8 ms·

I just wish there was anyone making good 4:3 monitors with modern panels that do not cost an arm and a leg. 4:3 is still my preferred screen ratio without a dou

by tirpen 5y ago

I just wish there was anyone making good 4:3 monitors with modern panels that do not cost an arm and a leg. 4:3 is still my preferred screen ratio without a doubt for everything except watching movies, all current wide screen rations feel to vertically squashed for me, I always end up with half the screen unused and wishing I had a decimeter height more. So I'm probably buying one of these if the price is not too outrageous, it seems like it's close enough to 4:3 to capture the same feeling.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MisterTea 5y ago
I still use a Samsung 21 1600x1200 LCD as a secondary display. Wish I had more. Unfortunately 16:9 is here to stay thanks to TV's being the lowest common denominator. Though I'd happily look in to these 16:18 displays as long s they're affordable. More vertical pixels is what I miss most about 4:3.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  I also use a 21" 1600x1200 with a Samsung PVA panel as a second display, the vertical height lines up nicely with a 27" widescreen. It's kinda fascinating to see how the PVA panel, which is like 20 year old tech, has no issues keeping up with a modern IPS display, and even has lower viewing angle shift, no backlight bleed, far better contrast and hence deeper blacks. The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT.
  - NathanielK 5y ago
    > The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT. If it really bugs you, basically all scalers (brainbox for the LCD display signal) can handle 75-85Hz, since that was part of the VESA crt spec back then. Many of them will accept a higher frequency signal if you toodle around in your GPU settings a bit. Can't fix the slow response times, but it still helps a fair bit with making general work feel smoother and snappier.
- saltcured 5y ago
  I spent a lot on CRT monitors (Nanao, Sony Trinitron) for work and then was was an early adopter of desktop LCD with DVI digital connections. I was so happy to get pixel perfect addressing and no analog softness, ghosting, or flicker. I remember going from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 and easily accepting the idea that this was a bonus screen area to the side, not some sort of compromise. Then, I was bitter when everything became 1920x1080 and feeling constrained by the limited vertical pixels. However, I am now quite happy with 28 inch 4k (3840x2160) on a desktop, rarely making any window full height nor full width. I even dragged home a second 4k monitor from the office at the start of the COVID WFH era, but never bothered to set it up properly. It just doesn't seem like I need that much screen area. I still feel constrained by a laptop 14 inch 1920x1080, and my work style changes. I prefer to go back to the desktop for "real" work and mostly use the laptop for more basic communication or browsing when I don't want to stay in the home office.
vidyesh 5y ago
So much of screen real estate is wasted in 16:9. I have vertical taskbars on my monitors because I would benefit more from the space available in Y-axis than on X-axis most of the time.
- stunt 5y ago
  I just hide both dock/taskbar and menubar and use a tiling window manager to switch between split and full screen. Dock and menubar are waste of space for 99% of the time that you're using your computer.
- dspillett 5y ago
  My current setup at home and work¹ is a ~24" 16:9 1920x1080 but spun to portrait. There are a number of monitors out there that support this, failing that get one with standard vesa fixings and get a stand/arm you can attach it to that way around. These each stand beside a ~32" 16:9 2560x1440 screen². Sometimes the big landscape screen gets used as just that, sometimes as effectively two portrait screens³⁴. The tall one is very nice for reading documents/mail/HN/… and such, though a little thin occasionally⁵ so 16:10 would be nicer. The main Windows taskbar lives on the tall screen⁶. Not an optimal setup when sat down⁷ I find, but as I stand most of the time and it works really well for me like that, limitations when seated isn't a big issue. [1] I gave up asking and just brought my own in, along with the standing desk I'd been asking about for years [2] almost the same dot pitch as the other screen, so no need to faf with scaling to get things to look sufficiently similar on them [3] when doing that I effectively have three tall thin screens - one at 1080x1920 two at 1280x1440 (about 13:16). [4] in fact the Samsung one supports pretending to be two monitors that way using two inputs, one for each side, though I use the OS-/app-level positioning instead so I can nudge one side wider in some contexts [5] some web designs assume you have more than 1080 pixels in width if you have more than 1024, in fact some just assume 1280+ full-stop (less a little in case some uses with 1280 have their taskbars on the side). For instance Google's right bar gets ~⅓ cut off for instance when searching for things that make it appear, and a number of online stores lose current basket information (that they put on a column at on the right) unless I scroll or move to the other screen [6] top here, bottom at home, the difference due to how the monitor stand heights work out and the limits of my work space at home meaning the two screens line up differently in the two locations [7] it is hard to find a comfortable position where I'm not craning my neck a little or forcing myself to set _too_ straight up
consp 5y ago
My understanding was that for LCDs the 4:3 and 5:4 panels were more expensive to make due to them having more pixels per inch of diagonal than 16:9. So it is reasonable for them to be more expensive for the same inch diagonal. edit: instead of down voting, please tell my why my understanding is wrong.
- toast0 5y ago
  There aren't very many 4:3 and 5:4 panels available at all beyond 17" these days. You can get largish 1:1 panels for crazy prices though. There's also the posibility of buying a whole 16:9 panel and having it cut to size, but that's not cheap and I'm not sure it's sane either. A premium would be fine (we'd surely be grumbling still), but no availability is sad. I'm 60% sure the 1up arcade kits are so small because they're scaled to the largest 4:3 monitor they can get.
fanf2 5y ago
Most of this year I was using two 1200x1920 panels in portrait, making a 32” 5:4 display (with a gutter like a book). A pretty nice setup. But now I have a 32” 4k display. The prettier fonts and extra window placement flexibility are nice, and I didn’t really use all the vertical space I had.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  I upgraded my gaming rig's monitors 3 weeks ago, and I'm using the old ones in my home office: 2x 24" 1920x1200 monitors in portrait. The old office monitors had cheap stands and didn't rotate. I can't say that it's a no-brainer upgrade, but I'm OK with it.
- Zachsa999 5y ago
  Did you find any solutions for tiling windows vertically? Windows 10 definantly does not do this well.
  - jmiserez 5y ago
    FancyZones (part of Microsoft PowerToys) works well for me. I also like the fact that it's first-party, free and open-source: Project page: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys FancyZones docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/powertoys/fancyzones https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...
    - Zachsa999 5y ago
      I just downloaded it.. Why does Microsoft not promote this more? I may not need to use Linux now for a while
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - daggersandscars 5y ago
    I use Divvy[1]. It also works on MacOS. I use gTile on Linux. The combination lets me use the same keyboard short cuts (or close enough) on all 3 OSes.
throwanem 5y ago
4:3 is 16:12, so this can be considered as a 4:3 monitor that's taller by one-third.
ksec 5y ago
This 16:18 is 1.125, which is pretty close to 4:3's 1.2.
- whiw 5y ago
  18:16 is 1.125:1, but 4:3 is 1.33:1
  - ksec 5y ago
    Dont know what I was thinking. Thanks for the correction.
zokier 5y ago
I don't quite feel for 4:3 aficionados, looking back on my monitor progression there were the 4:3 CRTs (probably something like 1280x960), the 5:4 LCD with 1280x1024 pixels, then the horrible 1680x1050 16:10 LCD (shoulda gotten 1920x1200 one..), and now finally 2560x1440 16:9 display that I still use. What I notice is that despite aspect ratios becoming wider, the monitors have pretty consistently also become taller in absolute measure. What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained
- lucideer 5y ago
  > What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained For me, for monitors and PC work, it comes down to OS UX. Sure, I can have all of my windows display at 4:3 with gaps either side, or on one side, but: (a) configuring that to be persistent is a pain, and (b) whatever fills that gap is either wasteful (empty space) or distracting. The default on the other hand is to have anything maximised span the full width, which means that unless I'm reading a well-designed webpage (or reader mode), I'm inevitably straining to traverse a much bigger horizontal context with my eyes all day long. Yes, 2560x1920 would be by far the preferred option of all 3, but if I need to choose between 2560x1440 and 1920x1440, the latter is a worthwhile compromise.
- NathanielK 5y ago
  > What I notice is that despite aspect ratios becoming wider, the monitors have pretty consistently also become taller in absolute measure. Dell 3007WFP and the Apple Cinema HD display were both ~16" tall. They're over 15 years old now. They were a expensive at the time, but they're still taller than most modern 16:9 and "27:9" displays available now. >What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained I want a 4k 4:3 screen. If you're going to dream, why not dream big? 3840x2880 please. I have a CRT that syncs to 2560x1920 and I already enjoy it for a few odd things.
  - zokier 5y ago
    Modern 31.5" 16:9 (common 4k size) are essentially as tall as 30" 16:10 of yore.
Gualdrapo 5y ago
I heard Microsoft had plans about launching a Surface Studio monitor last year, but can't find if that actually happened. It is my ideal ratio and size monitor.
gregmac 5y ago
I run two 2560 × 1440 monitors, which are 16:9, but each nicely splits into two square-ish (1280 × 1440) displays. While not quite 4:3, it's close in the experience. I tile using FancyZones and run most applications in this setup. Though you can technically do it, I found most things just don't work well with a 1080 monitor in this mode: 960 wide just isn't enough. Even a lot of websites don't really work properly, and a lot go into mobile layout. This was a good combo of screen space, usability and price. Full screen movies or games are still 16:9 (supposedly there are/were issues with 32:9 with a lot of games), and I like that I can play a game or movie and still have the other screen showing something. I can also RDP to my work laptop in full-screen on one monitor, and seamlessly work across both - so much simpler than dual-monitor KVM chaos, or dealing with audio- or webcam-over-network issues. (Edit: re-worded from incorrectly saying 1280 × 1440 is 4:3)
- wtallis 5y ago
  1280x1440 is not at all close to a 4:3 ratio. For starters, 1280 is a smaller number than 1440. It looks like you were using "4:3" to simply mean "closer to square than typical widescreen aspect ratios", which is pretty confusing.
  - gregmac 5y ago
    Yes, I guess I just meant "squareish". That's embarrassing. I'll try to edit my post to reflect that.
- NathanielK 5y ago
  > Though you can technically do it, I found most things just don't work well with a 1080 monitor in this mode: 960 wide just isn't enough. Even a lot of websites don't really work properly, and a lot go into mobile layout. I have found similar. This is why for a cheap portrait monitor I usually recommend older IPS monitors that are available in 1920x1200 or 1600x1200.
timbit42 5y ago
Why do you prefer 4:3 ratio when 3:2 ratio is the closest to human field of view ratio?
- NathanielK 5y ago
  The perimetry of human vision is a bit more complex than that. It varies by person, but each eye sees a bit of an odd shaped blob[0]. It'd be hard to generalize to several decimal places exactly what aspect ratio rectangle best fills it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_field#/media/File:Traquair_1938_Fig_1_modified.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_field#/media/File:Traqu...
petree 5y ago
For me 21:9 is the ideal resolution right now. It can be split in 2 or 3 screens side-by-side and it still works well. A single 4:3 doesn't really give a lot of flexibility in the same way and bezels are annoying.
dogma1138 5y ago
You can buy 5:4/4:3 and 1:1 ratio monitors still the issue is that these are often found in various medical imaging categories and so are priced accordingly. The “cheapest” of these is probably the EV2730Q-BK which is a 1920x1920 monitor and it’s priced around £700/€800 in Europe, it does come with a 10bit LUT and high grade IPS panel but it’s still 1920x1920 and 60hz only at a pretty steep price.

by tirpen 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

MisterTea 5y ago

I still use a Samsung 21 1600x1200 LCD as a secondary display. Wish I had more. Unfortunately 16:9 is here to stay thanks to TV's being the lowest common denominator. Though I'd happily look in to these 16:18 displays as long s they're affordable. More vertical pixels is what I miss most about 4:3.

formerly_proven 5y ago
I also use a 21" 1600x1200 with a Samsung PVA panel as a second display, the vertical height lines up nicely with a 27" widescreen. It's kinda fascinating to see how the PVA panel, which is like 20 year old tech, has no issues keeping up with a modern IPS display, and even has lower viewing angle shift, no backlight bleed, far better contrast and hence deeper blacks. The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT.
- NathanielK 5y ago
  > The only teeny tiny problem is that it's visibly slow, even for a 60 Hz TFT. If it really bugs you, basically all scalers (brainbox for the LCD display signal) can handle 75-85Hz, since that was part of the VESA crt spec back then. Many of them will accept a higher frequency signal if you toodle around in your GPU settings a bit. Can't fix the slow response times, but it still helps a fair bit with making general work feel smoother and snappier.
saltcured 5y ago
I spent a lot on CRT monitors (Nanao, Sony Trinitron) for work and then was was an early adopter of desktop LCD with DVI digital connections. I was so happy to get pixel perfect addressing and no analog softness, ghosting, or flicker. I remember going from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 and easily accepting the idea that this was a bonus screen area to the side, not some sort of compromise. Then, I was bitter when everything became 1920x1080 and feeling constrained by the limited vertical pixels. However, I am now quite happy with 28 inch 4k (3840x2160) on a desktop, rarely making any window full height nor full width. I even dragged home a second 4k monitor from the office at the start of the COVID WFH era, but never bothered to set it up properly. It just doesn't seem like I need that much screen area. I still feel constrained by a laptop 14 inch 1920x1080, and my work style changes. I prefer to go back to the desktop for "real" work and mostly use the laptop for more basic communication or browsing when I don't want to stay in the home office.

vidyesh 5y ago

So much of screen real estate is wasted in 16:9. I have vertical taskbars on my monitors because I would benefit more from the space available in Y-axis than on X-axis most of the time.

stunt 5y ago
I just hide both dock/taskbar and menubar and use a tiling window manager to switch between split and full screen. Dock and menubar are waste of space for 99% of the time that you're using your computer.
dspillett 5y ago
My current setup at home and work¹ is a ~24" 16:9 1920x1080 but spun to portrait. There are a number of monitors out there that support this, failing that get one with standard vesa fixings and get a stand/arm you can attach it to that way around. These each stand beside a ~32" 16:9 2560x1440 screen². Sometimes the big landscape screen gets used as just that, sometimes as effectively two portrait screens³⁴. The tall one is very nice for reading documents/mail/HN/… and such, though a little thin occasionally⁵ so 16:10 would be nicer. The main Windows taskbar lives on the tall screen⁶. Not an optimal setup when sat down⁷ I find, but as I stand most of the time and it works really well for me like that, limitations when seated isn't a big issue. [1] I gave up asking and just brought my own in, along with the standing desk I'd been asking about for years [2] almost the same dot pitch as the other screen, so no need to faf with scaling to get things to look sufficiently similar on them [3] when doing that I effectively have three tall thin screens - one at 1080x1920 two at 1280x1440 (about 13:16). [4] in fact the Samsung one supports pretending to be two monitors that way using two inputs, one for each side, though I use the OS-/app-level positioning instead so I can nudge one side wider in some contexts [5] some web designs assume you have more than 1080 pixels in width if you have more than 1024, in fact some just assume 1280+ full-stop (less a little in case some uses with 1280 have their taskbars on the side). For instance Google's right bar gets ~⅓ cut off for instance when searching for things that make it appear, and a number of online stores lose current basket information (that they put on a column at on the right) unless I scroll or move to the other screen [6] top here, bottom at home, the difference due to how the monitor stand heights work out and the limits of my work space at home meaning the two screens line up differently in the two locations [7] it is hard to find a comfortable position where I'm not craning my neck a little or forcing myself to set _too_ straight up

consp 5y ago

My understanding was that for LCDs the 4:3 and 5:4 panels were more expensive to make due to them having more pixels per inch of diagonal than 16:9. So it is reasonable for them to be more expensive for the same inch diagonal. edit: instead of down voting, please tell my why my understanding is wrong.

toast0 5y ago
There aren't very many 4:3 and 5:4 panels available at all beyond 17" these days. You can get largish 1:1 panels for crazy prices though. There's also the posibility of buying a whole 16:9 panel and having it cut to size, but that's not cheap and I'm not sure it's sane either. A premium would be fine (we'd surely be grumbling still), but no availability is sad. I'm 60% sure the 1up arcade kits are so small because they're scaled to the largest 4:3 monitor they can get.

fanf2 5y ago

Most of this year I was using two 1200x1920 panels in portrait, making a 32” 5:4 display (with a gutter like a book). A pretty nice setup. But now I have a 32” 4k display. The prettier fonts and extra window placement flexibility are nice, and I didn’t really use all the vertical space I had.

theandrewbailey 5y ago
I upgraded my gaming rig's monitors 3 weeks ago, and I'm using the old ones in my home office: 2x 24" 1920x1200 monitors in portrait. The old office monitors had cheap stands and didn't rotate. I can't say that it's a no-brainer upgrade, but I'm OK with it.
Zachsa999 5y ago
Did you find any solutions for tiling windows vertically? Windows 10 definantly does not do this well.
- jmiserez 5y ago
  FancyZones (part of Microsoft PowerToys) works well for me. I also like the fact that it's first-party, free and open-source: Project page: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys FancyZones docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/powertoys/fancyzones https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...
  - Zachsa999 5y ago
    I just downloaded it.. Why does Microsoft not promote this more? I may not need to use Linux now for a while
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- daggersandscars 5y ago
  I use Divvy[1]. It also works on MacOS. I use gTile on Linux. The combination lets me use the same keyboard short cuts (or close enough) on all 3 OSes.

throwanem 5y ago

4:3 is 16:12, so this can be considered as a 4:3 monitor that's taller by one-third.

ksec 5y ago

This 16:18 is 1.125, which is pretty close to 4:3's 1.2.

whiw 5y ago
18:16 is 1.125:1, but 4:3 is 1.33:1
- ksec 5y ago
  Dont know what I was thinking. Thanks for the correction.

zokier 5y ago

I don't quite feel for 4:3 aficionados, looking back on my monitor progression there were the 4:3 CRTs (probably something like 1280x960), the 5:4 LCD with 1280x1024 pixels, then the horrible 1680x1050 16:10 LCD (shoulda gotten 1920x1200 one..), and now finally 2560x1440 16:9 display that I still use. What I notice is that despite aspect ratios becoming wider, the monitors have pretty consistently also become taller in absolute measure. What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained

lucideer 5y ago
> What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained For me, for monitors and PC work, it comes down to OS UX. Sure, I can have all of my windows display at 4:3 with gaps either side, or on one side, but: (a) configuring that to be persistent is a pain, and (b) whatever fills that gap is either wasteful (empty space) or distracting. The default on the other hand is to have anything maximised span the full width, which means that unless I'm reading a well-designed webpage (or reader mode), I'm inevitably straining to traverse a much bigger horizontal context with my eyes all day long. Yes, 2560x1920 would be by far the preferred option of all 3, but if I need to choose between 2560x1440 and 1920x1440, the latter is a worthwhile compromise.
NathanielK 5y ago
> What I notice is that despite aspect ratios becoming wider, the monitors have pretty consistently also become taller in absolute measure. Dell 3007WFP and the Apple Cinema HD display were both ~16" tall. They're over 15 years old now. They were a expensive at the time, but they're still taller than most modern 16:9 and "27:9" displays available now. >What I don't understand is why I'd ever want 1920x1440 (4:3) monitor over 2560x1440 (16:9) one, unless I'm really space constrained I want a 4k 4:3 screen. If you're going to dream, why not dream big? 3840x2880 please. I have a CRT that syncs to 2560x1920 and I already enjoy it for a few odd things.
- zokier 5y ago
  Modern 31.5" 16:9 (common 4k size) are essentially as tall as 30" 16:10 of yore.

Gualdrapo 5y ago

I heard Microsoft had plans about launching a Surface Studio monitor last year, but can't find if that actually happened. It is my ideal ratio and size monitor.

gregmac 5y ago

I run two 2560 × 1440 monitors, which are 16:9, but each nicely splits into two square-ish (1280 × 1440) displays. While not quite 4:3, it's close in the experience. I tile using FancyZones and run most applications in this setup. Though you can technically do it, I found most things just don't work well with a 1080 monitor in this mode: 960 wide just isn't enough. Even a lot of websites don't really work properly, and a lot go into mobile layout. This was a good combo of screen space, usability and price. Full screen movies or games are still 16:9 (supposedly there are/were issues with 32:9 with a lot of games), and I like that I can play a game or movie and still have the other screen showing something. I can also RDP to my work laptop in full-screen on one monitor, and seamlessly work across both - so much simpler than dual-monitor KVM chaos, or dealing with audio- or webcam-over-network issues. (Edit: re-worded from incorrectly saying 1280 × 1440 is 4:3)

wtallis 5y ago
1280x1440 is not at all close to a 4:3 ratio. For starters, 1280 is a smaller number than 1440. It looks like you were using "4:3" to simply mean "closer to square than typical widescreen aspect ratios", which is pretty confusing.
- gregmac 5y ago
  Yes, I guess I just meant "squareish". That's embarrassing. I'll try to edit my post to reflect that.
NathanielK 5y ago
> Though you can technically do it, I found most things just don't work well with a 1080 monitor in this mode: 960 wide just isn't enough. Even a lot of websites don't really work properly, and a lot go into mobile layout. I have found similar. This is why for a cheap portrait monitor I usually recommend older IPS monitors that are available in 1920x1200 or 1600x1200.

timbit42 5y ago

Why do you prefer 4:3 ratio when 3:2 ratio is the closest to human field of view ratio?

NathanielK 5y ago
The perimetry of human vision is a bit more complex than that. It varies by person, but each eye sees a bit of an odd shaped blob[0]. It'd be hard to generalize to several decimal places exactly what aspect ratio rectangle best fills it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_field#/media/File:Traquair_1938_Fig_1_modified.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_field#/media/File:Traqu...

petree 5y ago

For me 21:9 is the ideal resolution right now. It can be split in 2 or 3 screens side-by-side and it still works well. A single 4:3 doesn't really give a lot of flexibility in the same way and bezels are annoying.

dogma1138 5y ago

You can buy 5:4/4:3 and 1:1 ratio monitors still the issue is that these are often found in various medical imaging categories and so are priced accordingly. The “cheapest” of these is probably the EV2730Q-BK which is a 1920x1920 monitor and it’s priced around £700/€800 in Europe, it does come with a 10bit LUT and high grade IPS panel but it’s still 1920x1920 and 60hz only at a pretty steep price.