FYI: I just stumbled upon this interesting Chinese article describing all the different X series models, their codenames and X200 series replacing the X60.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... en&ie=UTF8

(translated by Google).

Widescreens everywhere The chance of getting the dream 12" 1400x1050 non-tablet is gone ...

Ditto. This is really starting to suck. I hate XXXXXXXXXXX widescreen.

Note from Moderator: Watch your language.

seeing half a page when you type up your paper is always nice.... maybe there is a software to flip your screen sideways, that way you can flip your entire lappy sideways and see everything normally

I've often wondered

Seriously though, this Asus I'm using (not mine thank god, and thankfully I'm using an external keyboard and mouse) is a perfect example of how pointless widescreen is, it's a huge 15.4 inch beast and yet there's 3 vertical inches of unused space, in a laptop which is 4:3 in shape...

Why is the market so sensitive to silly people suddenly (and probably fleetingly) wanting to watch films absolutely everywhere and everywhen? it's not even as if that's a good argument anyway, as laptops are already too small for real cinema use, and if you're staring up close at a small screen on a train all screns are big enough whatever their shape, and jesus, people even use video ipods...

And the idea that more width = more desktop space? who dreamed that up?

As I've said elsewhere, widescreen was intended for side by side document viewing, and I've known no one to use it for such, especially not on a small laptop screen where fonts are already too small.

As for keeping keyboards wide, above 12in we already know the x60 manages a good keyboard which is looks as wide as the Air's... below it, I think I'd put up with a marginally smaller keyboard to get the proper screen format, but this is another territory which isn't so easily dictated to by the main laptop market. Widescreen is acceptible here anyway.

As for desktops with much larger screens, these is much more practical for cinema and double document viewing.

Someone please explain this lunacy!

thanks for the place to rant, Bill.

This is getting more funny when more and more web pages are switching from "dynamic width" design to fixed width. So you have a tin noodle in the middle of your widescreen

The result is that a 13.3" notebook is the good old 14" with smaller vertical resolution. That's why the X300 should be folded into T series because it is virtually same as 14" T. X series replacement is supposed to be a 11.1", hopefully with reasonable screen resulotion like 1366x768.

But the good thing is, there won't be any more XGA Thinkpads. From now on, the lowest-resolution Thinkpad will have 1280x800.



I do, even on 12.1" widescreen laptops. Now you know one person who does it!

Well, for a 10.6" screen it is good

Thanks a lot!

You just need to go into advance settings in the properties of the graphics card and "rotate". I believe a standard setting with ATI cards is "ctrl+alt+ [arrow buttons]" should rotate the screen automatically.

That's exactly what I often do at home. The Thinkpad is flat and in a book holder at 60°. Using my wireless keyboard and mouse it is a pleasure.

Just use the ATI tool to turn your windows by 90° right.

I often use Adobe reader in full screen at 90° right angle to read larger pdf files.
That's what I love on skinny Thinkpads.

14.1" LCDs will be discontinued. That's why widescreen will be the new New. It all depends on costs and profits from the LCD makers.

Im wondering, is this also going to use the 1.8" hdd?

My thinking is, with the recent announcement of mtron's 128gb hdd, and the simple reasoning that with flash storage, size does not necessarily equate with faster performance the same way that it does with 5400-15k 1.8"-3.5" hdds, then all laptops will eventually run something like a 1.8" ssd. Yeah, probably even the T and R series will use it too, as it can offer identical performance with the 2.5" drive, probably can fit in the new 7mm slim ultrabay of the x300 (Im thinking a matching 7mm ultrabay hdd adaptor), and can be doubled or tripled an place in the machine for increased storage.

Kinda like how a few years ago, there were a dozen storage chips for cellphones, ranging from t-flash to full SD cards (and MS cards), and except for sony, most seem to have settled on the microsd standard. In any event, heres to making smaller, lighter lappys with no moving parts!

But where it will stop ? It is going worse every month (both quality and widescreen-only idiocy). If they decide that the best profit would be from black-and-white displays with 256x192 pixels, will we get them next year ?

Isn't there a connection between Panasonic having strong position in bussiness segment and 4:3 models they are still offering ?

Go to www.51nb.com
There is a thread about an 12.1" SXGA+ upgrade on a X31.

Waiting for the adapter that fits on airplane fold-out trays now..

So.. is there market for X200 tablet? .. or would you rather see a X300 tablet? And is there unanimous opinion that the widescreen format is better for tablets?

Because the market is dominated mainly by samsung who have made exact calculations of how much raw panels they can save by choosing 16:10 instead of 4:3.
Btw. samsung is really a cheating company, their LCD performance for notebooks is disgusting - they promise 400:1 but you actually get 200:1 according to many reviews on notebookcheck.com

This is borderline the case with this: http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-One-C ... 414.0.html which uses the LTN154X3-L01 from Samsung. They measured a 201:1 at best case.
The datasheet: http://cn.fpdisplay.com/trade/Down.Asp? ... 154532.pdf
promises at least 300:1.

Edit: sorry, i completely forgot what the topic really was about. You're tempting me, Puppy