4 ms·

What 16:9 is good for? It is inconvenient for any work: for coding, reading articles or working with documents more height is better. Please explain for what ki

What 16:9 is good for? It is inconvenient for any work: for coding, reading articles or working with documents more height is better. Please explain for what kind of activity wide, but low height screen is the most suitable? The only thing that comes to mind is killing time by watching videos on social networks sites.

chrismorgan 4y ago
I tile windows side-by-side. I split Vim side-by-side. I use Tree Style Tab in Firefox and hide the horizontal tab bar. (If I’m tiling a browser beside something else, I close the tab sidebar most of the time.) 16:9 is fine, so long as you’re set up to be able to use that width. On my 13.5″ Surface Book, I appreciated its 3:2 aspect ratio, because it was already too narrow to comfortably tile things horizontally anyway, so why not go even more in the tall direction? On my current 15.6″ 16:9 laptop, I tile and split frequently because it’s comfortable. 16:10 would still be fine, but I do this enough that I believe I’d honestly very slightly prefer 16:9 for its extra centimetre of width (~5 columns in my terminal), even at the cost of 1.5cm of height (~2 rows). There are advantages and disadvantages to the different ratios in different scenarios. (Still, I do think that most people would find 16:10 a happier medium at this size. But me, I can effectively use 16:9, though I don’t think I’d want to go any wider.)
oriolid 4y ago
Watching TV on a screen where black is so bad that letterboxing is not an option
Aachen 4y ago
> What 16:9 is good for? It is inconvenient for any work: for coding, reading articles or working with documents more height is better. Is it? Gee, I wonder why it's the only screen ratio I've seen people use since we moved away from CRT screens until a few years ago when 4k and friends became popular and there was suddenly no standard resolution to expect anymore. Curious that we're all using this inferior ratio for literally all those things all the time.
- zerocrates 4y ago
  Hmm, is that actually true? My recollection of widescreen PC monitors and laptops is that they all started at 16:10, and the shift to 16:9 came later (and is now reversing somewhat).
  - Aachen 4y ago
    You may be right, I don't have good memories from the late CRT / early flat-screen era (I must have been 13 or something). Now that you mention it, I think my first flat screen monitor might have been 1440x900 / 16:10. I'm sure that my screen has been 1080p "full HD" since ~2007 because I still use that screen as my primary monitor. Whether I had one in between those two, I don't remember.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Hdtv made economies of scale that eliminated everything else for a time. Eventually more sophisticated folks realized it is horrible for everything but non-video applications. Mobile is separate because it’s mostly a consumption device.

chrismorgan 4y ago

I tile windows side-by-side. I split Vim side-by-side. I use Tree Style Tab in Firefox and hide the horizontal tab bar. (If I’m tiling a browser beside something else, I close the tab sidebar most of the time.) 16:9 is fine, so long as you’re set up to be able to use that width. On my 13.5″ Surface Book, I appreciated its 3:2 aspect ratio, because it was already too narrow to comfortably tile things horizontally anyway, so why not go even more in the tall direction? On my current 15.6″ 16:9 laptop, I tile and split frequently because it’s comfortable. 16:10 would still be fine, but I do this enough that I believe I’d honestly very slightly prefer 16:9 for its extra centimetre of width (~5 columns in my terminal), even at the cost of 1.5cm of height (~2 rows). There are advantages and disadvantages to the different ratios in different scenarios. (Still, I do think that most people would find 16:10 a happier medium at this size. But me, I can effectively use 16:9, though I don’t think I’d want to go any wider.)

oriolid 4y ago

Watching TV on a screen where black is so bad that letterboxing is not an option

Aachen 4y ago

> What 16:9 is good for? It is inconvenient for any work: for coding, reading articles or working with documents more height is better. Is it? Gee, I wonder why it's the only screen ratio I've seen people use since we moved away from CRT screens until a few years ago when 4k and friends became popular and there was suddenly no standard resolution to expect anymore. Curious that we're all using this inferior ratio for literally all those things all the time.

zerocrates 4y ago
Hmm, is that actually true? My recollection of widescreen PC monitors and laptops is that they all started at 16:10, and the shift to 16:9 came later (and is now reversing somewhat).
- Aachen 4y ago
  You may be right, I don't have good memories from the late CRT / early flat-screen era (I must have been 13 or something). Now that you mention it, I think my first flat screen monitor might have been 1440x900 / 16:10. I'm sure that my screen has been 1080p "full HD" since ~2007 because I still use that screen as my primary monitor. Whether I had one in between those two, I don't remember.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
Hdtv made economies of scale that eliminated everything else for a time. Eventually more sophisticated folks realized it is horrible for everything but non-video applications. Mobile is separate because it’s mostly a consumption device.