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My kingdom for a victorious return of 4:3 displays! When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. Pulling out

My kingdom for a victorious return of 4:3 displays! When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. Pulling out my T42p retro laptop, with its 4:3 screen, always gives me the warm fuzzies. Love that aspect ratio.

ptaipale 12y ago
I really wish that manufacturers would start making decent laptops with 4:3 screens. They call these 16:9 displays widescreen. I call them shallowscreen: they are just don't have th evertical space for work. Why are my work tools made with screen form factors that are only suitable for watching movies? And yes, I love my T43, which has a lovely display and keyboard even though it is almost 10 years old. Alas, it is just underpowered today.
DrStalker 12y ago
Rotate your monitor and work in 1200x1920.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- AdamTReineke 12y ago
  I run two 1080p monitors in portrait on my desk at work. It's unreal how many interfaces assume you're widescreen: images are cut off abruptly after they scale to the width of the screen, horizontal scrollbars appear as default widths of panels in apps assume a widescreen monitor, and Excel spreadsheets flow off to the right. I'd love a 1920x1920 monitor.
  - wtallis 12y ago
    1080 is absolutely not wide enough for today's software and web sites, but 1200 is mostly manageable. Anything that is too wide for 1200 either has too many columns as an attempt to use the absurd width of most monitors, or its lines of text are too long to be readable.
    - MrDom 12y ago
      Another issue I had with a portrait monitor is, once you hit a certain size, you don't use the extra vertical real estate. You wind up moving your head up and down (mostly down) and you leave your head like that for a while sometimes. It's terrible for your back and neck, even standing.
    - imanaccount247 12y ago
      >1080 is absolutely not wide enough for today's software and web sites It certainly is. My browser is never even that wide now, and the only thing I ever run full screen is games.
      - gagege 12y ago
        I just made my browser window smaller in agreement with your comment.
  - jonknee 12y ago
    It's not unreal for desktop apps to assume the user has a wide screen, every computer you buy has one!
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Not everybody maximizes their windows, though.
- userbinator 12y ago
  Somewhat hard to do that with a laptop... 4:3 is about right for a laptop since you can't make them too "tall" or they'll become difficult to handle, much like books.
NamTaf 12y ago
Widescreen in the office is really good and has a huge advantage over 4:3 in one key aspect - When you halve the horizontal resolution (8:10 or 8:9, though 8:10 is better at it) you quite closely match what two normal A4/letter documents, inside word editing applications, cover. So you can place two text documents side-by-side and they fit reasonably well. This is incredibly useful to a whole load of office employees, who want to refer to two word docs, or 1 word doc and 1 PDF, etc. This is where widescreens shine (and 16:10 is even better than 16:9) and why I think they've excelled well in the workplace.
- alexbecker 12y ago
  Also mathematicians. When writing math (in LaTeX), I have a text editor in one half of my screen and the compiled PDF in the other.
- Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
  I work with PDFs and docs most of the time, and I find that the best setup for viewing an A4-size PDF is a 4:3 monitor rotated 90 degrees. A 16:10 monitor rotated 90 degrees (what I have right now) is OK, but it wastes space at the top and bottom that the 4:3 monitor would be using to zoom the document more. A horizontal 16:10 monitor with two PDF's, as you mention, is too small for me (at least with my current 24 inch monitors). Caring for the eyes is essential when you're looking at on-screen PDFs all the day. I would probably like that layout with a 30" monitor though... although maximizing windows in two monitors is still more comfortable than tiling in one big monitor.
  - rwallace 12y ago
    I sympathize, but a 30-inch widescreen monitor is probably easier to get hold of nowadays than a smaller one in a taller form factor. If you're using Windows, here's a neat feature I went years without knowing: Windows key + left arrow arranges the window to occupy the left half of your monitor, and similarly with right arrow.
- xorcist 12y ago
  That's only true if you have only one monitor. The last few places I've been have been strong supporters of dual monitors, so I might be in a bit of a thought bubble on that, but also because monitors have gotten dirt cheap so why not. You can get dual IPS for the price of a fancy office chair.
pdabbadabba 12y ago
> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. It seems to me that a 16:9 monitor is exactly what you need -- rotated vertically. Get one that pivots!
dspillett 12y ago
> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. Last time I completely rebuilt my home setup I got monitors that can be rotated into portrait. I've not used the facility nearly as much as I thought I would, but then again I've not done much development since so that might be why. Having one portrait and one landscape seems to be idea for web development: portrait for coding and landscape for output (as that is what the user's will likely have) & the things that don't fit properly in 1080 pixels wide. You don't want to large a monitor in portrait for coding though: you'll be looking down a lot (or up+down if you sit with your head centred) which might be quite bad for posture. Beyond a certain size you are probably better off with a large monitor and some UI hack to artificially split it into columns.
lomnakkus 12y ago
> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. This sounds really weird to me. I absolutely relish the ability to have an editor and terminal side by side without either of them feeling "squeezed up". If you're using an IDE you can also get a lot more space for actual code even with those annoying side areas that IDEs tend to have.
Chris_Newton 12y ago
When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. I’m seriously considering buying an LG 34UM95 monitor¹ for precisely this reason. It’s so wide (34" screen, 21:9 aspect ratio, 3440x1440 resolution) that I could sensibly divide the screen into 3-4 full-height columns with different source files open in each for development work. Currently I have a decent Dell 30" as my main screen, but at 2560x1600 resolution I wind up using it with a 2x2 split for coding, which roughly halves the number of lines I can see at once in a long file. I’m a little sceptical about trying a 1920x1920 screen at that physical size for similar work, simply because I’d worry about what prolonged use would do to my neck with that much vertical movement being needed all the time. ¹ http://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-34UM95 http://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-34UM95
- jackalope 12y ago
  I've just set up 3 different work areas consisting of laptops with external second monitors. I've settled on the configuration having the external monitor above the laptop display as being the most optimum. I find that I never need to move my neck to glance from one screen to the other, and only require a slight tilt at the waist to comfortably switch for longer periods. Contrast this to a side-by-side configuration, where it feels awkward to merely shift my eyes sideways, so I move my neck more. This in itself isn't so bad, until I need to focus on one screen that's off-center for prolonged periods, keeping my head in an awkward angle that doesn't seem healthy. Naturally, any configuration should still be augmented with regular stretching/activity breaks. tl;dr: Vertical: Mostly eye movement. Horizontal: Lots of neck movement.
- npongratz 12y ago
  The ultrawide LG is quite nice, I trialed a coworker's for a week or two. Beautiful screen and great features, and using it was interesting. It was really nice to have four or more full-height source files tiled. However, from my typical centered vantage point, windows near the corners appeared skewed. (They weren't physically skewed of course, this was just because of the angle I was viewing). I found myself rolling my chair left and right so that I could more closely center myself in front of the current window, which wasn't a big deal, just something I noticed myself doing. Given proper resources, I'd consider getting one. Just wanted to share my funny anecdote that it's so large, I rolled back and forth to take advantage of it all :)

ptaipale 12y ago

I really wish that manufacturers would start making decent laptops with 4:3 screens. They call these 16:9 displays widescreen. I call them shallowscreen: they are just don't have th evertical space for work. Why are my work tools made with screen form factors that are only suitable for watching movies? And yes, I love my T43, which has a lovely display and keyboard even though it is almost 10 years old. Alas, it is just underpowered today.

DrStalker 12y ago

Rotate your monitor and work in 1200x1920.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
AdamTReineke 12y ago
I run two 1080p monitors in portrait on my desk at work. It's unreal how many interfaces assume you're widescreen: images are cut off abruptly after they scale to the width of the screen, horizontal scrollbars appear as default widths of panels in apps assume a widescreen monitor, and Excel spreadsheets flow off to the right. I'd love a 1920x1920 monitor.
- wtallis 12y ago
  1080 is absolutely not wide enough for today's software and web sites, but 1200 is mostly manageable. Anything that is too wide for 1200 either has too many columns as an attempt to use the absurd width of most monitors, or its lines of text are too long to be readable.
  - MrDom 12y ago
    Another issue I had with a portrait monitor is, once you hit a certain size, you don't use the extra vertical real estate. You wind up moving your head up and down (mostly down) and you leave your head like that for a while sometimes. It's terrible for your back and neck, even standing.
  - imanaccount247 12y ago
    >1080 is absolutely not wide enough for today's software and web sites It certainly is. My browser is never even that wide now, and the only thing I ever run full screen is games.
    - gagege 12y ago
      I just made my browser window smaller in agreement with your comment.
- jonknee 12y ago
  It's not unreal for desktop apps to assume the user has a wide screen, every computer you buy has one!
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Not everybody maximizes their windows, though.
userbinator 12y ago
Somewhat hard to do that with a laptop... 4:3 is about right for a laptop since you can't make them too "tall" or they'll become difficult to handle, much like books.

NamTaf 12y ago

Widescreen in the office is really good and has a huge advantage over 4:3 in one key aspect - When you halve the horizontal resolution (8:10 or 8:9, though 8:10 is better at it) you quite closely match what two normal A4/letter documents, inside word editing applications, cover. So you can place two text documents side-by-side and they fit reasonably well. This is incredibly useful to a whole load of office employees, who want to refer to two word docs, or 1 word doc and 1 PDF, etc. This is where widescreens shine (and 16:10 is even better than 16:9) and why I think they've excelled well in the workplace.

alexbecker 12y ago
Also mathematicians. When writing math (in LaTeX), I have a text editor in one half of my screen and the compiled PDF in the other.
Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
I work with PDFs and docs most of the time, and I find that the best setup for viewing an A4-size PDF is a 4:3 monitor rotated 90 degrees. A 16:10 monitor rotated 90 degrees (what I have right now) is OK, but it wastes space at the top and bottom that the 4:3 monitor would be using to zoom the document more. A horizontal 16:10 monitor with two PDF's, as you mention, is too small for me (at least with my current 24 inch monitors). Caring for the eyes is essential when you're looking at on-screen PDFs all the day. I would probably like that layout with a 30" monitor though... although maximizing windows in two monitors is still more comfortable than tiling in one big monitor.
- rwallace 12y ago
  I sympathize, but a 30-inch widescreen monitor is probably easier to get hold of nowadays than a smaller one in a taller form factor. If you're using Windows, here's a neat feature I went years without knowing: Windows key + left arrow arranges the window to occupy the left half of your monitor, and similarly with right arrow.
xorcist 12y ago
That's only true if you have only one monitor. The last few places I've been have been strong supporters of dual monitors, so I might be in a bit of a thought bubble on that, but also because monitors have gotten dirt cheap so why not. You can get dual IPS for the price of a fancy office chair.

pdabbadabba 12y ago

> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. It seems to me that a 16:9 monitor is exactly what you need -- rotated vertically. Get one that pivots!

dspillett 12y ago

> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. Last time I completely rebuilt my home setup I got monitors that can be rotated into portrait. I've not used the facility nearly as much as I thought I would, but then again I've not done much development since so that might be why. Having one portrait and one landscape seems to be idea for web development: portrait for coding and landscape for output (as that is what the user's will likely have) & the things that don't fit properly in 1080 pixels wide. You don't want to large a monitor in portrait for coding though: you'll be looking down a lot (or up+down if you sit with your head centred) which might be quite bad for posture. Beyond a certain size you are probably better off with a large monitor and some UI hack to artificially split it into columns.

lomnakkus 12y ago

> When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. This sounds really weird to me. I absolutely relish the ability to have an editor and terminal side by side without either of them feeling "squeezed up". If you're using an IDE you can also get a lot more space for actual code even with those annoying side areas that IDEs tend to have.

Chris_Newton 12y ago

When I code, horizontal space is never at a premium. It's always vertical space I'm short on. I’m seriously considering buying an LG 34UM95 monitor¹ for precisely this reason. It’s so wide (34" screen, 21:9 aspect ratio, 3440x1440 resolution) that I could sensibly divide the screen into 3-4 full-height columns with different source files open in each for development work. Currently I have a decent Dell 30" as my main screen, but at 2560x1600 resolution I wind up using it with a 2x2 split for coding, which roughly halves the number of lines I can see at once in a long file. I’m a little sceptical about trying a 1920x1920 screen at that physical size for similar work, simply because I’d worry about what prolonged use would do to my neck with that much vertical movement being needed all the time. ¹ http://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-34UM95 http://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-34UM95

jackalope 12y ago
I've just set up 3 different work areas consisting of laptops with external second monitors. I've settled on the configuration having the external monitor above the laptop display as being the most optimum. I find that I never need to move my neck to glance from one screen to the other, and only require a slight tilt at the waist to comfortably switch for longer periods. Contrast this to a side-by-side configuration, where it feels awkward to merely shift my eyes sideways, so I move my neck more. This in itself isn't so bad, until I need to focus on one screen that's off-center for prolonged periods, keeping my head in an awkward angle that doesn't seem healthy. Naturally, any configuration should still be augmented with regular stretching/activity breaks. tl;dr: Vertical: Mostly eye movement. Horizontal: Lots of neck movement.
npongratz 12y ago
The ultrawide LG is quite nice, I trialed a coworker's for a week or two. Beautiful screen and great features, and using it was interesting. It was really nice to have four or more full-height source files tiled. However, from my typical centered vantage point, windows near the corners appeared skewed. (They weren't physically skewed of course, this was just because of the angle I was viewing). I found myself rolling my chair left and right so that I could more closely center myself in front of the current window, which wasn't a big deal, just something I noticed myself doing. Given proper resources, I'd consider getting one. Just wanted to share my funny anecdote that it's so large, I rolled back and forth to take advantage of it all :)