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What do you prefer? I've heard some people complaining about widescreen monitors lately, but I have two of them, and I really like them. You get some of the "work with two side-by-side windows" advantages of a dual-monitor setup without the cost and clutter. It's also (obviously) a more natural format for watching the occasional movie, and it really doesn't bother me that some of my games are slightly distorted by the wide format (Rome Total War actually has a widescreen setting anyway).

On the other hand, virtually all wallpaper is made for 4x3 monitors, so you have to get used to black bars on either side of your wallpaper (either that or squashed wallpaper).

Conventional, just used to it- I don't watch too many movies, and when I do, letterboxing doens't really annoy me.

I rather like widescreen myself. I get rather irritated when game makers intentionaly don't add widescreen support of any kind to their games. The widescreen standard for computers is fairly good. Not as rectangular as TVs. Just the right size. I have a 17" on my laptop which works wonderfuly. For a proper full sized monitor I would probably go the 19-20" route.

As for wall papers Mike, they can work just fine really. I've found that wallpapers exactly sized for your desktop aren't always the best. Some times its nice to have a wallpaper just under the size of your desktop. Most widescreen wallpapers don't actualy fit the widescreen format as it is so you still have black bars.

The treatment of wallpaper depends on the kind of wallpaper I'm using. If it's a landscape, I actually find that they look just as good when they're horizontally stretched as they did in their original aspect ratio anyway. So Rebecca (who uses landscape wallpapers almost exclusively) just stretches out all her wallpapers.

Me, I tend to use Star Wars 4x3 wallpaper, but its native resolution is 1600x1200 so I just zoom it in and let the top and bottom get cut off.

What about us poor fuckers on 5:4 monitors which hardly ANYTHING has decent support for.

Prefer the widescreen, which comes in handy for video editing and such. Any program that needs a linear display the wide screen is extremely useful. I also prefer CRT's. In my opinion they give more accurate color, and look more natural.

I got my first widescreen three years ago in the form of a 15.4" laptop display. I played loads of games on it, and never noticed any sort of distortion that I hear people complaining about. About a year ago I made myself a new machine and with it a 17" LCD. The switch from 16:10 back to 4:3 didn't bother me at all. Last summer I bought myself a 20.1" widescreen and again, no problems; even if I play games on non 16:10 resolutions.

Regarding wallpapers, I just stretch them

Widescreen monitors all the way. I hate 4x3 with a passion.

I don't have a widescreen, but I'm starting to plan on getting one for my next upgrade. With more games seeming to support widescreen modes, I hope to experience the grandeur before too long.

I always preferred 4x3, but last month I got my widescreen MacBook and last week my 20" Viewsonic widescreen, and I'm a convert. Widescreen is the way to go. So much more efficient for working IMHO.

If I had the choice between a 20" widescreen and a 20" 4:3, I'd take the 4:3 because I'd be getting more desktop real estate.

Destructionator XIII wrote:Conventional for me. The wide screen is something that annoys me, especially since I spend most my time working on fixed width text editors anyway, often wrapped to 80 characters. The wide screen would offer little or no advantage, and it would take longer to get the mouse over to the other side. Granted, I have only used wide screen monitors on other people's computers, but for what I do most the time, my conventional monitor does its job excellently.

You can get a monitor that can swivel 90° so that its orientation changes and auto-rotates, so the new orientation is akin to tablet PCs. A friend of mine has such a monitor and its excellent for reading or text editing, especially because the vertical resolution (that becomes horizontal) is still over 1k so most web content looks good since there are very few pages that demand more then 1024 to look good. And when you want to watch a movie or play a game you just swivel it back to the "normal" position. The only problem is that such monitors are a bit pricey. I sometimes use a software trick to get the same effect on my laptop when I'm reading something in bed.

Regarding wallpapers, when I got my new laptop with a wide screen, I simply created a brand new one specifically designed for the aspect ratio. I'm not terribly fussy about wallpapers, so generating planets and starfields with various Photoshop plugins gives me a nice background to look at when I'm in such a position.

That said, I am really beginning to enjoy widescreens, and I'm now looking to replace my old desktop monitor with a big widescreen, I just haven't yet decided on a model, but I'm looking strongly at a Dell, as their monitors seem to be pretty decent.

My new Dell came with a sweet-ass 20" widescreen. I'm never going back.

weemadando wrote:What about us poor fuckers on 5:4 monitors which hardly ANYTHING has decent support for.

Heh, my CRT is running at 1400x1050 on Linux (pushed around my modelines a little so I get something between 1280x1024 which is kind of small on Linux due to the larger icons and the flickery 1600x1200), 1280x1024 on Windows (which is 5:4), don't see any problem w/ running this.

I'd certainly like a widescreen monitor, but I'm perfectly happy with a 4:3.

Having black bars on the sides of my wallpaper wouldn't bug me- in fact, it'd be nice to keep any desktop icons off the actual wallpaper image.

Widescreen. It's much more useful for doing work and gives a great cinematic experience when gaming.

I just got a new LCD 19'' 4x3 monitor (Samsung)- my first LCD- finally liberating my desk from the bulk of my huge Sony 19'' Trinitron. I really like it, but I never considered getting a widescreen- I prefer it this way, from a purely subjective point of view- can't really explain it. It's also got 2ms refresh, which is pretty sweet.

I love widescreen. They´re so much better for programms that have lots of tool panels such as 3D programs or vidoe editing programs.

But i can´t aford one at the moment, so i´m using my good old 17 inch 4:3

4x3 just looks right to me, I still can't get used to widescreens like the one on my fiancée's laptop. It just throws me off somehow.

My new laptop has a widescreen, and with as much monitor real estate as it's got, I don't think I'll ever be going back to the traditional 4x3 again anytime soon. It's simply so much easier to multi-task than it is on a traditional smaller monitor.

The thing is that horizontal real estate is more valuable than vertical real-estate. A lot of media really needs a certain width in order to be displayed properly, whereas inadequate height only means that you need to use the scroll wheel on your mouse. That's why I prefer widescreen. I can put two windows side-by-side and actually get work done.

Darth Wong wrote:The thing is that horizontal real estate is more valuable than vertical real-estate. A lot of media really needs a certain width in order to be displayed properly, whereas inadequate height only means that you need to use the scroll wheel on your mouse. That's why I prefer widescreen. I can put two windows side-by-side and actually get work done.

I totally agree. Comparing code (weather to translate from one language to another, or to do copy/pastes of sections) really requires that the two windows be side by side. With a 4:3, you can't do that. You can stack them and use the scroll wheel, but you often don't get to see enough of the code. With 16:9, each window is side by side and takes up 50% of the screen, and it's the perfect width for coding.

Braedley wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The thing is that horizontal real estate is more valuable than vertical real-estate. A lot of media really needs a certain width in order to be displayed properly, whereas inadequate height only means that you need to use the scroll wheel on your mouse. That's why I prefer widescreen. I can put two windows side-by-side and actually get work done.

I totally agree. Comparing code (weather to translate from one language to another, or to do copy/pastes of sections) really requires that the two windows be side by side. With a 4:3, you can't do that. You can stack them and use the scroll wheel, but you often don't get to see enough of the code. With 16:9, each window is side by side and takes up 50% of the screen, and it's the perfect width for coding.

Dell 20.1" 4:3 monitor
Native resolution of 1600x1200

Dell 20" widescreen monitor
Native resolution of 1680x1050

The 4:3 has more area overall at the mere cost of... 80 pixels horizontal. Is the jump between 1600 and 1680 pixels really the threshold at which putting two windows side by side is workable?

Uraniun235 wrote:

Braedley wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The thing is that horizontal real estate is more valuable than vertical real-estate. A lot of media really needs a certain width in order to be displayed properly, whereas inadequate height only means that you need to use the scroll wheel on your mouse. That's why I prefer widescreen. I can put two windows side-by-side and actually get work done.

I totally agree. Comparing code (weather to translate from one language to another, or to do copy/pastes of sections) really requires that the two windows be side by side. With a 4:3, you can't do that. You can stack them and use the scroll wheel, but you often don't get to see enough of the code. With 16:9, each window is side by side and takes up 50% of the screen, and it's the perfect width for coding.

Dell 20.1" 4:3 monitor
Native resolution of 1600x1200

Dell 20" widescreen monitor
Native resolution of 1680x1050

The 4:3 has more area overall at the mere cost of... 80 pixels horizontal. Is the jump between 1600 and 1680 pixels really the threshold at which putting two windows side by side is workable?

Pixel's isn't the only issue. You see, using max resolution makes the text extremely small and unfeasible.

Compare 1280x960 and 1440x900. For marginaly less vertical space you get significantly more horizontal space.