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Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

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pianowizard
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#31 Post by pianowizard » Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:26 pm

TPFanatic wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:36 pm
So the popular opinion is basically 1024x768 is more usable than ANY 16:9, so I am so much more productive on my 12 year old X60 with its GLORIOUS 8) square 8) no bezel 8) 150 nit XGA, and even my 20 year old Hitachi Visiondesk with its GLORIOUS 8) square 8) VGA 800x600
Great post! Yep that's exactly what they're saying. To increase productivity, I must replace all my 32" and 40" 3840x2160 monitors with 15" 1024x768 ones! These 16:9 monitors can only display a third of an A4 page, but a 15" 4:3 monitor can display the entire page nicely! I can't believe I wasted well over $1k on these monstrosities!
dr_st wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:30 am
Pianowizard, which I conclude from the various discussions we've had on the forums over the years, is what some people call a "horizontally organized" person, who prioritizes desktop space over everything else. In computer screens where the pixel is the basic unit, desktop space = resolution, so to him it's all about increasing it, and aspect ratio matters not. If you give him a 4:3 screen with 8000x6000 pixels, I'm sure he would prefer that.
I wasn't always "horizontally organized". Lots of us grew up using 4:3 CRTs with 800x600 or even lower. When we used a word processor for Windows 3.1, we maximized the window and fit the page width across the screen. We kept doing that for 1024x768, 1280x1024 and even 1600x1200. Then these "square screens" were gradually phased out by widescreens. People who held on to their old habits (maximizing the window and fitting the page width) hated widescreens because they could see much less of the page. But I worked around this by using only a portion of the screen for one window and the rest for something else, and realized I preferred seeing two windows in parallel. My first widescreen was just 1280x800, so the two windows overlapped partially, and for Word documents and PDFs I had to choose the "fit text width" option instead of "fit page width", but that's still better than viewing just one maximized window. Later, as widescreen resolutions kept increasing, I tiled more and more windows on the screen, not just horizontally but also vertically.

On 40" 3840x2160 displays it's easy to tile a bunch of windows without scaling, but things look tiny on high-DPI laptop displays, so many users maximize the active window and scale things way up, thereby sacrificing real estate. This brings us to your next two sets of comments, and my response:
dr_st wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:30 am
So essentially you do say that it's not really about how good one's eyesight is, since you claim your eyesight to be below average, and my eyesight has been consistently (*knock-on-wood*) rated above average, and I know that I would not feel comfortable with something like 1440p on 14" at 100% scaling in Windows...I don't know how you do it. Maybe your definition of "average" eyesight differs from the accepted scale...
Eyesight has got to be a factor, e.g. the millions of people suffering low vision certainly wouldn't be able to do what I do with high-DPI screens no matter how hard they try.

According to eye exams I have 20/20 vision, but as you know these exams use black letters against a white background to maximize contrast, and the optometrist gives us plenty of time to look at each letter, so I can squint and take several seconds to identify each letter. In real-life situations I know for a fact that most people around me can see better than I, e.g. at seminars I can see the screen well only in the front rows, while my colleagues can see fine all the way in the back.
dr_st wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:30 am
...Maybe it really is a matter of 'lots of practice over many years'. If it's the latter case, however, I am not sure that I would want to invest into this kind of practice, and honestly, I can't see why anyone else would either. The productivity lost during those 'many years' of practice would hardly ever be regained by using the ultra-high-DPI-ultra-small-print screen later on...
You make it sound like I didn't get anything done during those years of practice! Of course I kept working while practicing; this is not like the piano, where I need to practice a piece for months before I can perform it at a recital or shoot a video for YouTube. And it didn't really take years, but more like a few weeks in 2006 to adjust to 147.0 DPI (Dell Inspiron 6000), a few weeks in 2007 to adjust to 170.7 DPI (QXGA mod for the R50p), and a few weeks in 2014 to adjust to 221.9 DPI (Vaio VGN-P530CH) -- these were the three significant DPI jumps I experienced. There was actually a fourth jump, when I bought the Dell Inspiron 15-7568 convertible (282.4 DPI) in 2016, but using 100% scaling on it seemed so daunting that I gave up immediately and settled for 125% scaling. Someone with better vision than I might be able to conquer 282.4 DPI, and this is another example of eyesight being a factor. Note that I said *a* factor, not *the* factor. Obviously determination also matters.
Puppy wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:28 pm
That's true but there is another issue, narrow keyboards.
Don't worry, even when a 14" 16:9 laptop has the smallest bezel possible, it's still wide enough to accommodate a keyboard with full-sized keys.
Last edited by pianowizard on Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#32 Post by dr_st » Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:45 pm

pianowizard wrote:
Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:26 pm
You make it sound like I didn't get anything done during those years of practice! Of course I kept working while practicing;
The point is that while you are adjusting to an uncomfortably high DPI, your productivity is lower than normal. If you eventually adjust, it can become higher than it used to be, but the point of balance will be different for different people. There are many factors involved in productivity, not just the total number of windows you can have open or the total amount of text you can see at the same time; for some workflows, the high DPI may never bring enough improvement. Whatever the balance point for me is, I am sure it's not the same as it is for you. :)
pianowizard wrote:
Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:26 pm
On 40" 3840x2160 displays it's easy to tile a bunch of windows without scaling, but things look tiny on high-DPI laptop displays, so many users maximize the active window and scale things way up, thereby sacrificing real estate.
I use a 32" 3840x2160 myself, as you may remember, and it is normally scaled either to 100% or 125%, depending on which computer it's connected to. I am rather comfortable with that, and I take advantage of Win10's feature to easily tile the windows either to half-screen or quarter-screen.
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#33 Post by pianowizard » Tue Dec 31, 2019 5:27 pm

dr_st wrote:
Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:45 pm
The point is that while you are adjusting to an uncomfortably high DPI, your productivity is lower than normal.
Actually that wasn't the case at all: I simply sat closer to the screen. My eyes probably got tired faster (though I don't recall), but I always take frequent breaks anyway, so whether my eyes tire within 2 hours or 3 hours makes no difference.
dr_st wrote:
Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:45 pm
There are many factors involved in productivity, not just the total number of windows you can have open or the total amount of text you can see at the same time; for some workflows, the high DPI may never bring enough improvement.
Well, that goes without saying. I never claimed that every single task you do would get more efficient. As long as some of your tasks benefit from seeing more information on the screen, then your overall productivity goes up. For word processing, being able to see just a third of a page definitely limits productivity, and so I am recommending a way to overcome this limitation. No, I'm not here to tell people that they are idiots; I'm just trying to help, on a support forum where people try to help each other. Don't like my suggestions? Then feel free to ignore them, and keep hating 16:9 screens. Makes no difference to me.
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#34 Post by dr_st » Tue Dec 31, 2019 5:34 pm

pianowizard wrote:
Tue Dec 31, 2019 5:27 pm
Don't like my suggestions? Then feel free to ignore them, and keep hating 16:9 screens. Makes no difference to me.
Is it OK to ignore them even if one does not hate 16:9 screens? Surely there has to be some middle ground. :lol:

But, yes, the 16:9 "hating" on the forums is really over the top sometimes. :|
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#35 Post by TPFanatic » Tue Dec 31, 2019 6:30 pm

When my task involves multiple windows, productivity increases with increased screen real estate as I don't need to switch between windows or tabs as much if I can just have them all displayed at the same time.

Entertainment improves as well, I can have a music player or video running in a corner while working on other things.

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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#36 Post by exTPfan » Thu Jan 02, 2020 4:56 pm

Dell is switching its XPS 13 from 13.3in 16:9 to 13.4in 16:10. As a result, the laptop in 7mm narrower and the screen 7% bigger (in area) and 0.6in taller.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Reimagine ... 261.0.html
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#37 Post by bgx » Mon Jan 06, 2020 2:34 am

And Acer goes 3:2 on its highest end Spin 5.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Spin ... 311.0.html

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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#38 Post by Ibthink » Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:51 am

bgx wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 2:34 am
And Acer goes 3:2 on its highest end Spin 5.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Spin ... 311.0.html
On the pictures, it doesn't look like a 3:2 screen. There is so much top and bottom bezel.
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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#39 Post by bgx » Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:12 am

true.

spin 3 (16:9) and 5 (3:2) looks exactly the same. that's cause they didnt do the render correctly :).
i ll try to find picture of the real one if it exists.

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Re: Lenovo has *FINALLY* returned to 16:10

#40 Post by bgx » Tue Jan 07, 2020 9:18 am

https://www.laptopspirit.fr/261407/ces- ... 4700u.html

and the swift 3 (intel) goes 3:2 as well (AMD is 14"/16:9)

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