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1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

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Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#81

Post by jamesbritt »

pkamb wrote: post #76
huggyface wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with 16:9 or 16:10. This is 16:9 over 4:3. In the case of the iPad, it's completely true. Apple decided that 4:3 screens were the best form factor for a hand-held tablet. I have both an Android tablet (A500 with ICS) and an iPad 3rd generation. I -- without doubt -- prefer the form factor of the A500, not just because it presents a much better experience when viewing videos. It's simply a bette…

Computer/laptop monitors didn't switch directly from 4:3 -> 16:9. They moved from 4:3 -> 16:10 -> 16:9. And the switch to 16:9 happened because of panel cutting and cost, not because of consumer demand. From the link in my previous post, Lenovo could not keep using 4:3 screens because they had "all but disappeared from the market." The vast majority of netbooks released in the 2007-2010 range were widescreen, so I do…

They moved from 4:3 -> 16:10 -> 16:9. And the switch to 16:9 happened because of panel cutting and cost, not because of consumer demand.

I do wonder if there was some consumer demand, or at least rising consumer acquiescence, because (I'm speculating) as laptops have become less expensive and more powerful the market consisted of relatively fewer developers and business people and more folks who see their computer as an entertainment system.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#82

Post by haxdit »

Another noob article on Hacker News. Dismissing mobile screens in this count? How ignorant!

Calling it responsive design? Do your job and show the website on any device. You noobs are embarrassing. PHP blows, which is probably why you suck so bad.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#83

Post by Aethaeryn »

Raphael wrote: post #71
OzzyB wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with tjoff; just because a majority of users' screensizes are increasing, doesn't mean we have to keep "upping" the size of our webpages accordingly. I don't think the guy that just bought a brand-sparkling new 27" cinema display really wants all the websites he visits to now start filling his entire screen -- he bought it to do multiple things at once. Speaking from experience, I keep all my browsers at arou…

960 is also half of 1920, for side-by-side viewing, though I'd design a bit lower in case of window borders and scroll bars.

I agree. This is a use case of browsers that almost everyone misses when they design websites.

Very few sites aim for 960 as their minimum[1]. I tried side-by-side viewing on a 1920x1080 monitor and it really didn't work out in most places. Even parts of Wikipedia (such as tables) will create horizontal scroll bars on certain articles.

I did notice that a lot of websites aim for 1024 instead of 960 because I saw many pages that almost fit. Please, if you can aim for 1024, aim for 960 instead.

[1] As the parent post said, it probably isn't quite 960 when you take window borders into account.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#84

Post by pkamb »

jamesbritt wrote: post #81
pkamb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer/laptop monitors didn't switch directly from 4:3 -> 16:9. They moved from 4:3 -> 16:10 -> 16:9. And the switch to 16:9 happened because of panel cutting and cost, not because of consumer demand. From the link in my previous post, Lenovo could not keep using 4:3 screens because they had "all but disappeared from the market." The vast majority of netbooks released in the 2007-2010 range were widescreen, so I do…

They moved from 4:3 -> 16:10 -> 16:9. And the switch to 16:9 happened because of panel cutting and cost, not because of consumer demand. I do wonder if there was some consumer demand, or at least rising consumer acquiescence, because (I'm speculating) as laptops have become less expensive and more powerful the market consisted of relatively fewer developers and business people and more folks who see their computer as…

Definitely agree that widescreen has become common due to customer preference. But is 16:9 over 16:10 really a selling point (or even noticeable) to the average laptop buyer?

It probably has been used as a gimmick competitive advantage ("even more widescreen than before!") but I bet the 16:10->16:9 move was predominantly due to screen supply and cost.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#85

Post by Zak »

bo1024 wrote: post #27
seanp2k2 wrote: post #16

Sad that our pixel density hasn't gone up since the 90s, really. Tv ruins people with 42" screens at only 1080p. I'm glad to see that Apple is showing people that pixel density matters more than resolution alone, and I await their high-density MacBook displays. Hopefully they'll be out this fall, but a quick survey of the 4K-rezo landscape suggests that they'll likely have to wait another year for prices to drop :/

I don't care so much about pixel density; it's the ratio that bothers me. 16:9 is ridiculous for anything except watching HD television. (It also now works well for gaming, but only because developers decided to cater to widescreen.) 16:10 is the widest that makes sense for any day-to-day computing tasks, yet it's getting harder and harder to find; forget reasonable 4:3 types.

I'm a fellow 4:3 fan. I understand why width is more useful to some users than height, but I feel like it's a monoculture.

Beyond that, I feel like computer buyers everywhere have been duped. In 2003, there were 15" laptops with QXGA (2048x1536) screens. by 2008, the best you could get in a 15" laptop was WUXGA (1920x1200). Now, with a few soon to disappear exceptions, it's FHD (1920x1050). Note how these are not getting wider; they're only getting shorter.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#86

Post by jamesbritt »

rhizome wrote: post #53
bo1024 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care so much about pixel density; it's the ratio that bothers me. 16:9 is ridiculous for anything except watching HD television. (It also now works well for gaming, but only because developers decided to cater to widescreen.) 16:10 is the widest that makes sense for any day-to-day computing tasks, yet it's getting harder and harder to find; forget reasonable 4:3 types.

For what it's worth, just last night I was dicking around on Newegg looking at laptops and found that a Panasonic Toughbook appears to support 1900x1200 at 15", which is ~1.5 aspect ratio (4:3 = 1.333; 16:9 = ~1.8). The relevant term you want to search for is "WUXGA".

WUXGA is 1920x1200

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#87

Post by jamesbritt »

Zak wrote: post #85
bo1024 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care so much about pixel density; it's the ratio that bothers me. 16:9 is ridiculous for anything except watching HD television. (It also now works well for gaming, but only because developers decided to cater to widescreen.) 16:10 is the widest that makes sense for any day-to-day computing tasks, yet it's getting harder and harder to find; forget reasonable 4:3 types.

I'm a fellow 4:3 fan. I understand why width is more useful to some users than height, but I feel like it's a monoculture. Beyond that, I feel like computer buyers everywhere have been duped. In 2003, there were 15" laptops with QXGA (2048x1536) screens. by 2008, the best you could get in a 15" laptop was WUXGA (1920x1200). Now, with a few soon to disappear exceptions, it's FHD (1920x1050). Note how these are not get…

Note how these are not getting wider; they're only getting shorter.

A friend of mine said the term around his house for these HD displays is "short screens."

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#88

Post by jamesbritt »

pkamb wrote: post #84
jamesbritt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They moved from 4:3 -> 16:10 -> 16:9. And the switch to 16:9 happened because of panel cutting and cost, not because of consumer demand. I do wonder if there was some consumer demand, or at least rising consumer acquiescence, because (I'm speculating) as laptops have become less expensive and more powerful the market consisted of relatively fewer developers and business people and more folks who see their computer as…

Definitely agree that widescreen has become common due to customer preference. But is 16:9 over 16:10 really a selling point (or even noticeable) to the average laptop buyer? It probably has been used as a gimmick competitive advantage ("even more widescreen than before!") but I bet the 16:10->16:9 move was predominantly due to screen supply and cost.

but I bet the 16:10->16:9 move was predominantly due to screen supply and cost.

Most likely, while the percentage of consumers who would be complaining has rapidly dropped.

Also, if you've never had a laptop before then it's all pretty much the same.

Re: 1366×768px overtakes 1024×768px as the most popular screen resolution worldwide

#89

Post by blahedo »

I am going to be so angry if[0] this makes web devs start designing for grids that have to be 1300px wide to work. I don't fullscreen anything (too wide for the height, and too wide for the font size!), and while the majority of webpages look just fine in a ~600px wide browser window, possibly after right-scrolling to put the content column in the window, rarely does a day go by that I don't have to tear off a tab and widen it---not to make it look good, but to make it usable at all. Like that crappy Bump page posted here earlier today: if you view it in a narrow window, even if you right-scroll the window the content is sliced at window-width, with the page absolutely unusable at anything less than my full screen width. I don't know if there's anyone out there still on an 800x600 resolution, but there's a significant portion of the web that they actually can't use in any way. It doesn't have to be that way!

[0]Realistically, I know it's "when", but I'll stick with the denial a little longer.

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