Please NO! - first 21:9 LCD ultrabook

[yak]

First 21:9 ultrabook:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/306247 ... lite-u840w

I just hope this is not where the industry is going.

[Puppy]

1792 x 768 - LOL

I got an idea how to increase amount of visible vertical information on such displays. Use morse code instead of characters. You need just one pixel plus another one pixel space between the lines

[Tasurinchi]

This is so ridiculously wide. Apart from watching movies, what else can you (practically) do?

Next Step: 2560x800

[twistero]

Yo dawg I herd you liek vertical space, so I modded a hinge on the hinge so you can turn the screen on its side and have a 9:21 screen.

Inspiration: http://www.letsgodigital.org/html/revie ... an93_7.jpg

[RealBlackStuff]

These a-holes think that everyone just watches movies on a laptop.
Have they no brains?

[slangeditorial]

I feel like this could be a good thing! as they say, "you don't know what you got till its gone". maybe we need the industry to go so wide the public lashes back and pushes the cycle towards 4:3 again!

[pianowizard]

Wow, such a piece of crap! It's so awful that it's actually funny! No doubt this is the worst computer design of the 21st cenutry (so far).

[Totoro-kun]

Omg! This is so funny I allmost [censored] my pants! Would be even more funny to see idiots buying this crap DD But I admit it does promise some practical use like you can hit other people while you are in public places and try to turn arround with this laptop in hand or it might be usefull as a snowboard

[loyukfai]

Wait till they release something that can play two widescreen movies side by side...

LOL!

[RealBlackStuff]

...it does promise some practical use like you can hit other people...

I think we can safely call this a SLAPtop!

[underclocker]

LCD's should be marketed in square inches vs. diagonal inches (along with resolution); diagonal inches have become less meaningful.

[ThinkRob]

This is so ridiculously wide. Apart from watching movies, what else can you (practically) do?

Facebook! Farmville! Tweets!

You know, all the "work" that people seem to do on their laptops now...

[pianowizard]

Facebook! Farmville! Tweets!

You know, all the "work" that people seem to do on their laptops now...

1792 x 768 is bad even for Facebook, or any other web site for that matter. Let's pray that this is the world's first and last 21:9 laptop!

[Ibthink]

Let's pray that this is the world's first and last 21:9 laptop!

Yes, AMEN!

[Neil]

Seriously?

I know there is a market for 21:9 aspect ratio displays...for home theater. I've seen some front projection set ups that have such a screen. But, I would have expected to see the first LCD display with such a wide aspect ratio to be a 60"+ display aimed at home theater movie fans...certainly not a laptop!

[Puppy]

Wow, such a piece of crap! It's so awful that it's actually funny! No doubt this is the worst computer design of the 21st cenutry (so far).

Here is a review http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Tos ... 303.0.html

[Puppy]

It's so awful that it's actually funny!

Little off-topic but this camera http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/09/18 ... ess-camera is also funny (ugly)

[edik]

Why the heck did we abandon 4:3?

That's why I love the TP 15" 1600x1200's so much (flexview ips)... nothing today compares.... heck I'm typing this on a 2001 A30p with a better screen than nearly every laptop made today.

Sometimes we take steps backwards... without realizing.

[Latios]

Why the heck did we abandon 4:3?

The LCD industry wanting to cheap out a little(a lenovo blog cited that it was cheaper for manufacturers to cut such an aspect ratio on their lines) and the presumably the entertainment industry wanting to push it down and say that it's better for consumption, which was what then drove 8:5 to lose a few thousand pixels and become 16:9
On the sadder side, minus the more recent developments, display quality itself has indeed been going down. Looking at the base laptops out there and they're disappointing. It just seems we can't seem to leave 768 vertical pixels for some reason after all these years either

[ThinkRob]

On the sadder side, minus the more recent developments, display quality itself has indeed been going down.

You mean in terms of specs other than resolution? I disagree, and heartily. I think it's been about the same, with more frequent positive aberrations.

For starters, you pretty much don't see passive or "dual scan" displays anymore. It's all active matrix. That's a big plus, especially if you've had the fun of using passive-matrix display before.

There are also more IPS options available in the most recent decade than before. You only ever saw TN panels in the 90s, but now there are at least some non-TN options (rare, true, but they do seem to crop up from time to time.)

Finally, the TN panels suck less. They still suck, but they suck a lot less. Brightness in particular is much improved, but there's also an increase in viewing angles of even low-end panels.

All that said, I vastly, vastly prefer my desktop monitors (PVA, S-PVA, and CRT) to my laptops' displays. (And part of that is that they're 4:3...)

[ajkula66]

Why the heck did we abandon 4:3?

Who are "we"? We haven't abandoned the 4:3 format, but most of the laptop manufacturers did...

That's why I love the TP 15" 1600x1200's so much (flexview ips)... nothing today compares.... heck I'm typing this on a 2001 A30p with a better screen than nearly every laptop made today.

Very true. There are some very nice IPS panels on top-end Dell and HP machines, but the format is less-than-perfect (16:9) for my needs...

However...not all is lost. I'll be posting about that aspect of the 4:3 IPS story within the next couple of days...stay tuned...

[Medessec]

Well, 16:9 has massive upsides nowadays to the standards in film and gaming... multimedia experience, which tends to be the trend now with what average people want out of a laptop. Watching YouTube videos in HD, DVDs and Blu-rays, as well as 3D gaming and the standardized 1080p HD television format, have all forced laptop manufacturers into the 16:9 format.

I like the Z-series Thinkpads because they kinda pretty much fit the bill of any basic laptop made nowadays for the average young buyer(albeit... much more stylish, reliable, and powerful for it's time), if you look at it, they have webcams(well... some do), the widescreens, they're made to be more mobile or have this "smaller footprint", just like the Toshiba memos talk about with this funky laptop, as well as have that style and flair. And of course, the other Thinkpads soon followed suit with 16:9, with the T-series, R-series, etc.

I don't have anything against 16:9, because most laptops I've ever had have had it, and I'm suited to it's advantages. HOWEVER-I do also prefer 4:3 in a lot of cases, and kinda wish that there were at least some 4:3 laptops around... but there just isn't. And that really ticks me off.

As for the 21:9 laptop, I doubt it'll get anywhere. It's stylish and unique, but I can't see anyone finding any good use out of that thing. It's just not enough horizontal space.

[Neil]

It's just not enough horizontal space.

And even less vertically!

[Medessec]

LOL Crud. I meant vertical. Merh, I won't edit it, just to keep it in for lulz.

But yeah. The screen's too small for either dimension. If they want that silly screen ratio, they'd have to make the screen much bigger to make it even remotely worth it.

[lead_org]

No big deal, Lenovo thought of these laptop years ago.

http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Laptop/Len ... t-Yoga.jpg

http://www.sony-asia.com/product/vgn-p13gh <-- remember the Sony P series pocket laptop?

[pianowizard]

http://www.sony-asia.com/product/vgn-p13gh <-- remember the Sony P series pocket laptop?

The Sony P Series was 18.75:9, not as wide as 21:9. For a ultra small "laptop" that needs to be small enough to fit in a pocket and yet wide enough to accommodate a typable keyboard, I think such a wide aspect ratio makes lots of sense.

The 21:9 Toshiba ultrabook doesn't seem to be selling well, because since its launch merely 5 months ago, its price has already dropped 40% to $600: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 5awcdDTR3w

The other day I learned about this 21:9 2560x1080 Dell desktop monitor: http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2913wm/pd . For a desktop monitor, 21:9 isn't too crazy. You can just think of it as two 1280x1080 monitors side by side, except there is no bezel in between, and except you need only one video cable instead of two. But if I have desktop space for a 29" 2560x1080 monitor, I would rather get a 27" 2560x1440 monitor for just a little more money.

[lead_org]

http://i50.tinypic.com/fwhxtc.jpg

Your U2913 monitor in action.

[Puppy]

Is that a T440 http://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/i ... Z6742HxfLg ?

[Adda]

It hurts my neck just to watch such a laptop, it sits so low over the table, using that is asking for trouble.

[BillMorrow]

i no longer can comprehend many current trends..
they seem to go against all reason, math or logic..
one of these silly extremes is a wide and shallow display on ANYTHING..
whether it is a 1920x768 display or laptop..
it USED to be that thinkpads wre innovators but now it seems they (lenovo) are more followers of silliness than the innovators "they" (yamato, IBM et al) once were..

browsing on a T400 on a website the other day err, ok, last night, i cam across a site that displayed a drop down list from a sidebar which the bottom of said list was someplace beyond the bottom edge of the display.. where did all that data go..? into the bitbucket..? i don't know but i could not benefit as it was not there to be seen..

1900something by 768..?? REALLLY..??!

barf.. (i need a smilie that is barfing )