Wide 14.1 vs. square 13.3 or 12"

[malachont]

Hi all,

Could someone explain to me. Other than for watching DVD videos in a correct picture ratio and for some web pages, what is a wide screen good for? supposing I have no use for the extra space horizontally?

The thing is this. I mainly work on Word and A4 documents. When I use Word on a 12" wide Lenovo 3000 V100 we have at work, all it does is give me a few inches of blank space at either side of the page. So for all I know I could buy a 10" netbook which costs a quarter of its big siblings, but gives me the same usable screen real estate for my uses.

I'm debating whether to buy a 10" 12", 13.3" or 14.1" (weight conscious). Most of the new offerings are wide screens. My question is, will I get any more vertical screen real estate between these, and how much for each size?

I suspect the main thing that would change for me is how much blank space I'll see on either side of Word. Is that true?

Is there some web site which allows one to compare visually the size of all these LCD's in wide and standard aspect? (I only found for some sizes).


Thanks...

[TTY]

Other than for watching DVD videos in a correct picture ratio and for some web pages, what is a wide screen good for?

The wide screens, which are also lower than the corresponding standard aspect ratio screens, have one advantage. When in an airplane, the probability of getting your screen crushed when the person in front of you reclines his or her seat, is reduced. But if you need to have two windows, which both display text, open on top of each other, the wide screen's reduced height is a disadvantage. The problem is aggravated if the text has huge line spacings and long, nested sentences. Sometimes it's not possible to adjust the line spacing to your needs, for instance when the document you're looking at is a fax.

If you're located in the U.S., T61s with 14.1" standard aspect ratio screens might still be available in Lenovo Outlet. In Europe, they're still part of the standard offering.

[mattfromomaha]

I hate the widescreens for this exact reason, just extra wasted space on the side at the expense of height...

[sparta.rising]

You can view two documents side by side well...

As for buying a widescreen, keep in mind that you aren't just looking at the size of the screen, you are looking at the size of the keyboard. The new X200 are claiming to have a full sized keyboard, if you are doing a lot of typing, I wouldn't go any smaller (that's 12" widescreen). Personally, I think 13.3" wide is the best combination of portability and usability.

[TTY]

You can view two documents side by side well...

The advantage with having two windows on top of each other - rather than having two windows side by side - is that you get easily readable font sizes. If you have two word processing windows side by side on a 14.1" widescreen, you'll get rather small fonts.