2007-2010: How did they kill 4:3 and 16:10 panels so quickly?

[xsixt]

First 4:3 panels were killed off, sometime around 2007, with the T60/T61 being the last mainstream notebook with a 4:3 panel.

16:10 floated around for a measly 3 or so years before it was also killed off (excluding any Apple discussion here). E.g. W500, T500, possibly the T410 being the last 16:10 Thinkpad.

Does anyone who was involved in the industry, with suppliers etc., know how it specifically unfolded? Did the suppliers, e.g. LG.Philips, Hydis etc., just refuse to continue making non-16:9 panels?

I know there was also an "energy saving" discourse going around at this time which may have had something to do with it, with CCFL being replaced by LED, and an emphasis on less materials. The shift to widescreen panels meant that more could be cut from a wafer of silicon. But that's as much as I remember...

[RealBlackStuff]

16:9 was designed for the unwashed masses, who just wanted to watch movies on their laptop portable TV.
Enter Netflix and the likes and laptops were turned into portable TVs, and most TVs have 16:9 screens.
No big deal for LCD manufacturers.
And nobody asked the businessmen.
Sad but true.

[fourthree]

There are still 4:3/16:10 panels being made, but I think the more important question is if they will work with your TPad. I haven't seen a lot of discussion about aftermarket panels (sans HV150UX2) around. Panelook has some decent stuff for X6x and W70x, but nobody knows if they will actually work.

[pianowizard]

That period also happened to be when the laptop industry was obsessed with making the cheapest possible laptops. The netbook was one of the ideas that they (Asus to be specific) came up with. The other trick was going from 16:10 to 16:9. A 15.4" 16:10 panel has a surface area of 106.59 square inches, while a 15.6" 16:9 panel is 103.99 square inches. The average user thought s/he was getting a larger screen, because 15.6 was a larger number than 15.4. Thus, LCD and laptop makers were able to save a couple dollars by reducing panel size, while fooling consumers into believing they were getting an upgrade, i.e. killing two birds with one stone!

Another reason for the move to 16:9 was that it enabled the industry to use the terms "High Definition" and "Full HD" to market their panels and laptops. For most people, "WXGA", WXGA+", "WSXGA+" and "WUXGA" didn't make sense, but they knew about "HD" and "Full HD" through TV marketing, and "High Definition" sounded great. And the coexistence with netbooks (which were typically 1024x576 or 1024x600) justified calling 1366x768 a "high" resolution.

Though many of us consider that period the dark age of computing, it benefited lots of people who had been unable to afford laptops.