Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

Apparently, though unproven, at 01:42 on Monday 06 September 2010, Grant 
Edwards did opine thusly:

> >> Yup, and 16x9 sucks -- it's just an excuse to ship smaller,
> >> lower-resolution displays labelled with bigger numbers.
> >>
> >> 
> >>
> >> Complete ripoff.
> > 
> > If you have 16:9 at 1280*720, then yes, it is going to suck. There is
> > nothing  inherently wrong with the aspect ratio, please desist from
> > trying to make it so.
> 
> Yes, there is an inherent problem: in order to get what I consider
> acceptable vertical size/resolution you have to buy something that's
> rediculously wide.

Untrue.

Vertical resolution depends only on the available dimension and the number of 
pixels-per-inch of your screen.

How do you manage to take the position that screen height somehow depends on 
the machine width? Remember that we are talking regular sized notebooks here

> 
> > There are good reasons for it. It most easily fits the overall
> > dimensions of the machine, you have a wide and not very deep keyboard
> > plus space for a touchpad and palm rests. It's all approximately
> > 16:9.
> 
> No it's not.  At least only on any of my laptops.  I suppose you can
> tack on a useless numeric keypat to try to take up some of the extra
> horizontal space that's required in order to get a screen that's tall
> enough to be useful.

I have a 16:9 in a regular sized notebook, a Dell M1530. There's no numpad. In 
fact the keyboard takes up less space horizontally than I'm used to. 

So please tell me again where this machine width thing comes from?

> > I paid the extra to get 16:9 @ 1920x1200. Best thing I ever did
> > laptop-wise - I can get two webpages side by side on the screen
> > looking very natural.
> > 
> > Did you know that 16:9 is the eye's natural aspect ratio?
> 
> How do you explain the widespread popularity of portrait mode for
> printed material?  Text is much easier to read in tall, narrow,
> columns.  The more lines of code you can see at once when editing
> source code, the fewer the bugs.  Both those have been experimentally
> verified.

Tall narrow columns come from newsprint and the average person does not 
display only text on a screen. Even the example you cite - printed material - 
is incomplete, in that few folks have only one of them when working.

The usual case is one book for reference, and at least one other work area. 
Which is why I mentioned two web sites side by side at a very acceptable size.


> > Test it sometime with outstreched fingers.
> 
> I still vastly prefer 4:3 for all of the work I do.  I guess if you
> want to watch movies, and you don't mind hauling around a useless
> numeric keypad, 16:9 is nice.

Once again, who mentioned a numpad? I didn't. You inserted that the bolster 
your argument, but I never put it there.

Personally, I think you went cheap and bought a less-than-ideal screen based 
on price. I didn't make that error - I spent the extra bucks, sacrificed a few 
features here and there and went for the best on offer. I have full 1200 
height (the same as I get out of my 21" CRT monitor) which instantly renders 
all your arguments redundant.

So tell me again why there is something wrong with 16:9?

I think you have it conflated with 800 height which indeed is pathetic.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com