quality comparison. the technology is old and LCD is new. they look nicer, take up 100x less space, and most of the come loaded with features now. my 2405s have card readers built in, several USB ports, 5 inputs, pip, etc. plus i can go portrait or landscape, a task not easily accomplished with a CRT.

CRTs are fine in their own respect. they do certain things well, ill admit, but pissing on LCDs because you are a sour-puss is just retarded. games look perfect on my 2405s and if the .00001% ghosting bothers you then you need to be less pretentious and anal retentive.

plasma can ghost as well, so im not sure where you were going with that. i have a pretty nice plasma tv and i can see some ghosting.

i play counterstrike, bf2, halo, fear, doom3, hl2, and q4 all the time on my LCDS. not a single problem and all of the supposed disadvantages offered by an LCD dont hurt my performance at all. you probably just suck at games and need an excuse. get over yourself.

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

exactly what i was thinking

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
confused;

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

Get used to it. I suspect there will be a group of users 20 years from now still using CRTs b/c they provide the "best" picture. No different than those who continue to play vinyl. There is always going to be a group which refuses to change to new technology no matter how many of their initial gripes have been addressed.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

My dad has a 2007fpw Dell and I'm on it all the time. I like it a lot for everything except when I put HL2 on it just to try it out. I also have many friends who tout their 2005fpw which is even worse. And another who said his Viewsonic was 6ms, and still ghosted on FPS. Its ok for him though because he mostly plays RTS games and RPGs. I even watched him play oblivion the other day and I couldn't tell if that game just ghosted horribly or if his video card couldn't handle the game.

Ask any expert or anyone who actually knows what their talking about - and they will mostly agree that CRT is the better technology for gaming and other fast moving motion on the screen. This is as true now as it ever was, but may not be for much longer

I think its more likely that you - and other LCD users just don't notice it, or tune it out or something

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: AMDZen

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

My dad has a 2007fpw Dell and I'm on it all the time. I like it a lot for everything except when I put HL2 on it just to try it out. I also have many friends who tout their 2005fpw which is even worse. And another who said his Viewsonic was 6ms, and still ghosted on FPS. Its ok for him though because he mostly plays RTS games and RPGs. I even watched him play oblivion the other day and I couldn't tell if that game just ghosted horribly or if his video card couldn't handle the game.

Ask any expert or anyone who actually knows what their talking about - and they will mostly agree that CRT is the better technology for gaming and other fast moving motion on the screen. This is as true now as it ever was, but may not be for much longer

I think its more likely that you - and other LCD users just don't notice it, or tune it out or something

im sorry but i couldnt contain the laughter any longer after reading that statement. apparently the millions of people who use LCDs dont qualify to have an opinion. you must be an "expert" viewer if your opinion is of value, which you seem to think it is. normally i would be annoyed at this, but i know you are just being stubborn for no good reason, so it is funny instead of irritating.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

oh geez :roll: CRTs are annoyingly huge. its like you are choosing to listen to tapes over CDS but without the quality comparison. the technology is old and LCD is new. they look nicer, take up 100x less space, and most of the come loaded with features now. my 2405s have card readers built in, several USB ports, 5 inputs, pip, etc. plus i can go portrait or landscape, a task not easily accomplished with a CRT.

CRTs are fine in their own respect. they do certain things well, ill admit, but pissing on LCDs because you are a sour-puss is just retarded. games look perfect on my 2405s and if the .00001% ghosting bothers you then you need to be less pretentious and anal retentive.

plasma can ghost as well, so im not sure where you were going with that. i have a pretty nice plasma tv and i can see some ghosting.

i play counterstrike, bf2, halo, fear, doom3, hl2, and q4 all the time on my LCDS. not a single problem and all of the supposed disadvantages offered by an LCD dont hurt my performance at all. you probably just suck at games and need an excuse. get over yourself.

I couldn't care less about the space argument. I like to have my monitor close to where I'm sitting, so what am I going to do with all the space behind my monitor? It would just go wastet because I'm not going to put anything there.

I have my opinion, and you have yours - one day LCD will be better in games, but that day is not today. I'm convinced that you are the one who has no fvcking clue what your talking about, because the ghosting is even more noticeable on the 2405 versus the 2005 where the 2007 is the best of any LCD I've seen for ghosting. You probably just don't notice it.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan

Originally posted by: AMDZen

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: AMDZen
My argument isn't against widescreen, its against LCD monitors.

I love all of the people talking about enjoying their games on a widescreen LCD monitor. LCD is crap for gaming compared to CRT, the picture is poor in comparison and the ghosting is apparent on even the best LCD's out there with supposed 6 ms response times that are closer to 16. And when rated at 12 and/or 16 ms response times like Dell monitors, are closer to 20 ms.

For a development environment, or for really any work being done on the computer - I have to agree that widescreen is better, and LCD is also better. For gaming, widescreen may have its advantages - but the disadvantages of LCD (only display technology where widescreen is available) far outweigh any advantages in gaming, unless your space deprived and only play RTS games and no fast moving shooters.

Now give me a widescreen CRT and we're getting somewhere. I wonder what sort of response times a plasma display on the PC could pull off. Or how small they can make a plasma, or maybe a DLP display. I wonder what ghosting would be like for gaming on such a display. Regardless, I will be a CRT man for a long time to come me thinks - at least on my gaming machine.

Do you have an LCD monitor? Or a decent one at that?

Have you observed 6ms panels that ghost?

Sounds to me like you're a CRT-user who has never used an LCD for more than 30 seconds

My dad has a 2007fpw Dell and I'm on it all the time. I like it a lot for everything except when I put HL2 on it just to try it out. I also have many friends who tout their 2005fpw which is even worse. And another who said his Viewsonic was 6ms, and still ghosted on FPS. Its ok for him though because he mostly plays RTS games and RPGs. I even watched him play oblivion the other day and I couldn't tell if that game just ghosted horribly or if his video card couldn't handle the game.

Ask any expert or anyone who actually knows what their talking about - and they will mostly agree that CRT is the better technology for gaming and other fast moving motion on the screen. This is as true now as it ever was, but may not be for much longer

I think its more likely that you - and other LCD users just don't notice it, or tune it out or something

im sorry but i couldnt contain the laughter any longer after reading that statement. apparently the millions of people who use LCDs dont qualify to have an opinion. you must be an "expert" viewer if your opinion is of value, which you seem to think it is. normally i would be annoyed at this, but i know you are just being stubborn for no good reason, so it is funny instead of irritating.

I could give you a thousand links with people who agree that CRT has better picture quality.

I understand why those "millions" use LCDs. As I said in my original post, LCDs are better for a lot of things. In fact, their better in every respect, except gaming, specifically fast moving FPS's. When your in a cal league for CS:S then you can provide your opinion on the matter, until then go and ask anyone in cal if they think it matters in a competion.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: loic2003
"Holy complete load of bullsh!t, batman!"

"Quick Robin! Hand me my bat-anti-load-of-old-bollocks spray, and put some clothes on, goddammit!"

You show me a "widescreen" TV/monitor and I'll show you a way it could be made taller with more horizontal lines in 5:4 format. Thus, they are actually shortscreen TVs.

Looks like marketing got to you.

You show me a "normal" 5:4 TV/monitor and I'll show you a way it could be made wider with more vertical lines in widescreen format. Thus they are actually narrowscreen TV's.

Looks like stupid disease got to you.

Widescreen is useful, why do you think people with dual monitors put them next to each other as opposed to atop each other?
You paint some picture like monitor manufacturers actually make huge 5:4 monitors, then grab a pair of scissors and snip off the top in order to save themselves some money/rip off the public.
Supply/demand.

 

[Koing]

24" and 23" 1920x1200 ftw.

Lots more screen real estate to use.

When watching widescreen movies you get smaller bars and more actual screen movie that you can watch.

16:9 would be too wide for pc usage and the fact that no one makes one with that ratio with a decent resolution

Koing